There’s no doubt that Ariana Grande is at an artistic high right now. Straight out of an Oscar-nominated award season, the singer has returned, stacking harmonies and spitting verses for her seventh studio album “eternal sunshine” with a new deluxe version titled “eternal sunshine deluxe: brighter days ahead.” While it can be easy for deluxe albums to seem like a blatant cash grab instead of a genuine desire to expand upon the original work, “eternal sunshine deluxe: brighter days ahead” fits perfectly within the lines of “eternal sunshine” while still adding a new layer of synth-pop perfection.

The album cover depicts Grande levitating towards a white glowing light in alien-abduction fashion, setting the tone as the songs portray a starry sense of rebirth. There’s a feeling of deja vu with the first deluxe track being an extended version of the album’s original opener, “intro (end of the world).” It includes a new verse about addressing a sense of clarity with a broken relationship: “I broke your heart because you broke mine (I broke your heart) / So me, I am the bad guy (I am the bad guy).” The cyclical nature of both the extended and original versions, with falling in and out of love, reinforce the idea that Grande is experiencing new beginnings, floating into the unknown both lyrically and through the album’s visuals.

With themes of therapeutic healing and acceptance accompanying the album, the songwriting here feels brutally honest, featuring many candid lyrics about the singer’s personal life. “I don’t remember too much of the last year,” Grande sings in “Hampstead,” a track she revealed to be one of her favorite songs she’s ever written. The piano ballad addresses the rumors over her contentious love life with “Wicked” co-star Ethan Slater with the lyric, “I’d rather be seen and alive than dying by your point of view,” a message that could be directed at either an ex-lover or pressing news outlets. There’s an air of finality with how Grande approaches lyrics like these, painting “eternal sunshine deluxe: brighter days ahead” as a work of genuine self-reflection rather than the hopeful attitude toward life and love present in past projects like “Positions.”

The deluxe songs keep up the ’80s-synth, R&B vibe featured on the initial album, creating a cohesive sonic blend between tracks. On “twilight zone,” Grande’s synth-pop production works smoothly in tandem with dreamy lyrics about confronting confusion towards an ex-lover in what is speculated to be a closing message to her ex-husband Dalton Gomez. She slides right back to a “Positions” type sound on the trap-infused “dandelion,” which features trumpets that add a new layer to a familiar sound. In addition to instrumental layers, Grande’s intensive harmonization techniques are used with full force here, a testament to her keen ear. In fact, the “eternal sunshine” era marks the first time Grande has been credited as a co-producer on every album track, proving that she is growing stronger with time.

However, it’s not just music that Grande is dominating — along with the deluxe album’s release, she dropped a short film, wrapping up the cinematic run of music videos that accompanied the era. Inspired by Michel Gondry’s 2004 romance sci-fi film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Grande stars as Peaches, an original character based on the film’s female protagonist, Clementine. The short film shows Peaches at an elderly age as she returns to Brighter Days Ahead Inc., a memory restoration clinic where she can pick and choose different memories to watch across her lifetime. Through viewing these memories, she reconnects with her younger self with real home videos of Grande’s family, deals with the trials of fame and heartbreak, and is eventually brought back to herself with a vignette of a younger Peaches. Throughout the short-film, a selection of the “eternal sunshine” and deluxe tracks play in the background, formulating the soundtrack to Peaches’ life. While you could technically just view the film as an extended music video, the cinematography is deliberate, and Grande’s storytelling shines through the film.

Both the short film and deluxe tracks provide a satisfying conclusion to the intimate concept Grande has built throughout the past year. The short film concludes with her singing the outro of “Hampstead” with her father next to her — it’s clear that Grande’s search for brighter days ahead was less about erasing the past and more about finding peace with it. 

Contact Amelia Knust at [email protected].