All roads lead to March 8 for Ariana Grande.
For, the songbird will hatch her new studio album ‘eternal sunshine’ on said date.
Hitting the promotional trail, the chart-topper’s latest stop was the Zach Sang Show on the Amazon Music Channel on Twitch.
In the first part of the lengthy sit-down, the ‘yes, and?’ singer opened up in earnest about the process of putting together the LP – one she says wasn’t in the plan to release for a few years.
Watch below, where quotes also await…
On unexpectedly making an album:
“I did not plan to. I didn’t have the goal to make an album. I actually was really opposed to coming out with music until after Wicked. I wasn’t sure how it would feel. But as soon as the strike began, I came to New York just for fun to see how it would feel. Max Martin came to spend a week with me at Jungle City Studios and it all just kind of started pouring out. After our first week together, I kept coming to the studio everyday by myself and it kept organically happening that way so I just decided to react and listen to that. And I thought, ‘maybe it should come out’ if it’s coming out of me this way. Maybe it should be shared this way?’”
On her relationship with music changing after taking time out and working on Wicked (playing Glinda):
“My relationship to music changed and healed a lot through taking space from it. I think I learned so much from Glinda, and through Glinda I healed a lot of parts of myself, alongside and through her. It actually helped me heal a lot of my own personal, weird stuff that I had with my relationship to music and being an artist, and to that persona… and I was able to come home and address it, sit with it and change the things that weren’t working, and fall in love with it again. It all happened absolutely how it was meant to be.”
On taking time for ‘Human Ari’ rather than her Pop star persona:
“That’s the beautiful thing that has been happening in life recently. I think for so long 90% of the time I was ‘Pop Star Ari’, and I had a hard time separating or acknowledging how much more important ‘Human Ari’ is. And how much better I can be as ‘Pop Star Ari’ once I nurture ‘Human Ari’. And it’s nice because now I feel like 99% of the time I am ‘Human Ari’ and even when I am writing, performing and singing, I am still her. And that is very interesting.”
On being nervous about releasing new music:
“I think I’m the most nervous person on the earth. I am because I care so much and I wear my heart outside of my body. I love what I do so much, but I also think I am better at being a human than being an artist. I don’t have that robotic, tough cookie exterior… I am a Cancer, I am a person that is very sensitive. I also think if I’m not doing something that makes me nervous or scared, or feel that anticipatory excitement in a positive way… then maybe it’s not elevating my art, maybe it’s not there yet, maybe it’s not good enough. I think it’s a healthy thing, nerves.
I’m so nervous. Because pieces of [the album] touch on things that are real, and then pieces of it are part of a concept. So what is that separation? I’m scared to leave it up to people to decipher – it’s scary. Too late, the vinyls have been printed!”
On the album ‘eternal sunshine’:
“It’s incredibly human but it’s also touching on Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, so it’s kind of a concept album, which I haven’t done before. And that’s also why I don’t want to put out a second single before the album because I would like for it to be heard in one piece.”
On the writing process:
“I definitely did several passes at all of the songs just to kind of be protective, because I wrote some of them when I was very emotional. And then there are bops that are more fun. Actually, even some of the bops I cried writing.
The thing that was beautiful about it was, when I was writing, it was with no intention for the world to hear it. It was ‘let’s just go and see what comes out’ and then when I was done, I remembered that people will hear it and how sometimes people can sensationalise things and assign meaning to certain things. I wanted to make sure that it was what I intended, which, even at my most heart broken or pained moments of the past few years, there was so much kindness, there was so much love, there was so much honesty, transparency and respect. So even at the hardest moments of the loss and the grief that you hear on some of the album, there was so much love and transparency. That was something that I really wanted to make sure was captured.
It wasn’t like a ‘f*ck you’ at all, ever. Even, like, Track 2 [‘bye’], I tried to make sure it was kind and giving credit for trying and for the goodness that there was. So that was a tricky balance for me because I definitely had some sessions where I was writing more emotionally and reactively, but that’s also very human, so I didn’t want to erase all of it.
If we’re making it sound like hell, it’s not! [The album] is very boppy. It’s so fun sounding and feeling, but the emotional context is like, ‘woah’.
I think it’s my favourite album as well… I’m sure it is actually.”