In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, estranged lovers Joel and Clementine, played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, undergo an experimental treatment to remove memories of each other from their brains. A wrinkle in the procedure results in Joel’s realization that erasing his pain also means forgetting the joy and happiness he shared with her.
Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine takes the first part of that narrative as its inspiration, perhaps not recognizing that it’s the second bit that makes Michel Gondry’s 2004 film, whose title Charlie Kaufman took from Alexander Pope’s poem “Eloisa to Abelard,” such a devastating cautionary tale. “Now I’m in my head, wonderin’ how it ends…I try to wipe my mind just so I feel less insane,” Grande sings on the title track, directly invoking the film’s plot but only vaguely acknowledging that some memories are irreversible.
The themes of memory and romantic ambivalence are more subtly dotted throughout the album, as on “I Wish I Hated You” and “Imperfect for You.” But even more compelling are the songs that address a different kind of connection: Grande’s relationship with the media. “My tongue is sacred, I speak upon what I like…Don’t comment on my body, do not reply,” she quips on lead single “Yes, And?,” which also happens to boast the album’s most indelible hook.
Tracks like “True Story” and “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” are slotted into the album’s narrative as if they’re love songs, but they’re both thinly veiled references to the media’s coverage of Grande’s relationship with Ethan Slater. “I don’t like how you paint me, yet I’m still here hanging,” she admits on the latter. Unlike most clapbacks by artists who’ve become fodder for the tabloids, Grande doesn’t come across as bellicose or indignant. Instead, she implicitly concedes the symbiosis—some might say codependence—of the “situationship.”
Like a lover who’s been mistreated, the singer fascinatingly longs for the press’s approval: “I’ll wait for your love,” she declares repeatedly on “We Can’t Be Friends.” And the line between romantic and public validation is curiously blurred again on the album’s closing track, “Ordinary Things”: “You hit like my biggest fan when I hear what the critiques say.”
If there’s a primary critique to be leveled at Eternal Sunshine, it’s that the midtempo R&B that defined Grande’s last two albums, Positions and Thank U, Next, is again prominent. The house-pop “Yes, And?” is a bit of a bait and switch, as only two other tracks here, the disco-infused “Bye” and the Robyn-esque “We Can’t Be Friends,” stray from Grande’s preferred musical mode.
That’s not to say that the album’s R&B fare isn’t satisfying in its own right. “Don’t Wanna Break Up Again” is smooth and nostalgic, with a breathy vocal hook that conjures late-’90s Mariah Carey. And “The Boy Is Mine,” a reimagining of Brandy and Monica’s 1998 hit of the same name, finds Grande paying homage to Brandy’s distinctive honeyed harmonies in service of painting herself as the villain she believes the media wants her to be. As Eloisa says in Alexander Pope’s poem: “Well-sung woes will soothe my pensive ghost.”
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