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Ariana Grande: Eternal Sunshine review – perceptive post-divorce album is nearly spotless
Amid intense and intrusive speculation about her private life, Grande wipes away the tears and tackles the big questions of adult life with maturity, compassion – and delicious gossip
With its lurching bass and flinching vocals, the former evokes Jai Paul remixing Justin Timberlake’s betrayal ur-text Cry Me a River, while the latter shares the juddering synths and chiptune flourishes of Robyn’s homewrecking anthem Call Your Girlfriend – though the effect is jarringly retro. Grande understands that living means salvaging what you can from the wreckage and moving on, and the risk-aversion and second-guessing of Positions makes way for action and instinct here, even when it’s destructive: with trap-Aaliyah hauteur, the possessive The Boy Is Mine “takes full accountability for all these tears” she has caused yet concludes “but I can’t ignore my heart” (underscored, in the official lyrics, by six exclamation marks). Primarily helmed by Grande and core collaborators Max Martin and Ilya Salmanzadeh (her staple co-writer Victoria Monét, now a solo artist in her own right, isn’t here), Eternal Sunshine is more full-bodied than the silvery, breathy Positions, though the album starts with a bit of a feint in Bye, a lavish orchestral-disco showstopper that soundtracks our heroine’s freedom.
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