In Michel Gondry’s sturdy 2004 sci-fi romcom “Everlasting Sunshine of the Spotless Thoughts,” Jim Carrey performs Joel Barish, a shaggy, heartsick man who undergoes a medical process that guarantees to evict each reminiscence of an ex-girlfriend from the inside of his cranium. “Is there any danger of mind harm?” Joel asks the physician earlier than the large deletion, rightfully anxious about sustaining his tether to actuality. “Nicely, technically talking,” the physician replies, “the process is mind harm.”Listening to pop music in 2024 can really feel the identical method. Within the streaming age, we stay overwhelmed by selection, ceaselessly making the simplest types of engagement really feel one thing like give up. Perhaps that is why superfans now unflinchingly discuss with their favourite singers as “mom” whereas concurrently imagining them as their hero, or their queen, and even some form of god. Right here’s the sophisticated half we’re all purported to neglect: Pop superstars are simply individuals, worthy of grace, but in addition wealthy individuals, worthy of scrutiny. In an more and more unequal world, capitalism’s bunk promise of infinite development flows via right this moment’s pop like a polluted river, and as we proceed to cheer our hyper-wealthiest megastars to even increased tax brackets, mind harm begins to really feel like the purpose.Sharp. Witty. Considerate. Join the Model Memo e-newsletter.Now right here comes Ariana Grande with a captivating new album that desires to squeeze your mind with a stealth you may not even really feel. She titled it “Everlasting Sunshine,” which, in nodding to Gondry’s movie, frames the entire thing as a form of either-or puzzle. Sure, Grande’s latest romantic turbulence has been completely mulched into clickable heaps of digital gossip, however not like together with her signature, names-naming 2019 breakup anthem, “Thank U, Subsequent,” she’s chosen to maintain the lyrics obscure in these new songs, utilizing the consummate plushness of her voice to obscure the small print of a bruised-up coronary heart. Has our hero undergone the reminiscence wipe she’s speaking about on the title monitor? Or is she conducting the process on us?Strap your self in and we’ll begin with the stuff Grande needs us to recollect. While you hear her falsetto hydroplane throughout the beat of “The Boy Is Mine,” you’ll keep in mind Brandy and Monica singing those self same phrases again in 1998. While you hear Grande cooing alongside to the disco gallop of “We Can’t Be Pals (Await Your Love),” you’ll recall dancing by yourself to Robyn’s “Dancing on My Personal” in 2010. While you hear the pleasant, pop-house thump of “Sure, And?,” you’ll flash again to the indelible frisson of Madonna’s “Vogue” circa 1990 (and while you see Grande’s music video, you’ll keep in mind its inspiration, Paula Abdul’s “Chilly Hearted,” from one yr earlier). For those who test the credit, you’ll preserve seeing Max Martin, which suggests you’ll keep in mind the slew of millennial megahits that Swedish songwriting colossus helped pen for Britney Spears, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and others.These all qualify as low-hanging influences, however Grande sings via them in ways in which make time go blurry, the softest edges of her voice giving all the things on “Everlasting Sunshine” both a pillowy softness or a bath heat. This music is supremely inviting, with melodies that observe the final contours of R&B, however with none agony, no messy human catharsis to scrub up afterward. As an alternative, Grande’s tidy vocal staccato is the musical mechanism most value being attentive to — a superbly breathy phrasing tactic that evokes the tapping of brakes. It’s like Grande is repeatedly asking us to cease and situate ourselves in the proper now, and even higher, to savor it. Through the knowledgeable hook of “The Boy Is Mine,” take heed to how she inserts tiny dashes of silence between these phrases: “Watch me take my time.” It’s like she’s creating time.And if being right here now’s how Grande needs to neglect the previous, “Everlasting Sunshine” makes good on its conceit. She’s firmed up the road between individual and persona whereas smudging the road between the music and the listener. There’s no headache to be felt, except you wish to bang your head on this album’s latent paradox: When music feels this straightforward to get into, it’s simply as straightforward to get out of. Each beat feels frictionless, each melody feels clean, each reference feels deeply acquainted, and when it’s throughout, you may not keep in mind any of it in any respect.