Ariana Grande released the deluxe edition of her seventh studio album, Eternal Sunshine: Brighter Days Ahead on Friday, 28 March.
With six new songs, including an extended version of fan-favourite “intro (end of the world)”, Grande has expanded upon how her life has changed for good since the filming of Wicked.
In an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Grande said: “I think there’s such a freedom within art in general because you really can pull from anywhere. You can pull from your truth, you can pull from a concept, you can pull from a film, from a story you’re telling, from a story about a relationship that a friend told you.
“Finding a home in Eternal Sunshine was a lovely costume to wear, I think, for this project.”
The album draws its concept from Michel Gondry’s 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, starring Jim Carey, and in both mediums, Carey and Grande try to heal from their relationship breakdowns by deleting their memories.
Academy Award nominee Ariana Grande, who had been up for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar this year for her role as Glinda in Wicked, marked her directorial debut in the short film Brighter Days Ahead that accompanied her deluxe album this weekend.
Fans were queuing for screenings across North America and internationally, too, as the short film was also shown at Rough Trade in London on Friday night.
In the standard album’s opening track, Grande questions herself, wondering whether she is in the right place and with the right partner, but on “intro (end of the world) – extended”, Grande is interrogating her ex, asking: “Would you still be here, pretending you still liked me?”
Moving into “twilight zone”, Grande describes the aftermath of her journey in last year’s song-of-the-summer “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)”, with the opening lyrics “Did I dream the whole thing?/Was that just a nightmare?” calling back to the standard record’s “Saturn Returns Interlude”, where Grande is compelled to “Wake up!”
Now that Grande is awake, she is fully aware of her surroundings and knows that she will be okay on her own in “warm”, though life can be better with somebody to share it with.
Like many songs on eternal sunshine, it is unclear whether Grande is talking about her partner or her fans, and this permeates the narrative in “we can’t be friends”, “true story”, “yes and?”, “warm” and “Hampstead” most strongly.
Throughout the record, Grande attempts to wake up the public by outlining the very separate spheres of her own private self (“Hampstead”) and the celebrity persona of a pop-phenomenon (“the boy is mine”).
Grande has come under fire in the last two years for a multitude of perceived scandals. On “dandelion”, Grande refutes the critics that claim she is not an authentic person or artist, with: “No-one to play, I am as you see.”
Grande’s seventh studio album follows up 2020’s positions, which was penned about the superstar’s budding relationship with her now ex-husband Dalton Gomez.
There are many parallels in the lyrics between positions and eternal sunshine, felt most prominently in 2020’s “pov” (where Grande muses “I’d love to see me from your point of view”), against 2025’s “Hampstead” (a devastating twist of “I’d rather be seen and alive than dying by your point of view”).
The accompanying short film, Brighter Days Ahead sees Grande playing an elderly version of her character Peaches from the “we can’t be friends” music video, as Grande watches her own memories played back to her in the form of old home videos – the most authentic and human we have ever seen Ariana Grande.
Fan reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, as Arianators were quick to label Grande the greatest musical artist of this generation on social media.
Meanwhile, outlets like Rolling Stone and Variety have highlighted the strength of Grande’s solo lyricism and enthused about the Imogen Heap inspired vocal production on the record.
Grande herself has commented that eternal sunshine is her favorite of all her albums to date.
And the charts reflect the record’s popularity, as the deluxe edition catapulted eternal sunshine back up to Number 1 on the Billboard 200 album charts, knocking off contender Playboi Carti for the top spot.
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