Ariana Grande’s ‘Eternal Sunshine’ album review

On March 8th 2024, Ariana Grande drops her long-awaited full length album ‘Eternal Sunshine’ which explores topics of love & loss, grief of a relationship as well as self-discovery. The album is stripped far past popstar Ariana Grande to Ariana Grande- Butera as she re-claims her story that was swallowed in a tornado; the internet. Let’s sink into ‘Eternal Sunshine’ !

Ariana approached the album with a rather somber sound in ‘intro (end of the world)’ , decorating the beginning of the track with distortion noises and the sound of a vinyl meeting a record player, which then led as a cue to the start of the song. An electric guitar and a violin mingled together, setting the melody of the song, portraying some vibes of a typical acoustic sad song. After 4 bars, Ari comes in with what sounds like (to me) a “hm.” andddd I love that because it’s like we are hearing her question herself through her thoughts. It’s almost like she was the one who put on the vinyl whilst alone to her thoughts. I am not 100% sure what the distortion was at the beginning though :( The first lyrics to set the tone of this song proceeds to say “How can I tell if I’m in the right relationship? Aren’t you really s’posed to know that sh*t?..” which gave the listeners a great indicator that there was trouble in the relationship that Ariana was in. The relationship in question is with Dalton Gomez, a realtor, whom she started dating in early 2020. The couple kept their relationship quite private, growing closer during the pandemic and got engaged and married at home in 2021. I’m sure everyone was happy that Ariana has settled down and found her peace, especially during the role out of her 6th studio album, ‘Positions’ , an album exposing her RnB side of her as well as a ‘nasty’ side of her. ‘Positions’ sounded like Ariana was experiencing a fresh feeling from her relationship with Dalton, maybe because he was out of the limelight(?), she sang about how she wishes she saw herself through his point of view. I think that ‘POV’ is a warming song as I grasp the vibe that Ariana was still personally struggling and has had flaws that she was trying to improve on but regardless Dalton made her feel seen, so much so that she wonders what he sees in her, hoping that she will also get to love herself the way he does too. As well as describing all the nasty things she wants to do for him, she also describes the beginning of a relationship for herself. Songs like ‘Just like magic’ and ‘Shut Up’, are about her manifesting positivity into her life, waking up optimistic and a f*ck you to her haters who are trying to wish on her reality. A lyric that stuck out to me from ‘Just like magic’ is “Take my pen and write some love letters to heaven” which I believe is a reference to her ex-boyfriend Mac Miller, who sadly passed away in 2018. ( Remember Mac Miller, we will come back to this) The rest of the album also consists of songs that alludes to Ariana feeling scared of being vulnerable and opening up all of herself to Dalton.

Unfortunately the ‘Positions’ album under performed (I will never forgive Ari’n’B haters for that) so therefore most of the promotions for the album was dropped. Shortly after the release of this album, Ariana was casted as Galinda in the film ‘Wicked’, where she met her current partner, Ethan Slater.

‘Wicked’ was set to film in December 2022, 2 years after ‘Positions’, where we see Ariana step back into her actress era, changing her whole persona as well as her exterior look but is it a rebirth era or just a performance of Galinda for the duration of the ‘Wicked’ rollout?

Going from dark haired, no more signature ponytail, into ‘Galinda’s’ character of airiness, innocent, bright, blonde but the questions remains the same. Due to the movie being based in London, Ariana moved over to the city without then-husband Dalton, who stayed in LA, in which through the long distance, started creating struggles within their relationship. In a mid-break from Wicked, thanks to Sag-Aftra strikes, Ariana got to work in the studio. The 3rd song on the ‘Eternal Sunshine’ album, ‘don’t wanna breakup again’ has lyrics symbolising a disconnection in their relationship as she “fell asleep crying, You turn up the tv, You don’t wanna hear me” which shows that Ariana has carried so much baggage that she is still trying to process, but evidently, it seems like Dalton did not want to intervene. Cheating allegations circulated social media right before Ariana moved over to London. So it makes sense for me as to why there was a sudden change in her demeanour, looks and personality. I assume her transition to London was also a transition of her life, taking account of the person she wants to be, it was a fresh start.

