Notes on Heartbreak From Ariana Grande
Across six new songs, the pop star adds new lessons, warmth and a striking maturity to last year’s Grammy-nominated LP, 'eternal sunshine'.
Breakups are a weird one, aren’t they? Sure, there’s the heartache, the messy process of untangling yourself from someone’s life, the seemingly irreparable sense of loss. No matter the circumstance, who’s to blame, the devastation tends to come thick and fast like a wave of sadness. (Songwriter Lizzy McAlpine described breakups as a ‘small death’, and considering the grief one experiences during a breakup – no matter how close you were, how long you knew them, whether they were even a good person – the metaphor feels apt.) Then comes the impossible: having to live and love again. Sometimes just going about your day is the hardest part.
Ariana Grande, it seems, knows this struggle more than most. After news broke that she was divorcing her then-husband, Dalton Gomez, in 2023 – and, not long after, that she’d coupled up with her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater – she not only went through all of the above but did it under the unflinching gaze of discerning stans and misogynistic tabloids. Most people in Grande’s position might have buckled under the pressure.
Most people, though, haven’t been through the things Grande has. Her best albums were borne out of trauma – sweetener of a terrorist bombing that occurred at her Manchester concert in 2017, thank u, next of the death of her ex, Mac Miller, in addition to the end of her engagement to Pete Davidson – and a defining factor of both those records was the grace and maturity with which she moved through her setbacks. There was something so gently uplifting about a star being so candid about her anxiety, toxic relationships, grief – a star whose boldest move prior was licking some doughnuts. In light of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that eternal sunshine – the album Grande put out last year – was another artistic and personal growth. Like sweetener and thank u, next, the personal struggles that informed eternal sunshine’s creation shone through in its writing (facilitating its place in the Holy Trinity of Grande’s best albums).
The record, her seventh, was a concept album of sorts that loosely sketched the collapse of one relationship and the birth of another. Across a mix of dance bangers (‘bye’, ‘yes, and?’), 2000s R&B throwbacks (‘don’t wanna break up again’, ‘true story’, ‘the boy is mine’) and the odd ballad (‘i wish i hated you’), the writing toggled between bitter devastation and cautious optimism – though the album’s narrative concluded with the latter, with the closer ‘ordinary things’ offering the warmth of a new relationship, alongside some advice from Grande’s grandmother: “Never go to bed without kissin' goodnight… if you don't feel comfortable doing it, you're in the wrong place. Get out.” For all accounts and purposes, the story seemed over, with Grande loved-up and in a better place.
Apparently not. With six new songs – well, five new songs plus an extended one from the original tracklist – the deluxe edition of eternal sunshine, which is subtitled brighter days ahead, adds new lessons, warmth and a striking maturity to an album already rich in all three of those qualities. It’s dazzling in its openness, direct with its lyricism and downright gorgeous with its sound. It might be the best thing Grande’s done in years.
Though eternal sunshine’s lyrical content struck a balance between talking about her breakup and her new beau, brighter days ahead largely takes aim at the former. (It’s rumoured that part of the pair’s divorce settlement stipulated that Grande was not to talk about her and Gomez’s marriage – but, as she might put it herself, they didn’t say she couldn’t sing!) Take the first of these six bonus songs, an extended version of the Hollywood-swoon ‘intro (end of the world)’ whose lyrics don’t mince words. Across a scorching new verse, she unpacks feelings of doubt and paranoia, wondering if her own husband is pretending not to regret marrying her. “I am the bad guy / ‘Cause I’d already grieved you”, she sings as she takes accountability for not speaking up sooner, acknowledging her part in the doomed relationship’s messy end.
It’s one of several songs that wrenchingly call back to previous tracks ostensibly written about her ex-husband Gomez; where the perspective was once smitten, here it becomes scorned. ‘six thirty’, from 2020’s positions, had Grande playfully asking “When I’m old and stuff, will you still have a crush?”; on ‘intro’, she sincerely asks whether that same person even likes her. Meanwhile, ‘Hampstead’ flips the sentiment of one of Grande’s best songs – namely, ‘pov’, which had her wishing she could see herself from her partner’s awestruck perspective – and has her swearing she’d rather live than die by that same point of view, having gone through the other side and being disappointed with what she found. To love is to learn, and Grande affirms that this is an unfortunate but necessary part of growing up: “I would rather feel everything than nothing every time.”
‘twilight zone’ reveals the most about this ill-fated marriage. Atop a shimmering Max Martin production, Grande looks inward, making it clear that she doesn’t miss him: “It’s not like I’m not still over you!”, she declares, as though trying to convince herself as much as the listener. She sinks further into denial, confessing that she pretends “these songs aren’t about you”, but the real hitter is in the chorus, where she admits “I just can’t believe you happened” – like her ex-husband was an event or a decision rather than a person. It speaks to a disassociation one feels following a breakup: was that real? Or, as Grande puts it: “Did I dream the whole thing?” Even while she seems to move ahead on ‘past life’, vowing to “elevate my expectations”, the damage is done.
Still, time heals all wounds, and consequently two of brighter days ahead’s songs bask in the glow of new love. ‘dandelion’ returns to Grande’s trap era, getting freaky as she devises new ways to show her man how much she loves him. (The seductive saxophone intro is an inspired touch, too.) Though the track is fun in concept, its titular metaphor manifests itself into some questionable lyrics – “I’m thinking you should plant this seed”, for instance – that weaken its earnest premise.
‘warm’, though, is stunning. Dealing with the incredulity of feeling understood is one of the many thrills of love (the lack of which might lead to a relationship’s failure), and one can understand why someone at the level of Grande’s public exposure and notoriety might feel lonely at the top. Even in the unrelatability of her circumstances, though, she reworks her longing into a gorgeous track that envelops like an embrace, sunny synths bouncing around a summery dance pulse. The song is even more impressive when placed in tandem with ‘better off’, a Sweetener cut that found Grande struggling with the realisation that her partner is simply not good enough for her. Now, on ‘warm’, she refuses to make sacrifices or compromises for her lover, asking him to meet her where she is. Hearing ‘warm’ is like having your closest friend get with a nice boy after a string of toxic relationships. It’s a marvel of sheer self-respect.
Then again, it’s possible to heal from an ex and still talk shit about them every once in a while. ‘Hampstead’, the spare ballad that closes the deluxe edition, has Grande twisting the knife with an array of cutting jabs that don’t feel cheap. (“I think to be so dumb must be nice”? Ariana, what did this man do to you?) It’s a fitting close of this chapter of her life & her career, as she accepts her journey thus far and begins to move on, reducing her ex to “just some lines in some songs” in a brilliant moment of reclamation. Sure, this man broke her heart, but at least she can cash in; as Beyoncé might agree, the best revenge is sometimes as simple as writing a song.
Some of the usual Grande-isms – chiefly, the stunning vocals layered to high heaven – are present and correct across the project, while others are notably absent (giggled adlibs and ‘yuh’s among them), indicating yet another artistic maturation and a sharpening of her talents, distilled into a project rich with revelation as well as tenderness. For an artist whose growth and lesson-learning is part and parcel of her music, brighter days ahead takes those lessons and purifies it into songs that break the heart as much as they mend it again. Breakups are a bitch, but Grande’s music offers a way through; after all, she’s been through it, and she’s still singing.
9/10