STORY BY JONAS CORLISS, STAFF WRITER
Released March 8, “eternal sunshine” is the seventh studio album from one of pop music’s juggernauts, Ariana Grande. This album is coming after her 2020 album “positions,” a record that fans and critics alike consider a low point in her career due to how safe and average the sound was.
Sonically, this album pulls in from the recent trend of dance pop’s mainstream comeback. However, compared to contemporaries such as Dua Lipa and Beyonce, Grande’s approach is much more laid back, focusing more on vibes than energy, similar to Drake’s approach on his album “Honestly, Nevermind.”
The first taste of the record we got was the single “yes, and?” which remains a highlight of the album. Grande provides a confidence booster, stating that it doesn’t matter what others say about you as long as you’re happy. The beat on this track is energetic and full, making it easy to listen to as you dance along with it. My only issue is that she released a much better remix of the song featuring Mariah Carrey, but it is left off of the album.
This energy is also found in the song “eternal sunshine.” Being the title track, many themes of the album are summed up nicely in this song including moving on from a relationship, finding new love, and being happy despite others.
Unfortunately, these two songs are the only songs on the album. The rest of the songs are more calm and spacey, which is an odd choice for a dance-pop record. This causes the instrumentals of each song to get old quickly, which is a bad thing considering most of the songs lyrically do not explore the topics expressed beyond a surface level.
The worst offender of this is “the boy is mine” which is so generic that it is hard to find any specific thing that this song does that any other song on the album does better. Lyrically, it is so nondescript that I struggle even to find what the song’s message is.
Vocally, Grande is stellar as always. Many songs feature beautiful vocal runs in the climax, and the layering done in some sections creates a full and hypnotic effect that is easy to get lost in. Most of the time the vocals are soft and dreamy, adding further to the atmospheric vibes that the record carries you away with.
Ultimately, the greatest sin this album commits is being boring. Many of the tracks provide little to capture your attention, preferring to exist in the background as you do other things, rarely making an effort to grab your attention. It’s the kind of music that you hear while shopping at a big department store. However, there are a few tracks that are truly fun and lively, I just wish there were more of those.
RATING: 6/10