Astrologist Diana Garland pierced the silence between track 3 and track 4 which is ‘Saturn’s Return Interlude’, starting off by saying “when we’re all born, Saturn’s somewhere. And the Saturn cycle takes around about 29 years. That’s when we gotta wake up and smell the coffee.” As she speaks on, heavenly chords faded in behind her words, gradually becoming louder; ethereal sounds, could possibly be representing a world that is delusional; “just kind of floating along”. Until the astrologist says “Saturn comes along and hits you over the head x3” simulating the repetitive decisions made over n over again. Saturn is a planet in our solar system that represents responsibilities and discipline. Saturn orbits around the sun and takes up to 29.5 years to complete the zodiac. When Saturn makes its way around the sun, it will eventually reach the date of your birthday, astrologists calls that a ‘Saturn Return’; where the planet brings a strong wave of confronting your truth, significant personal growth, allowing you to transition to a new period of your life. It does not come soft, especially if you have been in a toxic cycle, that wake up call will come crash banging into you. The interlude concludes with Diana Garland, “WAKE UP” repeated three times, where you can hear glitch noises that simulates something cracking as if it’s the delusional world being broken down. The whimsical sound playing behind the speech started to slow down and drop the pitch which could represent Ariana now facing her reality.

Ariana Grande grew up in the industry, from being a theatre kid to ‘Victorious’ and straight to her music career, we know more than we should know and that’s what makes people think they have the audacity to judge. Being young in the industry means that critics, fans and social media’s see the trials of coming of age and dating eras. The artist will go through various phases such as their clothing style, but today, we will head to the first point of Ariana’s dating life.

Skipping past the partners she had in her earlier years of her career, all the way to 2012 where Ariana and Mac first met, both were aware and a fan of eachother’s music. The next year the (still) hit song was born; ‘The Way’, reaching number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100! Three years later in 2016, the pair debuts their relationship. Lasting only two years, there was loads of love tangled with addiction. Mac Miller had a crippling addiction to drugs during their relationship which obviously got inbetween them. It was a constant battle and every day got harder. As I can imagine, Ariana Grande has so much love for him so she put her maximum energy into lifting her partner up but a person can only be helped if they are ready to help themselves. Ariana realised that it would not get any better for the both of them in that situation, so she removed herself. Unfortunately, critics and haters (who were shallow enough to not realise that they don’t know the full story nor is it their business) looked at Ariana negatively for not sticking it out with Mac until he gets clean. (If she has tried and it hasn’t been successful but in turn it’s hurting her, she has every right to remove herself from the situation, he was not her child)

Trying to not feel guilty, Ariana moved to New York as a suggestion from friends around her, to help her grieve her relationship. She met Pete Davidson and shortly started dating him soon after. In mid June, the pair got engaged and it came to a shock to media as it was seen as fast -paced. Of course criticism came but Ariana had a distraction. In this time, fifth studio album ‘Thank U, Next’ was being written.. September rolled around when the unfortunate news broke of Mac Miller’s passing due to accidental drug overdose. That was an extremely hard blow to Ariana as 1. she still had love for him but it was just too hard to connect with him 2. the internet already criticised her for not sticking it through with him. So the internet and fans of Mac were hurt and as they mourned, some of them threw stones at Ariana Grande and she rightfully claps back at them but that does not dodge the emotional scar that she has from the backlash. She spent years tricked into guilt so her mental health started to decline. By this time, not only was her personal life affected but her music career came to a devastating halt when a concert went wrong in Manchester. A year prior, 22nd of May 2017, Ariana Grande just finished performing her last song of the concert ‘One Last Time’, that shares a world of pain felt by Ariana and her past partners at the time but also shares a place in the concert attendees heart because after she left the stage, a bomb exploded in the area, killing 22 people. Dealing with such a heavy situation put so much pressure, confusion and guilt onto Ariana, where she contemplated whether she should carry on performing shows. Her anxiety crawled up on her and stayed with her, it probably did not help combined with the emotional stress from her relationship with Mac. After her and Pete’s engagement in June 2018, shortly after is when Mac passes. So imagine the weight of her emotions as she is still trying to come to terms with the fact that the concert tragedy was not her fault, her breaking up with Mac was justified and also that his death was also not her fault. It does not help that the internet came up with theories and what ifs rather than looking at the facts. In october of that year, Pete and Ariana’s engagement was called off, ending the relationship peacefully as Ariana spiralled down a rabbit hole regarding the traumatic periods in the last two years. Ever since then, Ariana payed homage to all of her ex’s in ‘Thank U, Next’ and carried Mac Miller with her through the musical era’s to come.

