Ariana Grande is the only artist I’ve become a “fan” of as an adult. Quoted, because I’m not really a hardcore fan of any artist and I’m open to disappointment. Morrissey played a big part in me having this mindset. Hopefully, the other two artists I’ve been a fan of since I was a teenager, Kylie Minogue and Madonna, don’t end up supporting right-wing parties on national television like he did.

In Ariana, besides her musical talent, I appreciate gestures like when she wrote an Instagram post on Halloween 2020 encouraging her fans to put on a costume, take a picture, and stay home like she did. Many others, including my celebrity crush The Weeknd, didn’t resist the need to celebrate it with other people in the middle of a pandemic, and went to parties full of non-masked celebrities and masked waiters.

Ariana’s eternal sunshine has been my comfort album this past year. It’s full of feminine energy. Her voice sounds better than ever and her enunciation on this album is perfect, probably due to training for the musical movie Wicked around the same time she recorded it. My Spanish ears can understand everything without checking the lyrics this time. All the tracks have an Adult Contemporary Chart feeling, with R&B and soft dance music.

It has been re-released this weekend under the name eternal sunshine deluxe: brighter days ahead, including 6 new songs. This album was already a safe place for me to go on bad days, and the “better days ahead” title puts an emphasis on it. I was happy to see the new tracks are not live versions or remixes, except for an extended version of the intro. They’re completely new songs, worth being included, and they add so much to the album.