Eternal, artificial sunshine by Ariana Grande

I swear I’m a fan.

Say that shit with your chest

‘Yes, And?’ began this era of pop for the now blonde Princess of Pop on a bad note. It isn’t that the song is terrible in the traditional sense. It isn’t poorly sung or produced incompetently. There’s nothing especially grating about the track. She sounds fine. It just isn’t very good. The hook isn’t catchy enough to overcome the smugness of the lyrics.

In retrospect, my review feels slightly too cautious. I have always liked Ariana Grande, and part of me wanted to forgive a poor lead single. It may have been a toxic sludge of references to better music, but maybe that was hiding a gem! You can still taste my disdain for the lazy signposting that this is real pop from an artist who has always been best leaning into R’n’B.

That feeling extends through ‘Eternal Sunshine’ (2024), the singer’s seventh studio album, and maybe her least. Not her worst, but maybe the laziest. In a discography defined by effort and ambition, we finally get something that feels…burdened.

Let’s start off by clarifying what makes a good Ariana Grande album. Her greatest asset has always been that soaring soprano, but in terms of her best work, it’s actually her ability to scale back the acrobatics and focus on production that led to her best. There’s an undeniable talent to a pop star not just singing, but layering their voice to create something distinct to the studio. That talent is all over ‘Eternal Sunshine’ – she sounds amazing.

She’s also an excellent collaborator and sticks to people that understand and can execute her vision. The Victoria Monet era of Grande’s career was successful because they clearly understood what made her music work. There’s very little of the auteur veneer many pop stars have slathered onto their personas as of late.

That…is not part of the album. Grande wrote pretty much every song. It is, more than any other record of her career, fully hers. With all the good and the bad which that may imply in 2024.

Ariana Grande as a lyricist has been criticised for often being incredibly juvenile. Which she often is. There’s a playfulness to her work that can rapidly swing between fun and unbearable. But on this most recent outing, there’s very little of the inanity of ‘Sweetener’ or ‘NASA’. Instead of silly, we get a lot of performed authenticity. The lack of formality isn’t funny, it’s raw.

That isn’t to say it’s ground-breaking. Grande is not a particularly poetic writer, and by taking the lead on most of these tracks, you get to see where her pen finds it’s limit both in word and melody. In many ways, parting from people like Monet has allowed her more serious side to flourish.

How can I tell if I'm in the right relationship?
Aren't you really s'posed to know that shit?
Feel it in your bones and own that shit? I don't know

The introductory track ‘intro (end of the world)’ is maybe my favourite balance of prose and relaxed language. Some writers struggle to insert a swear word into their writing without feeling like a kid rebelling against their kind but disapproving mother. My favourite example of this is Olivia Rodrigo, who swears with about the same amount of venom as Taylor Swift proudly declaring how sharp her eyeliner is. What I’m saying is Grande sounds natural swearing. But there’s also some cute attempts at poetry there.

If the sun refused to shine
Baby, would I still be your lover?

It’s not…Shakespeare. There’s nothing about this that’s going to shake any sort of table. But it’s a sweet sentiment that escalates with her own emotionality. And considering how often her music treats this sort of things as a joke, it sounds genuinely sincere. Most of the records struggle with this.

But most of her music is fun.

“…people hear it and obviously think that it’s so optimistic. That’s kind of the point, is that – is the irony of what it means…” – Ariana Grande, 2024

I get that the ironic twist she’s referencing. It’s meant to sound like a blissful façade covering a bitter break up. But where does ‘supernatural’ – a song that is just about being horny – fit into that narrative?

It’s a track that doesn’t even play into the silliness of its premise, instead playing it painfully straight. But not…with any real suffering behind it. If the point of the album is that these sorts of tracks are a distraction from the reality of her divorce, it does read that way without an extreme amount of guidance. Especially when it’s preceded by the random injection of a SZA-like interlude and the introduction of her “good boy”, who she will have to play the “villain” for.

Or what about ‘The Boy Is Mine’? It’s the most anticipated song on the album and sits right before the lead single. A song inspired by Brandy and Monica’s hit of the same name, and it…lacks the balls of her big cheating single ‘break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored’. The song is catchy enough, but rather empty.

What makes a bad Grande album is complicated to answer because we’ve rarely seen the missteps. It mostly has to do with tone. She doesn’t handle cute or girly very well. Nor is she able to comfortably play the “bad girl”. The truth is, both lyrically and aesthetically, she has a deer-like quality to her. Lovely to admire, but unexpectantly dangerous when startled.

