Ariana Grande Turns Heartbreak Into Gold on 'Eternal Sunshine' The pop diva, with help from Max Martin, marks the end of one romance and the beginning of another.
Ariana Grande Turns Heartbreak Into Gold on 'Eternal Sunshine' The pop diva, with help from Max Martin, marks the end of one romance and the beginning of another.
In 2019, the altitudinous-voiced pop diva Ariana Grande released an exquisitely unconcerned breakup song titled "Thank U, Next" — a light, chiming smash that named several of her famous exes by name before carelessly banishing them from her heart forever with a wink and a smile.
But the grief that motivates her seventh album,
"Eternal Sunshine," is of a much deeper kind; it even borrows its title from Michel Gondry's 2004 film about the impossible fantasy of erasing a former relationship from memory. "I try to wipe my mind, just so I feel less insane," says Grande, 30, on the album's skittering, mid-tempo title track. The deep melancholy that pervades the song and most of the album reveals how well that went.
"Eternal Sunshine" is Grande's first album in over three years, marking a significant break after a prolific period in which she released a successful album almost every year. Following the poised, polished "Sweetener" in 2018, she released two hastily produced albums that seemed more off-the-cuff and conversational: the intimate and revelatory "Thank U, Next" and the love-struck but less consistent "Positions."
Since then, she has divorced her husband of two years, Dalton Gomez, and begun a relationship with Ethan Slater, her co-star in the upcoming film adaptation of the hit musical "Wicked." "Eternal Sunshine" follows a narrative arc of heartbreak and new love. However, in a departure from her previous four albums—one of which includes a song dedicated for Pete Davidson, the comedian
In a brief introduction titled "End of the World," Grande expresses concerns about a relationship and asks a searing question in the incandescent lower depths of her register: "If it all ended tomorrow, would I be the one on your mind?" The answer is in the title of the following song, "Bye."
That single, a disco delicacy as deeply layered as a five-tier cake, is one of the album's best moments, demonstrating Grande's belt-it-out force as well as her stop-on-a-dime agility. Martin's approach to pop structure is notoriously rigorous, yet throughout "Eternal Sunshine," Grande demonstrates that she is a gifted and nimble enough performer to eke out significant musical freedom within his limits. On the searing falsetto chorus of the title track and the joyful bridge of the second single, "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)," she glides effortlessly across notes that many of her contemporaries can only see as distant stars.
"Eternal Sunshine" shines brightest when it pushes heavily into R&B, a genre Grande expertly embraced on her beautifully sung but fairly conservatively constructed 2013 debut, "Yours Truly." Here, and during a particularly good period in the middle of the album, she and Martin give the genre's liquid cadences a retro-futuristic Y2K-era shine.
A molten-metal bass beat warps its way through "True Story," a slinky song about the finger-pointing stage of a relationship's end ("I'll play "If you need me to be the villain, I know how it goes," Grande sings with a resigned shrug. "The Boy Is Mine," a sensual song about a forbidden crush, references Brandy and Monica's 1998 smash and has stuttering rhythm that practically begs for stomping boy-band dance. Why not collaborate with Martin, the co-writer of "I Want It That Way" and "It's Gonna Be Me"?
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Do not let daylight saving time ruin your sleep.
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"Eternal Sunshine" is Grande's first album in over three years, marking a significant break after a prolific period in which she released a successful album almost every year. Following the poised, polished "Sweetener" in 2018, she released two hastily produced albums that seemed more off-the-cuff and conversational: the intimate and revelatory "Thank U, Next" and the love-struck but less consistent "Positions."
Since then, she has divorced her husband of two years, Dalton Gomez, and begun a relationship with Ethan Slater, her co-star in the upcoming film adaptation of the hit musical "Wicked." "Eternal Sunshine" follows a narrative arc of heartbreak and new love. However, in a departure from her previous four albums—one of which includes a song dedicated for Pete Davidson, the comedian
Grande, who was then engaged, avoids clear autobiographical references and instead tells the story through sweeping, wholehearted emotion.
"Eternal Sunshine" marks Grande's most persistent work with pop's own Wizard of Oz, Swedish hitmaker Max Martin, with whom she wrote or produced 11 of the album's 13 tunes. (Ilya Salmanzadeh, Grande and Martin's longstanding partner, also contributed significantly to the album's writing and production.) Unsurprisingly, this is one of Grande's most perfectly built and texturally consistent releases — it sounds as pricey as the gleaming riches she sang about in "7 Rings" — but it lacks the whispered asides, rough edges, and irreverent wit that made her previous two albums so enjoyable. Still, "Eternal Sunshine" is flooded with Melodies and emotional weight add a new level of sophistication to Grande's songwriting.
"Eternal Sunshine" marks Grande's most persistent work with pop's own Wizard of Oz, Swedish hitmaker Max Martin, with whom she wrote or produced 11 of the album's 13 tunes. (Ilya Salmanzadeh, Grande and Martin's longstanding partner, also contributed significantly to the album's writing and production.) Unsurprisingly, this is one of Grande's most perfectly built and texturally consistent releases — it sounds as pricey as the gleaming riches she sang about in "7 Rings" — but it lacks the whispered asides, rough edges, and irreverent wit that made her previous two albums so enjoyable. Still, "Eternal Sunshine" is flooded with Melodies and emotional weight add a new level of sophistication to Grande's songwriting.
In a brief introduction titled "End of the World," Grande expresses concerns about a relationship and asks a searing question in the incandescent lower depths of her register: "If it all ended tomorrow, would I be the one on your mind?" The answer is in the title of the following song, "Bye."
That single, a disco delicacy as deeply layered as a five-tier cake, is one of the album's best moments, demonstrating Grande's belt-it-out force as well as her stop-on-a-dime agility. Martin's approach to pop structure is notoriously rigorous, yet throughout "Eternal Sunshine," Grande demonstrates that she is a gifted and nimble enough performer to eke out significant musical freedom within his limits. On the searing falsetto chorus of the title track and the joyful bridge of the second single, "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)," she glides effortlessly across notes that many of her contemporaries can only see as distant stars.
"Eternal Sunshine" shines brightest when it pushes heavily into R&B, a genre Grande expertly embraced on her beautifully sung but fairly conservatively constructed 2013 debut, "Yours Truly." Here, and during a particularly good period in the middle of the album, she and Martin give the genre's liquid cadences a retro-futuristic Y2K-era shine.
A molten-metal bass beat warps its way through "True Story," a slinky song about the finger-pointing stage of a relationship's end ("I'll play "If you need me to be the villain, I know how it goes," Grande sings with a resigned shrug. "The Boy Is Mine," a sensual song about a forbidden crush, references Brandy and Monica's 1998 smash and has stuttering rhythm that practically begs for stomping boy-band dance. Why not collaborate with Martin, the co-writer of "I Want It That Way" and "It's Gonna Be Me"?
The Incredible Expanding $150,000 Home: It's not 500 square feet anymore.
Do not let daylight saving time ruin your sleep.
My husband keeps leaving me.
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