A benefactor writes her personal life in a way that no one else would know how to do.
Ariana Grande/Katia Temkin
Ariana Grande has grown up.
No, this is not another statement from the 'coming of age' genre backed by public relations that we are so used to getting from pop stars promoting a new album and often comes together with a 'cleaner' look (as in, a more careful hand with the make-up and less flashy clothes).
In her new album (seventh in number), "Eternal Sunshine", Grande, who celebrated her thirtieth birthday, attributes her coming of age first and foremost to what astrologers call 'Saturn Return' - a process that happens in every person's life sometime between age twenty-seven to twenty-nine as a result of the movement of the planet Saturn in the sky.
According to those who believe in astrology (Syrian, I'm not among them), once every twenty-seven to twenty-nine years, the planet Saturn completes the course that began on the day the person was born, thus marking a transition from childhood to adulthood (in Judaism they simply call it Bar/Bat Mitzvah).
Or as Diana Garland, Granada's upcoming astrologer, says in one of the links on the album, which is of course called "Saturn Returns Interlude": "This is the time when you need to wake up and understand who you really are."
But leave nonsense, you don't have to believe in astrology or understand the path that Saturn takes to enjoy the new album of Grande.
In two words it is a good album and in three words a really good album.
Quite a few things make "Eternal Sunshine" - yes, it is a tribute to Michel Gondry's film "Eternal Sunshine in a Clear Mind", as can also be seen in the music video for the single "we can't be friends (wait for your love) - to the album that is the brilliance. Most of them are related to Granada herself, the experience she gained as a performer and her choice to keep the reference to the storms in her life to songs and not to stories, but before I get to them it is worth referring to those who made this album sound so good: the producers.
First there is Max Martin, the Swedish pop legend, who for more than three decades has been responsible for some of the biggest hits of the biggest pop stars in the world.
If you go through the charts of the last decades you will find a song he produced almost every year and you will be surprised by the variety of artists he worked with: from Britney and the Backstreet Boys, to Coldplay and The Weeknd and even with the Italian rock-pop sensation Moonskin.
But Martin is not alone responsible for the sound of the album, alongside him you will also find ILYA, a Swedish producer of Iranian origin (yes, you always need an Iranian connection) who has worked with Grenada quite a bit in recent years.
Together, the two built a world of sound around Grenada that, on the one hand, does not reinvent her music - there is a combination of R&B songs that remind us of her early albums ("bye", "don't wanna break up again") alongside songs that are pure pop-dance [" yes, and" and "we can't be friends (wait for your love)"] which are reminiscent of her most successful album "Sweetener".
In general, "yes, and", which is also the first single from the album, is the closest you can get to a direct tribute to Madonna's "Vogue" without paying royalties (and its music video is a homage to Paula Abdul's hit "Cold Hearted").
On the other hand, as in Michel Gondry's film - where Clementine (Kate Winslet) decides to erase from her memory a traumatic relationship (with Jim Carrey's character) and walks the seam between the intellectual and the emotional - the sound of the album also combines brass instruments, dreamy electronic touches and a lot Soul (mainly from Granada's wonderful voice).
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The connection between Grenada and "Eternal Sunshine" dives much deeper than the sound of the album, as far as Grande is concerned, "Eternal Sunshine" is a kind of concept album that starts with the trauma of a painful breakup and continues with the introduction of a new love - from the courtship stage to the moments when they reach the bedroom.
Grande does start the album by asking questions "If it all ends tomorrow, will I be the one you think of?"
["intro (end of the world)"], but later she also goes on the attack and makes statements, mainly against her ex-partner and the media.
For those who are less familiar with the romantic scandals that happened in the personal life of the singer and actress, it is said that since her last album, "Positions" (which was released three and a half years ago, a long time for her) she had time to marry and divorce the real estate man Dalton Gomez and then take a break from the music industry, posing for the role of Glinda In the super-talked-about Hollywood version of the musical "Wicked" that is expected to come out towards the end of the year, and there to meet her current partner - the actor Ethan Slater, who himself was married to someone else at the time.
It would be an exaggeration to call Grande a gifted songwriter, but what is certain is that she is good at writing about her personal life in a way that no one else would know how to do.
It starts with the ambiguously implied line: "Why do you care so much about whose sh** I'm riding?"
From the same "yes, and", continues with "I showed you my demons and lies and you played me like a batari" from the theme song dedicated to X Gomez, and ends with the description of the acquaintance with Slater that started as friendship and developed into something that is much more than "we can't be just friends but I'm happy to pretend."
The same "we can't be friends" now stars in the global music charts, and rightly so.
It has a melodic movement that is (very) reminiscent of Rubin's monumental "Dancing On My Own" (by the way, a hit that originated in Sweden and Max Martin is not involved), but with the addition of Grande's wonderful voice and full of octaves.
If we're talking about octaves, then it's worth mentioning that at the beginning of her career, Grande was often compared to Mariah Carey, whom many consider to be the greatest diva of them all (you are welcome to argue in the comments).
The comparison between the two has been repeated so many times that in a 2016 interview Carey claimed she had never heard of Grande, an elegant way to belittle a young competitor.
The creators turned around and today Grande invited Carey to be a guest on the remix to "yes, and", the meeting of the queens of the octaves (this one of the Hawaiian generation and this one of the Zed generation) ended with a strange and unpleasant performance that feels as if parts of it were recorded in an elevator (and therefore probably only relegated to the deluxe version of the album) but the bottom line is that Grande has done that too - she's big enough to bring any name she wants into the studio.
That's precisely why her choice to not feature any other artists on the album itself is admirable, a statement of self-confidence that doesn't go without saying in an age where everyone, including everyone - yes, even Taylor - often adds guests to their albums (it works great in the streaming listening numbers).
In fact, there is only one guest here, Grande's ninety-eight-year-old grandmother, Marjorie - or, affectionately, Nona - who is a guest in the spoken word section of the last song on the album "Ordinary Things".
It seems that the personal circumstances that gave birth to it meant that "Eternal Sunshine" is the album that Granada was most emotionally invested in the creative process, and this sincerity is evident.
The combination of the great melodies, her great voice and her indisputable charisma, led to a pop album that will accompany us for a long time to come and marks the singer behind it as one of the justified pop stars of her generation.
Will the love story behind it last until the next album?
Relying on the romantic history of Granada is really not sure, but the truth is that it doesn't really matter either.
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