Album Review: Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead

One of the criticisms I had with Eternal Sunshine was that it felt a little too brief. So it’s nice to have a deluxe version of the album with ‘new’ songs. I say ‘new’, because I have some qualms about the timeline of when these songs were recorded, which conflicts with what Ariana had mentioned during the promo run for Eternal Sunshine, but we’ll get to that.

Eternal Sunshine was a cute album. The additional songs on Brighter Days Ahead are cute. But both versions of this album just exacerbate how differently Eternal Sunshine as a whole should have been packed, or more specifically, how it should have been sequenced.

I really do not like deluxe edition songs just being plonked at the end of the album instead of being sequenced within the existing songs. Especially in cases like Brighter Days Ahead, where the ‘new’ songs sound so much like they could be part of the album or had originally intended to be at one point. The Brighter Days Ahead songs could easily be sequenced within the original Eternal Sunshine OG songs. However, one conundrum here is that some of the Brighter Days Ahead cuts sound so similar to the Eternal Sunshine OG cuts that you’d end up with doubles. “Twilight Zone” sounds like “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)”. “Dandelion” sounds like a cross between “Eternal Sunshine” and “True Story”. Which is why Ariana shoulda cut a few songs from this deluxe, expanded, re-release — whatever you wanna call this.

Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead | Republic Records

Ever since Thank U, Next, Ariana has played around with how she releases albums. She drops her shit when she likes, whether it’s years after her last album or mere months. Ariana’s ‘Fuck it’ attitude when it comes to how she puts out her music is one of the things I really like about her as an artist. She goes with what feels right for her and not always on the timing that her fans want demand. However, I wish Ariana had been a bit more curative with this release and not been afraid to say ‘Maybe we can lose this song’. Because if she had done this, Brighter Days Ahead could have been the album that Eternal Sunshine should have been. Not only would it have resulted in a slightly more fleshed out album, but sequencing the new songs amongst the old and taking some of the old ones out would have forced listeners to experience the album again, but in a different form. I highly doubt that fans go into these deluxe editions for the first time and listen to them from top to bottom. They more-than-likely just jump to the new shit at the end. But a new way to break this habit is to sequence the new shit in amongst the old shit, and maybe drop a song or two off that artists feel perhaps don’t work as well as they had initially thought, or just flat out no longer like. People who didn’t listen to the OG album release get a better version of the album they can start off with. And fans get to listen to an alternate version of an album they already owned. Maybe they will like it more. Maybe they won’t. But at least it’s more than just additional songs dumped at the end of an album. And what doesn’t help is that some of the Brighter Days Ahead cuts are just dupes of existing songs — figuratively, but also literally in one case. It makes zero sense for Brighter Days Ahead to have an extended version of “Intro (End of the World)” in addition to the original version. The extended version should have just replaced it. Some might argue ‘Well, the extended version is the intro to the new songs’. But, no. It’s just weird. The album should not have featured two versions of the same song.

I need folk to start better curating deluxe edition releases.

Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead | Republic Records

Another reason why I think Ariana should have taken a more curative approach is that some of the new songs better fit the album than the OG ones. “Hampstead” could and should have replaced “Yes, And?”. This may seem like a strange song swap, given that the two songs could not be any more different in tone and sound. But, walk with me through this abandoned loft space for a sec. “Yes, And?” felt like a knee jerk reaction to what people had to say about how Ariana’s new relationship came to be. Whereas “Hampstead” is an account of how Ariana felt going into the relationship, mulling over the things people would say and deciding that following her heart was worth whatever doo-doo storm would come her way. People would still say the same shit about the history of her love life, the alleged infidelity and all of the mess — but “Yes, And?” felt so incendiary towards reactions about a situation which was bigger than Ariana, involved other people and deserved a bit more nuance and delicateness on her part. “Yes, And?” not only felt immature, but it felt out of step with the rest of the album, where Ariana was actually speaking from a place of empathy and treading lightly. “Hampstead” feels like a much needed reeling in of the things she said on “Yes, And?”. “Yes, And?” was Grande saying ‘So, what if I did it!? FUCK Y’ALL!’. Where-as “Hampstead” is more ‘So lemme tell you about how I ended up here and how I felt going into a situation that I knew was going to hurt people’. It’s a beautiful song. I won’t make jokes about how it’s one of the most beautiful songs about cheating I’ve heard. Because that’s all alleged. And I won’t make jokes about what the area of Hampstead is known for amongst the London cigarettes in the LGBTCRUISING+ community.

