Ariana Grande’s eternal sunshine is a great big exhale

thefader.com:

Ariana Grande is healing, again. This, historically, has been a great thing for the top 40; her resilience is the magic that has fueled some of her biggest hits (see: “Break Free,” “no tears left to cry,” “thank u, next,” etc.) Her voice, one of the most ubiquitous in modern pop, practically epitomizes going onward and upward — four octaves, to be precise.

This alchemy was blissfully unavoidable for the better part of the past decade, as her catalog racked up a new album practically every year.

So when she delivers the line “this ain’t the first time I’ve been hostage to these tears” not two minutes into her new album eternal sunshine, it’s a cause for celebration, not concern: we are so back.

This is all the more emphatic given how long it's been since we’ve really heard from Grande. Following the release of positions back in 2020, she took a three-and-a-half-year break from recording new music: in recent interviews, she’s expressed a lack of boundaries in her career, which led to a strained relationship with music as a whole.