The minutes ticking down to Mar. 8, 2024 had thousands of people in anticipation of one of the most-awaited album releases of the year: Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or couldn’t care less about her, surely Grande’s music has been playing in your headphones or been the topic of your conversation more than a few times in the past four years, since she released her last album Positions. In that time Grande has started her own makeup line, was cast as Glinda in Universal’s upcoming WICKED film adaptations, got married and subsequently divorced only two years later, and started a new relationship with WICKED costar Ethan Slater much to the rumor-mill’s frenzy. So yeah, there’s a lot the public expected Grande to address in her latest album.
“I was really opposed to coming out with music until after Wicked… but as soon as the [SAG-AFTRA] strike began I came to New York and Max Martin came to spent a week with me at Jungle City Studios and it all just kind of started pouring out after our first week together,” Grande admits in an interview with Zach Sang. The former Broadway actress has claimed on multiple occasions that she had to completely rediscover who she was away from being a pop star in order to fully dedicate herself to Glinda, for which she underwent over two years of training. Despite that, the album flowed out of her naturally and the internal need to express all aspects of yourself and your feelings is heard in every track; it’s extremely difficult to imagine one doesn’t feel closer to Grande as a person while listening to this deeply personal record, despite its upbeat tempo and conceptual implications.
The album’s title, Eternal Sunshine, is a direct reference to the 2004 film ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, where Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet play a couple who undergo a procedure to erase memories of each other after their relationship turns sour. “I think there’s such a freedom within art in general because you really can pull from anywhere, from your truth, a concept, a film… art can come from anywhere. Finding a home in Eternal Sunshine was a lovely costume to wear for this project,” Grande said in an interview with Zane Lowe when told that he “got the concept… and when I first listened to the album I started to attribute all these words and songs and ideas to the person but there’s space and freedom to write within a concept, to push it even further, is that part of what motivated you to do it in a more conceptual way?”
The themes of love, memory, and the complexities of human relationships that Grande explores within Eternal Sunshine do relate to those found in the film and the characters she loves so much, so it’s interesting to see Grande take a new step in her career creatively and stray away from the chart-topping pop hits and hauntingly soft and sad personal ballads we’ve gotten from her in the past and see how she writes around a concept. Yet, it’s hard to ignore how much the narrative of the record seemingly reflects Grande’s personal life, making Eternal Sunshine an album that blends reality and fiction, thwarting attempts to speculate about her personal life while inviting listeners to connect the songs to their own experiences, embodying the purpose of music itself.
It’s undeniable that Eternal Sunshine is Grande’s most tenacious album yet, each track seamlessly transitioning into the next and this impeccable production is largely thanks to pop legend: Max Martin, who is credited as a producer on 11 out of the 13 tracks, but ultimately this album serves as vessel for Grande herself to show off her masterful ability in production and vocal layering as she had a hand in producing every song on the album. Grande is a self proclaimed workaholic and is famous for her choir of selves that can be found on all her albums, made from her individually recording notes, adlibs, and lines over and over again and arranging them harmoniously. Eternal Sunshine is truly one of the most cohesive and intricately crafted pop albums we’ve had in a long time, with not a second of its mere 35 minute runtime gone to waste or out of place.
Eternal Sunshine begins with a question asked by Grande, “How can I tell if I’m in the right relationship?” and ends with an answer given by her grandmother Marjorie “Nonna” Grande, “never go to bed without kissing goodnight… and if you can’t you’re in the wrong place, get out.” These bookends hold the album in place so expertly as the first half of the album contains some gut-punch lyrics like track 3 “don’t wanna break up again” which opens with “I fall asleep crying, you turn up the TV, you don’t want to hear me.” This memory resonates deeply, delivering a powerful blow to one’s emotions. This vulnerable yet sharp lyricism works to evoke not only sadness but also anger, as evidenced by the fervent discussions among Grande’s fan base online. To the casual listener, it can seem rare that Grande is so personal in her music, being most notably known for dance-pop singles like “7 Rings” and “Into You,” but the introspection that she provides within her music that can only be accessed by those who listen to the entire album is what makes her connection to her fans so strong and why they too experience the emotions she so tenderly sings on the record.
As the album goes on, Grande’s voice becomes a psychopomp for the listener, guiding them along the story and the path of her healing in a way that can split you open and sew you back together in just over half an hour. Track 11 of 13, “i wish i hated you” is an understated, Imogen Heap inspired lullaby where Grande’s vocals delicately float atop a piano-esque, twinkling beat, as she sings “hung all my clothes in the closet you made, your shoes still in boxes, I send them your way, hoping life brings you no new pain.” It’s a tear-jerker for sure as even Grande sounds choked up and in tears by the last verse, but it’s peaceful. The song doesn’t capture the sadness that comes with hating someone you used to love, aligning with anger, but the sadness that comes with knowing you have to say goodbye, a universally familiar experience that people go through consistently throughout life. Grande says she think’s the song “completed the family of break up songs where I wrote from a more hurt or upset place and it’s from a more aware and grieved place where it’s like, ‘I can give credit and make peace with this and not carry that version of you that I had when I was upset, I don’t need to carry that version.’”
All in all, Eternal Sunshine is a shining light in Grande’s discography, it combines everything we love about the petite-pop star whose voice has been likened to that of Mariah Carey, Barbara Streisand, and legends alike, but introduces a much more mature and put together version of her as a person and a musician. Eternal Sunshine is a masterclass in pop music on a technical level alone; Grande’s enunciation has never been clearer and her tone has never blended with a production style as perfectly as it has now. Also, she successfully severs herself from any caricatures of her made up by the press and the public as she’s incontestably human, a three dimensional person with a past and a future. This record doesn’t feel like a musical snapshot of who Grande is at that moment in a way Thank U, Next might -a record crafted in two weeks while Grande was, self-admitted, at her lowest- but a project that upholds the human experience in a way that will always be eternal.