Fast forward to Positions, where she referenced writing a letter to heaven, still valuing the time they’d shared together. I am sure that there is more personal depth as to why she felt broken and depressed, I would like to stay surface level with it out of respect of everyone envolved.

Back to Eternal Sunshine, we will jump over track 5 and run straight into track 6, ‘Supernatural’. This song details the feeling of meeting someone new, how it’s unexpected but takes over the whole of her. She beautifully represents this in the music video where the scene is set in chaos. It starts by Ariana wandering out of a building into a world that is filled with of destruction, I’m talking cars being blown up with fire everywhere, rubble and even a plane crash?

Ariana is wearing a lovely white dress, seemingly taking careful steps to make sure it doesn’t get dirty, similar to herself stepping on ice, making sure that her name in the music industry (and in general) is not tarnished further as the world around her is falling apart. The white dress could symbolise the innocence that she used to have or the purity that she is trying to maintain. The song starts almost immediately with the line “Don’t want nobody else around me…” following with a powerful bass to kick us into the groove. Confused, she keeps moving. She walks past a car on fire, showing that she’s literally been through hell but still walked out on the other side. (periodt.) In the midst of the wreckage, the camera pans out, revealing the UFO light around the corner. This is important as we (the audience,viewers) can foresee the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ whereas Ariana cannot. At this point she is still wandering, looking around, looking concerned until she passes another car that was obstructing her view from the light. Once she made eye-contact with the light, she hyper fixated onto it as conveniently the chorus starts with “This love’s possessing me, but I don’t mind at all”. In my interpretation, we are hearing her converse with herself, answering to her own debate, allowing her feelings to consume her. In this song, she is clearly talking about her current partner whom she fell for when filming the movie ‘Wicked’. The difference between this interaction and her past interactions, is that she did not chase it, she attracted it whilst she was focusing on knowing herself. The UFO represents how strange the interaction was, abducting her from the destruction around her, bringing her into another world, one where they can both start fresh and build. This is shown when she quickens her pace and lets go of holding her dress to submit to the light and be lifted in the air as she repeats “It’s taking over me and I don’t mind at all”. It’s also nice to see how she was lifted in the air, leaving that world behind, showing how he lifted her head up and saw her for who she is, saw the white dress for what it is. I love how she incorporated this vibe and blue light in the ‘Supernatural’ live performance video. There was no professional camera set up which gave the performance a homey feeling. It’s also interesting how some scenes of the performance were shot on a VHS tape~ could resemble a memory recorded that she’ll eventually look back on… maybe in the Brighter Days Ahead Clinic~

Of course hate still followed her into her new path of life but that is the poison of fame, especially when you have grown up infront of the world. Ariana Grande claps back with the song, ‘Yes, And’ which actually was the leading single for this album, following the rumours surrounded by the pair. She sang about the imperfections and sabotage her last partner caused, making her look bad (something she is used to) aswell as pro-claiming the happiness of having her partner. She wrote an 90s RnB track called ‘The Boy Is Mine’, inspired from the one and only iconic 90’s hit by Brandy and Monica.. and they hopped onto Ariana’s remix!!!

Very iconic and very demure. I adore this album from Ariana as I can relate to parts of her story of self-discovery. It goes to show truly who the person is based on how they choose to act, moving on from their darkest situations. This album was very lyrically and musically articulate, portraying a range of emotions and perspectives and a different side to the artist that we have never seen before. We were allowed a look inside her head as she discards those moments and looks forward to the better. We should all do the same.

But this is not where it ends, for there is a part 2 of my analysis to ‘Eternal Sunshine’ where we go further past the music and to the references that started it all. The intricate and delicate meaning of the title ‘Eternal Sunshine’ and what that means for Ariana Grande.

This has been Shaquilla on InbetweenTheirLines. Hope to see you on the next blog !