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For the past year, Ariana Grande has been busy fulfilling her double duty as a longtime pop star and major film actress. Yet, in the midst of the frenzy of Wicked, Grande somehow found time outside of the franchise’s crazy promotion to release a project of her own- eternal sunshine. The early months of 2024 were encapsulated by the promotion and release of her seventh studio album, whose 13 tracks boasted both commercial success and critical acclaim. And one year later, Grande dutifully pays her illuminating seventh studio album another musical visit in a way never done before.
eternal sunshine itself was a new step in direction for Grande’s musical journey- thematically, it served as a concept album that contained different pieces of the same story, of the same experience. She credited the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind as major inspiration for the project. It covered heavy topics of grief, self love, and aging paired with more lighthearted lyrics of desire, acceptance, and change. Fans have also pieced the album as a cohesive storyline from leaving a toxic relationship and discovering the real importance of self from beginning to end. The music videos for the album also featured Grande playing the same titular character of ‘Peaches’, although they are all thematically unrelated.
Yet, the story was far from finished- the early months of 2025 become apparent that the singer-actress has no signs of stopping. The long awaited deluxe extension, eternal sunshine: brighter days ahead, dropped this past Friday alongside an eponymous short film inspired by Grande’s experiences with her personal life and music. It marked her directorial debut alongside famed director Christian Breslauer, with touching features from her family members and callbacks to popular films such as Minority Report and X-Men.
Featuring a medley of both standard and deluxe songs, the short film was a distant continuation of the hit music video we can’t be friends. It showed Grande’s elderly ‘Peaches’ character revisiting the same treatment center, reliving four core memories that had changed and shaped her life. The featured memories touch on elements of her personal life, such as her family members, fans, career, and responses to media, concluding with a final message from a younger Peaches telling the audience to ‘live each day if it were [your] last’.
The six new deluxe tracks also continued the concept aspects of the standard version, opening with a highly anticipated intro (end of the world) [extended] and closing with the heart wrenching Hampstead. And as usual, there is no shortage of stacked harmonies that probably maxed out ProTools and signature vocals to boot. The brand new deluxe totals the album runtime 19 tracks, the pop star’s most yet.
Ariana Grande is no stranger to releasing culture-shaping bodies of work, yet her latest deluxe effort brighter days ahead shines a cut above the rest. And now that the promotional steam of Wicked: For Good is picking up again in anticipation of release this November, fans have plenty to enjoy and look forward to in these brighter days ahead.