Brighter Days Ahead’ New Songs Ranked

Eternal Sunshine largely oscillated between straightforward dance-rooted pop and ’90s and ’00s R&B-steeped pop; “Dandelion” arrives as the deluxe edition’s first entry in the latter space. Beginning with deep, sultry brass reminiscent of the horns on “Ordinary Things,” “Dandelion” quickly transforms into a fiery amalgamation of pounding bass, shimmering synths, and a skittering trap beat that wouldn’t sound entirely out of place on thank u, next.

Ariana is always good for a sex bop (or several) on her albums, and she delivers a particularly sizzling one with “Dandelion.” She stretches the flower metaphor to its limits with lines like “I got/ What you need/ I’m thinking you should/ Plant this seed” and “Boy, come blow this/ Know I’m on your wish list.” There’s a real playfulness to her tone here — especially when she creeps into the uppermost reaches of her falsetto — that helps drive home the tongue-in-cheekiness of the whole affair.

Already a fan favorite from the standard version of the album, Ariana makes the “End of the World” a little bit sweeter with this extended cut of Eternal Sunshine’s intro. “Please pay me no mind/ While I jump into your skin and change your eyes/ So you see things through mine,” she croons, picking up where the original cut of the song ends. Sparse, sparkling keys and cloudy synths cradle the two new verses Ariana adds to the track.

If the original version of “End of the World” found Ariana questioning the merits of staying in a questionable relationship, this extended cut finds her picking up the pieces after the relationship’s demise, subtly calling back to the overarching theme of memory erasure that grounds the album’s narrative. “I broke your heart because you broke mine/ So me, I am the bad guy/ ‘Cause I’d already grieved you/ And you started to realize/ I do need you/ I wish I could un-need/ So I did,” she declares.

If the first two deluxe tracks seemed to signal anything but “brighter days,” allow “Warm” to introduce the love-after-divorce section of the record. Built around a temperature-based metaphor — “‘Cause I’m cool/ On my own/ But it’s warmer/ In your arms” — and anchored by her trademark penchant for intergalactic allusions (“If you dare/ Meet me there/ I’ll be higher than the exosphere”), “Warm” explores the promise, apprehension and anticipation of the first romantic connection after ending a relationship.

With the intro’s acoustic guitar quickly giving way to a thumping bassline, “Warm” keeps up Eternal Sunshine’s pop bona fides without veering from the simple, but quietly devastating songwriting Ariana opts for across the LP.

“Twilight Zone” immediately pumps some verve into Eternal Sunshine’s deluxe section thanks to a somber Max Martin-helmed synth-pop beat that Ariana paints over with a plaintive, wistful vocal performance.

Namechecking one of her favorite television series (The Twilight Zone), Ariana’s “Twilight Zone” is an exploration of the liminal space of performance that romantic relationships tend to exist within. She ponders warning her ex’s new girl about his manipulative ways, but ultimately stops herself because she realizes that she was also putting on a show to make their specific dynamic work. Between that point of conflict and her own inner battle with still wanting to protect a person who hurt incredibly deeply, Grande has delivered a formidable sequel to “We Can’t Be Friends” that very few saw coming.

“Why do I still protect you?/ Pretend these songs aren’t about you/ Hope this might be the last one/ ‘Cause I’m not foolin’ anyone,” she coos, playing more directly into the divorce album aesthetic than she did on most of the standard album.

Next year marks 10 years since Ariana dropped Dangerous Woman, and she’s given us a little sister to “Touch It” ahead of that anniversary.

Across dizzying strings, Ariana belts more here than she does on most of Eternal Sunshine. Those belts contrast nicely with the whispery tone she employs in the verses, making for a vocal performance that hits every peak and valley that comes with consciously choosing to walk in a new version of your life that better serves you. “Always wondered what would happen if I let you lose me/ Always wondered what would happen if I let myself need more/ Might fuck around and elevate my expectations/ Now I’m fine to leave you in a past life,” she sings in the chorus.

Though she’s singing about moving on from an older version of herself, there are glimpses of past musical Arianas across “Past Life.” Her vocal choices here are reminiscent of My Everything and production-wise, this slots right into her first three-album run. But it’s the songwriting that truly shines here; few pop stars are penning banger couplets like, “Rhythms of the night consume my body/ Just let the music confiscate my soul.”

And just like that — Ariana Grande may have just dropped the best ballad of her career so far.

Across a relatively sparse canvas of reverb-drenched piano and strings, Ariana delivers one of her most heart-breaking vocal performances ever. And it’s all the more poignant because she’s signing some of the best lyrics she’s ever written. “I’d rather be seen and alive than dying by your point of view/ I do, I do, I do, I do, I do,” she declares at the end of the chorus.

Not only does she call back to Positions’ “pov” — the closer to the album she made while dating her ex-husband — she also flips the marital promise of “I do” into a pledge to herself to never be in a situation that destructive ever again. “Hampstead,” named for the London neighborhood she lived in while filling the Wicked movies, is an extremely intimate affair; Ariana sings each line as if she’s in a room with just herself and her ex. The scattered, drowned-out applause at the end evokes an image of a dressed-down Ari belting this song out in the corner of a half-empty pub — sad imagery sure, but there’s a quiet resilience in her decision to commit these self-promises to record with the entire world as her witness.

By the end of Eternal Sunshine: Brighter Days Ahead, Ariana has seemingly internalized that the only way to overcome the neglect she felt in her relationship is to refuse to neglect the memories she’s collected along the way. Instead, she traverses through them, mining for lessons to apply to her new outlook on live and love — a fitting conclusion to a tumultuous period that began around 2018’s Sweetener and gifted us four terrific LPs.