Photo Credit :@katietemkin
The singer is back raw, vulnerable, and emotional with some of the most honest music in her career.
Ariana Grande starts Eternal Sunshine by asking herself “How can I tell if I’m in the right relationship? Aren’t you really suppose to know that shit?” the singer is given the answer by her 98-year-old Nonna, Marjorie Grande who was the first person at 98 to be featured on Billboards Top 100 who said “Never go to bed without kissing goodnight - it’s the worst thing to do,” with the music fading out slowly as she continues to say “And if you can’t, and if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, your in the wrong place. Get out.”
Grande is honest in Eternal Sunshine which is seen as a break-up album with not wishing to paint her relationship as one to idolise but one that shows growth, truth, and sadness. On The Zach Sang Show Grande said “It’s human but it’s also focusing on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotted Mind.” It likely focuses on her divorce from Dalton Gomez who got divorced in March 2024 after three years of marriage and, the drama of her new relationship with her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater.
But really, the musician already made it clear with her first single “yes and?” off the new album that she did not care what anybody thought of her love life as she said, “Say that shit with your chest, and keep moving like what’s next?”. In the music video for “Yes and?” it features a business card with the coordinates of Montauk, which is in New York which references to where Jim Carey and Kate Winslet shot the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Grande seems aware that for the past 10 years of her career, the media are always interested in her private life and that judgement will always follow her wherever she goes, with the musician making it known in Ordinary Things with the lyrics “You hit like my biggest fan when I hear what the critique says”.
Grande co-produces and co-writes every track, with mainly the help from Max Martin who is a Swedish Pop Don, and collaborator Ilya Salmanzadeh. Her track ‘Don’t wanna break up again’ has a mixture of 90’s Gwen Stefani, while the album-named track ‘Eternal Sunshine’ has beats similar to early 2000s The Neptunes which is completely different from the musicians' previous albums.
It feels revealing that the album is named after the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotted Mind with the movie based about a couple who erase all parts of their relationship, which is similar to what Grande does in the music video for "we cant be friends (wait for your love)" where she is saw lying down in a doctors office getting rid of memories of her relationship, but Grande decides to keep one memory. To me, this is the most vulnerable music video that the star has made, and for the song to be made a single was the perfect choice with the album showing Grande’s growth and maturity.
‘I wish I hated you’ rides a mixture of echoey-pop and has the singer having an honest conversation with herself about how she wishes she could allow herself to hate someone, with the lyrics ‘and no matter how guilty i feel saying it, i wish i hated you’. The 42-second ‘Saturn Returns Interlude’ is a YouTube sample from astrologer Diane Garland, who talks about how every 29 years, the planets make powerful shifts in someone’s life that can make someone ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ with the 30-year-old recently going through her Saturn Return in 2022.
Grande did a remix of ‘Yes and?’ with her idol Mariah Carey who gives the ultimate diva remix that the track is needed to make it bigger than ever. In ‘True Story’ Grande ultimately decides that she can be the villain if they want her to with the lyrics ‘I’ll play the villain if you need me to I know how this goes’ which could be a reference to her marriage break-up or how the media has interpreted her with her past relationships.
Eternal Sunshine is completely different from the star’s previous albums such as the 2020 Positions album which uses more uptempo sounds and the 2019 Thank U Next album has a more pop and youthful sound. In her recently released album, Grande also gives the track ‘bye’ a disco beat sound which stands out and has seen it become viral on the social media platform TikTok.
Grande has asked fans to not send hate to anybody that they think her new album is about saying: “Anyone that is sending hateful messages to the people in my life based on your interpretation of this album is not supporting me and is absolutely doing the polar opposite of what I would ever encourage (and is also entirely misinterpreting the intention behind the music.”
Grande has also mentioned that whilst on The Zach Sang Show she is still deciding on whether she is going to tour her new album saying: "I would love to do shows, I miss being onstage, I miss my fans so much, that's the honest to-god-truth". The artist has not been on tour since her Sweetner World Tour in 2019.
On one hand, Eternal Sunshine is an album that is a relatable break-up album that screams vulnerability but also shows the emotional maturity that Grande has slowly discovered within herself as she shows in the title track of her album with the lyrics “And if it all ended tomorrow would you be the one on mine?”
On the other hand, it’s the most honest and different album vocally that the singer has made with her maturity that shows in her new music about her personal life but also throughout the music videos she created for the album. From what you take away from Eternal Sunshine, nobody can deny that this is an album that you won’t ever forget.
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Suitable Publication: NME
Written by Chloe Gudgin
