WITH TWO GRAMMYS, AN OSCAR BID, AND 37 GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS, ARIANA GRANDE SITS AT THE HIGH TABLE OF POP ROYALTY, BUT IN HER LATEST ALBUM, THE 31-YEAR-OLD BREAKS FROM HER CHART-TOPPING DIVA PERSONA TO OFFER A RAW, CONTEMPLATIVE GLIMPSE BEHIND THE DIAMOND-STUDDED CURTAIN OF FAME
BY DAN SALAMONE PHOTO BY KATIA TEMKIN
Most pop stars, even the ones we love, don’t seem like they’d actually be much fun to, for instance, sit on a deck along the Jersey Shore with and pursue a menu of cocktails while shooting the proverbial you-know-what until the sun goes down. With the prevalence of planet-sized egos in the music biz, how long do you think you could listen to a Billboard chart topper hold forth about their irrefutable greatness, even with that pleasant buzz? We’re guessing half an hour, tops, before you ran screaming from the room to find much more enjoyable company.
Ariana Grande, however now that’s a fun hang. Go to YouTube and search “Ariana Grande’s best impressions.” You’ll find footage of her slaying dead-on impressions of the biggest pop stars of the last 25 years, and then nailing the voice and mannerisms of two famous Jennifers who also seem like great hangs Jennifer Lawrence and Jennifer Coolidge. Her impressions are just the right side of shade: satiric, a little edge, but clearly informed by a deep affection.
This tone actually feels like a microcosm of the person Ariana Grande has become: smart, funny, playful, curious, introspective in a clear-eyed way and never taking “Ariana the Superstar” too seriously. This last point is significant in how well her musical oeuvre has aged and evolved over time. This is especially true of her last record, Eternal Sunshine. Whereas her previous records mostly leaned hard into the bratty diva “Ariana the Superstar” persona (perhaps best typified by her worldwide smash single “break up with your girlfriend, I’m bored,” from the 2019 album, T hank U, Next), her 2024 artistic breakthrough long player sounds like someone coming to terms with some of the wreckage that playing this brittle public persona has brought into her personal life.
Since Thank U, Next (the apex of the superstar-power-brat Ariana era), this incredible talent, who has been mega-famous for literally more than half of her years on earth, crammed a gargantuan amount of tragedy and heartache into the next six years. For starters, she found herself suffering terrible delayed PTSD and crippling anxiety from the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, where she was a headlining performer, and she’s still recovering from the public fallout of the very public dissolutions of relationships with Pete Davidson and Mac Miller, and then the tragic death of the latter. She also married and divorced real estate investor Dalton Gomez (thankfully for her, this breakup was more private than her diva-era relationships), and lastly, she started a healthy new relationship with her Wicked co-star, Ethan Slater, only to be publicly accused of causing the dissolution of his previous marriage. Just typing all that was a lot. Now, imagine living it.
Eternal Sunshine is the diary of someone who has been forced to learn, reflect, and grow or be destroyed under the weight of calamity. The songs are confessional, but not in the usual navel-gazing ways one finds with lesser artists. Her self-appraisal is as raw and honest as her appraisal of others. It has the unvarnished candor of someone making amends after years as an addict or alcoholic. (Neither of which has she ever been accused of, to be clear.) Some critics have bemoaned the mature and meditative element of many of the tracks, without realizing this has to be the prism through which the next evolved era of Ariana must travel.
For those with the good sense and wisdom to go on that journey, the next 15 years of Ariana Grande should prove just as exciting and fruitful as the last.
Ariana Grande