The real issue with her worst songs are usually that they ask her to present a front to her persona that feels unauthentic. ‘Put Your Hearts Up’ is an ode to perseverance and positivity that lacks the humanity of later tracks like ‘get well soon’. ‘Break Free’ is terrifyingly enthusiastic about a breakup, where the (somewhat belaboured) maturity of ‘thank you, next’ feels both age appropriate, and comfortable for her to perform. Grande’s emotionality while singing is not flat, and she needs writing that supports that.

So much of ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is very flat – on purpose. It’s a shell. But I’m not sure if the shell works thematically more than it hinders. If this is meant to be treated as a concept album, then I need to ask why the cracks weren’t showing throughout.

I’ll play the villain if you need me to.

There’s a mincing quality to this middle section of the album. We get three tracks in a row about how desperate Grande is to have this man, only to be faced with the hilarious introduction of haughty bitchiness in the face of criticism – mixed with more sympathetic reasons to support her, like the policing of her physical appearance. There’s a sense of martyrdom to something like ‘true story’ that gets washed away by her actually playing a villain half-heartedly on ‘yes, and?’.

Grande isn’t a storyteller by trade. She’s a pop star. We’re not getting a narrative here, it’s primarily fluff that’s meant to represent hiding from your problems. But when we do get her to actually reflect on her issues, it blows the rest of the album out of the water.

‘imperfect for you’ does this very well, and I appreciate the sweetness that underlies the track. If there’s a song on here that shows Grande at her best lyrically, even if these are sentiments that she’s been returning to for her entire career. She’s “needy”, she’s making “bad decisions” with you, and now she’s “imperfect”. It’s more vulnerable now than it’s ever been, and I appreciate that it’s a moment where the potential of everything beforehand in her career comes to the forefront.

I don't wanna tiptoe but I don't wanna hide
But I don't wanna feed this monstrous fire

The album feels burdened. Almost cowardly. It’s technically well produced but lacks the final touches that I expect from Grande. Many of the album tracks are missing that final layer of adlibs that fill out her songs. She sounds lovely, but overly restrained. Which is clearly an attempt to treat this whole thing seriously. But like how necklaces have been missing from red carpet looks, the big final chorus is mostly absent across this album. It lacks fire.

Which is ultimately my real issue. As much as I do think this album is lyrically much emptier than I would hope for in the scenario, I am willing to admit a hook could save it all. But the best hook on the album – from ‘the boy is mine’ – is still middling at best. Ethically, I agree with her decision to not include ‘fantasize’ on the tracklist. That song was stolen from her, never meant for her in the first place, and it would feel out of place on the album. On the other hand…it is the exact same song as “the boy is mine’ and ‘true story’, except better produced and less apologetic. She’s going to allow you to make her the villain – but only if you’re aware that she is NOT that at all.

There’s nothing as sticky as ‘positions’, or as anthemic as ‘breathin’, or as fun as literally anything on ‘thank you, next’ (2019). It sounds lovely, but not nearly as catchy as you’d want it to be. Max Martin – her most present producer on the album – straight up jacks the synths from his work with Robyn for ‘we can’t be friends (wait for your love)’ and while that will be a hit, I’m not sure where it will stand amongst her best tracks in a few years. Martin general has been on a downward swing in terms of great pop in the past decade or so, and this feels like a lot more of his weaker work put together. I get why he was chosen to produce an album that’s meant to sound falsely cheery on half the tracks. But being artificial only works when it’s still undeniably great. Much of the album is not.

Pop is littered with failed concept albums that are swinging for the charts. For every ‘Butterfly’ (1997) and ‘Blackout’ (2007), there’s a ‘Bionic’ (2010) or ‘Artpop’ (2013) waiting in the wings. It is possible to create something meaningful out of this kind of situation. Grande has done so in the past. But ‘Eternal Sunshine’ just doesn’t work for me on the whole.

I’ve seen it compared already to Taylor Swift’s ‘Lover’ (2019), and I think that’s an apt comparison for non-positive reasons. An attempt by a pop princess in a down phase to reignite their fanbase that is unable to intertwine their artistic ambitions with their pop abilities. In Swift’s case, she was lucky enough to see this absolute failure get swept under the pandemic rug, and followed it up with an extreme genre shift that critically revived her career before it flatlined.

Grande is following this album with ‘Wicked: Part One’ (2024). Let’s see how that pans out.

There’s a lot to enjoy here. But there’s also a sense of disappointment. It’s fine. I’ll likely end up replaying the better tracks on here a bunch through the year. But I cannot pretend this is a masterpiece. It’s messy, lacks truly great hooks, and fails to make good on it’s own premise.

Best tracks: imperfect for you, the boy is mine, bye