Snark, knee-jerk reactions and ‘OH BITCH, LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHING’ is also why I didn’t like “The Boy Is Mine” and “True Story”. To know that you are in the midst of a mess that you contributed to and then to say ‘I’mma toy with what the blogs are saying about me for a minute’ was a bit petulant and showed a lack of awareness. And again, it went against the other songs on the album where Ariana was (seemingly) displaying self-awareness of the situation. It’s like ‘Girl, do you want sympathy and for us to see you’re doing the work in therapy, or do you want to be seen as a catty bitch?’. She could be both. But I also think there’s a time and a place to be both and that context and situational awareness are really important. If you wanna be that girl, then be that girl. But purely from a creative perspective, the flip-flopping between sincerity and inflammatory hurt the album. I don’t care how puss the beat on “Yes, And?” is and how ‘cunty’ Ariana looked as Catwoman in a music video — these were the weakest songs on Eternal Sunshine and the album would have been better off without them. So I would have fully welcomed them being replaced with the additional songs. As much as I adore “Bye”, I woulda dropped this from Brighter Days Ahead too, because it just doesn’t fit the album. Even on Eternal Sunshine OG it felt out of place because of its sound and that no other song on the album really complimented it. It felt like a disco song because disco was in. The same way “Yes, And?” was a house song, because house was in.

Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead | Republic Records

3 out of the 5 ‘new’ songs actually shed more light on the relationship Grande went into — which explains the ‘Brighter Days Ahead’ in the album title. So much of Eternal Sunshine OG was about how Ariana felt in the thick of the relationship she knew wasn’t working and making her way out of it. But we didn’t get too many songs about her realisation of ‘Oh, this is what love is supposed to be like’ and her sitting in that. The album kinda hopped, skipped and jumped through this part. We got ‘My pussy likes you’ on “Supernatural”, ‘You still like me even with this Louis baggage, my reputation and how my shit ended?’ on “Imperfect for You” and then Ariana’s granny saying ‘Gurl, leave his ass’ in “Ordinary Things” — the latter two of which felt so short and underbaked. So it’s nice to get a few more songs which mark this period of Grande’s transition into a new love and her being in it. Having more songs about how in love Ariana is and the warmth and clarity SpongeBob brought into her life helps explain why she was so adamant to blow everything up for this guy. This is why “Warm” and “Hampstead” are standout songs for me. “Warm” in particular is great and really shoulda been a single. I’mma need Ariana to work more with Oscar Görres — he’s 2 for 2 on this album with “Supernatural” and “Warm”.

2 out of the 5 brand new songs shed more light on Ariana’s realisation that the relationship she was with Mr. Positions wasn’t working. These are honestly the weakest songs on the album, because they are retreads of what we heard Ariana say in songs like “Bye” and “Eternal Sunshine”. She doesn’t tell us anything new. Which makes me wonder when some of these ‘new’ songs were recorded. Because it really does feel like every single one of these Brighter Days Ahead songs were recorded with the Eternal Sunshine OG songs, with Ariana then picking what she thought made the best album. This conflicts with what she’s shared about how Eternal Sunshine came together. But, I just don’t believe that she only wrote and recorded 13 songs and that was the album.

Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead | Republic Records

I know it may seem odd to shit a little on an album which is basically a deluxe edition of an existing album. ‘BE GRATEFUL THAT A BITCH BOTHERED’. But Ariana has so much cachet as a figure in music and for years she’s been freer about how she puts out her music than most. She has the ability to move the needle in terms of how albums are packaged and how they are approached. And I really do think that her saying ‘Actually, d’you know what? Lemme tracklist this version of the album differently’ would have forced artists and record labels to look at deluxe editions of albums in an entirely new way. To look at them from the perspective of ‘Okay. How can we make this more than just the old album with a few new songs?’. ‘How can we make the re-release of this album a newer experience for listeners?’. And from a creative perspective, it gives artists the chance to make different choices based on them mulling over songs that didn’t make the cut that they really liked and wished were included. Or how they feel about certain songs once they’ve been out in the world for a while. George Lucas that shit. Sure, some fans may not like some of the changes and omissions, but it’s not like these editions of the albums will overwrite the existing ones, even if artists and some fans may view them as the canonical, definitive version of the album.

Another solution for Ariana could have been to have just released Brighter Days Ahead as an EP, so it felt like its own mini-story. In the streaming age of music, EPs make far more sense and are more viable as releases in North America than they once were. ‘Why bother printing and producing EPs? Just go record a few more songs and give us an album!’. Record labels don’t have to worry about this anymore, because they can just release EPs digitally. And with D2C now being the primary way that fans buy music, and physical releases effectively being like merch and collectors items — fans will buy a physical copy of an EP.

So, Ariana. Gurl. If you do another deluxe edition of an album in the future, treat it differently. Your new material will be better off for it. “Warm” and “Hampstead” deserved more than to be dumped at the end of an album. And you had a chance to revise Eternal Sunshine into something better, and you shoulda taken it.

Highlights (Brighter Days Ahead):
▪ Twilight Zone
▪ Warm 🥇
▪ Past Life
▪ Hampstead 🥈

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💿 Ariana album reviews: Yours Truly | My Everything | Sweetener | Positions | Eternal Sunshine

🎛️ Random J Ariana Grande mixes: Blazed | Yes, And?

🎛️ Random J Ariana Grande mashups: Ariana Grande x Lady Gaga | Miki Matsubara x Ariana Grande | Crystal Kay x Miki Matsubara x Ariana Grande