Eternal Sunshine is Ariana Grande’s 7th album inspired by her personal life experiences. The title is derived by the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
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- Eternal Sunshine is the seventh studio album by Ariana Grande.
- It was released on March 8, 2024, by Republic Records.
- It was written and produced by Ariana Grande, Max Martin, Ilya Salmanzadeh, and Oscar Görres amongst others.
- Eternal Sunshine is a pop and R&B album with dance music influences, particularly synth-pop and house, characterized by mid-tempo synthesizers, subtle guitar and string elements.
- Grande derived the album title from the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
- She conceived the album as a record of both vulnerability and entertainment, inspired by her personal life experiences.
- Upon release, a number of critics praised Eternal Sunshine for its restrained vocals and music, and the emotional vulnerability of the subject matter, while some critiqued the songwriting as unrefined.
- In the United States, the album opened at number one on the Billboard 200, marking her sixth number-one on the chart.
- Its singles “Yes, And?” and “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100.
- Ariana Grande became the woman with the most Hot 100 number-one debuts.
- Eternal Sunshine topped the record charts in ten other countries.
- Ariana Grande promoted and discussed the album on programs hosted by radio personalities Zach Sang and Zane Lowe and was the musical guest of Saturday Night Live on March 9, 2024.
- The standard edition of Eternal Sunshine does not contain guest musical acts.
- It features spoken words from Grande’s maternal grandmother Marjorie Grande on “Ordinary Things” and astrologer Diana Garland on “Saturn Returns Interlude”.
- An extended edition of the album, including versions of four tracks from the standard album, was released on March 10, 2024.
- The additional tracks feature Australian singer Troye Sivan and American singer Mariah Carey.
- On May 12, 2022, 19 months after the release of her sixth studio album, Positions (2020), Ariana Grande clarified that she would not be recording another album until she is done filming Wicked (2024).
- In October 2023, she first jokingly hinted at a forthcoming album by posting “ag7: goat mother” as an Instagram caption.
- A set of pictures included a photo of her with Swedish producer and long-time collaborator Max Martin at Jungle City Studios in New York City.
- On December 7 and December 17, Grande shared a series of pictures and video clips working in recording studios and her editing audio files.
- As opposed to previous eras, she specifically stated that there would be no song snippets for the upcoming record.
- On December 27, the singer confirmed a 2024 album release via her social media.
- She posted a carousel of videos on her Instagram that show her crying in a recording studio and her mother Joan dancing to a new song of hers, amongst others. She captioned the post “See you next year” and tagged several accounts, including Swedish musician Ilya Salmanzadeh, music video director Christian Breslauer, and Republic Records.
- She referred to the picture of her crying and another one which depicts her dancing as the “two moods of the album”.
- Packages with R.E.M. Beauty’s On Your Collar lipstick in the shade “Attention” including a defocused close-up shot of Grande’s red lips and the caption of an Instagram post she would make a few days after delivery, were sent to fans.
- On January 17, 2024, Grande announced the album, its title Eternal Sunshine, and release date via her social media.
- Ariana Grande described Eternal Sunshine as “kind of a concept album” comprising “different heightened pieces of the same story, of the same experience”.
- She explained that the record spans from “really vulnerable” songs to playful tracks which see her emulating “what people kind of expect me to be sometimes and having fun with it.”
- Wendy Goldstein, co-president of Republic Records, described the record as an “elevated version” of Grande’s previous albums, calling it an embodiment of “Sweetener meets […] Thank U, Next”.
- In an interview with Zane Lowe Ariana Grande clarified that the song titles “True Story” is “an untrue story based on all untrue events.”
- “True story” sets up the following track “the boy is mine” according to Ariana Grande.
- On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized score out of 100 to ratings from professional publications, Eternal Sunshine received a weighted mean score of 83, based on 18 reviews, indicating “universal acclaim”.
- In a rave review, Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone commended Eternal Sunshine as “some of the most honest and inventive music of her career” and dubbed the album as an “instant classic”.
- Various other critics, such as NME’s Nick Levine, AllMusic’s Neil Z. Yeung, Clash’s Emma Harrison, The Guardian’s Laura Snapes, and The New York Times’ Lindsay Zoladz, dubbed it one of Grande’s stronger, sophisticated albums yet, highlighting the perceived maturity of its subject matter.
- A number of critics offered criticism on the album’s songwriting.
- Poppie Platt of The Daily Telegraph and David Cobbald of The Line of Best Fit regarded the album a “slickly” produced pop record, albeit with some underwhelming tracks and simple lyrics.
- According to Tafoya, Grande often settles for “stock phrases or scrambles for syllables”, while Siroky observed a lack of conceptual focus in the lyrics, and Green claimed some tracks to be insubstantial.
- In an unfavorable review, Robert Sona of Sputnikmusic blamed the songwriting for making the album an “unambitious” output.
- Eternal Sunshine’s perceived status as a “divorce album” sparked a critical debate. Snapes described the album as a perceptive, “post-divorce” record.
- Tafoya opined Eternal Sunshine is not “as cohesive of a divorce record” as Adele’s 30 (2021),[78] whereas Jeanfrancois said it is “by no means a divorce album.”
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