“How can I tell if I’m in the right relationship? Aren’t you supposed to really know that shit?” Ariana Grande asks at the start of ‘Eternal Sunshine’, her seventh studio album. The answer seems to come on final track ‘Ordinary Things’, courtesy of some sage advice from the singer’s Nonna. “Never go to bed without kissing goodnight – it’s the worst thing to do,” Marjorie Grande tells her granddaughter as the music fades out. “And if you can’t, and if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, you’re in the wrong place. Get out.”
These intimate moments act as bookends for ‘Eternal Sunshine’, a quasi-break-up album on which Grande doesn’t so much paint a portrait of a relationship as piece together an impressionistic mosaic. In a recent interview on the Zach Sang Show, Grande described ‘Eternal Sunshine’ as a “kind of concept album” exploring “different, heightened pieces of the same story”. That story, presumably, is the breakdown of her marriage to real estate agent Dalton Gomez, whom she divorced last October around two years after they tied the knot. Tabloids and stans have since attempted to piece together a timeline around her rumoured romance with Wicked costar Ethan Slater.
Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t interpret this lush, lightly psychedelic album too literally. The singer has already made it abundantly clear how she feels about public consumption of her love life: “Why do you care so much whose… I ride?” she asks pointedly on ‘Yes, And?‘, the album’s giddy, house-inspired lead single. Certainly, a decade after she vaulted onto pop’s A-list with her excellent second album, 2014’s ‘My Everything’, Grande seems acutely aware that judgement will follow everything she does. On ‘Ordinary Things’, she tells a paramour knowingly: “You hit like my biggest fan when I hear what the critiques says.”
Besides, it feels equally revealing that this album is named after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the trippy 2004 movie about a couple who erase all traces of their relationship from their respective memories. The ‘Yes, And?’ video even features a business card listing the geographical coordinates of Montauk, New York, where stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet shot much of the cult film. Grande references its plot on the glistening title track when she sings: “So I try to wipe my mind / Just so I feel less insane.”
Elsewhere, her homages are less overt and more vibey. ‘Imperfect For You’ rides a clanging tuneless guitar line into an offbeat, queasy-sounding chorus; it’s perhaps the freakiest track Grande has ever recorded. The balmy ‘Saturn Returns Interlude’ is built around a spoken word sample from YouTube astrologer Diana Garland, who explains that a powerful planetary cycle can make a person “wake up and smell the coffee” every 29 years or so. For reference, Grande turned 30 last June.
These leftfield flourishes add texture to an album clearly conceived as a mood piece. Grande, who co-writes and co-produces every track, mainly with Swedish pop don Max Martin and his regular collaborator Ilya Salmanzadeh, continues to finesse her glistening pop-R&B sound. ‘Don’t Wanna Break Up Again’ has the lithe glide of ’90s Janet Jackson, while ‘Eternal Sunshine’ winks at the skittering Y2K-era productions of The Neptunes
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Meanwhile, there are echoes of Mariah Carey – whom Grande hailed as a “lifelong inspiration” when she jumped on a ‘Yes, And?’ remix – on the cleverly self-referential ‘True Story’. “I’ll play the bad girl if you need me to,” Grande sings before delivering thrilling vocal runs over a chunky G-funk beat. Is she singing about her reputation in the press, or accepting the villain edit in a breakup? Either way, it’s a spiky album highlight.
But crucially, ‘Eternal Sunshine’ avoids the sonic saminess of Grande’s last album, 2020’s horny but slightly boring ‘Positions’, by including more uptempo cuts. In addition to the ballroom bounce of ‘Yes, And?’, Grande plays disco diva on ‘Bye’ and nods to Robyn on ‘We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)’. Though it’s hardly the first song to channel the Swede’s incredibly influential 2010 banger ‘Dancing On My Own’, Grande offers a fresh spin by sounding less desolate on the dance floor, and more serene. “Wait until you like me again,” she sings beatifically over a throbbing beat.
Given that Grande challenges us to “say that shit with your chest” on ‘Yes, And?’, it’s only fair to deliver a clear overall verdict. So, here goes: on the one hand, ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is a spacey but relatable break-up album defined by its emotional maturity. “We both know I couldn’t change you – I guess you could say the same,” she sings on the title track. On the other, it’s the most sophisticated project yet from a preternaturally talented vocalist who keeps getting better. Whatever you take away from it, ‘Eternal Sunshine’ definitely isn’t an album you’ll want to wipe from memory.
Details
- Release date: March 8, 2024
- Record label: Republic Records