Musical review
Eternal sun
When Ariana Grande was 25, she sang that she I just wanted to walk down the aisle once.
Five years later, his biggest nightmare came true: She is divorced.
“How do I know if I’m in the right relationship?” Aren't you really supposed to know that? she asks on the heavenly introduction to her new concept album, “Eternal Sunshine” (outside Friday).
But it doesn't take long for Grande to accept the dreaded fact that the white picket fence that is her two year marriage to the real estate broker Dalton Gomez East collapse.
On the second track, aptly titled “Bye,” she packs her bags while waiting for her best friend to take her to freedom.
“At least I know how hard we tried, you and I,” she sings to Gomez.
Grande's feelings about her ex-husband are all over the place.
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One minute she's praising him for accepting his flaws “f-ked up” (on “Imperfect for You”) and the next she's calling him out for playing it “like Atari” (on the title track of the 'album).
But who can blame him? It's the same complex balancing act that everyone who has fallen in love has gone through.
And the Grammy winner does it with grace, choosing to celebrate a relationship she has already grieved so she can heal and move on.
“I hope life doesn't bring you any new pain,” she tells Gomez on “I Wish I Hated You,” an atmospheric song about enduring love that evokes her idol Imogen Heap.
Much of the stunning “Eternal Sunshine,” named after the 2004 film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” starring Jim Carrey, veers toward R&B, but when Grande flexes her pop star muscles ( with the help of powerful producer Max Martin), the magic happens.
The album's first single, “Yes, And?” – which aims to silence widespread speculation that there was overlap in the singer's marriage and his new relationship with his “Wicked” co-star Ethan Slater – is as fierce as Madonna's seminal 1990 house hit “Vogue,” while the standout “We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” is an inherently sad banger in the manner of Madonna's 2010 opus Robyn “Dancing on My Own”.
It's a seamless blend of genres that only a versatile talent like Grande could perfect.