GOMEZ. Eventful journey.
There are many tabloid-fodder issues that keep Selena Gomez “trendingly” newsworthy—her on-and-off-again romance with Justin Bieber, partying with BFF Taylor Swift, feuding with ex gal pal Demi Lovato, firing her own mom as her manager, her troubling trip to rehab, getting treated for lupus, her mentoring stint on “The Voice”—etc.!
Indeed, it’s been a long and eventful journey for the former child actress who began her career dancing and prancing with the purple dinosaur on “Barney & Friends.”
Fortuitously, Gomez gets a well-deserved break from all those distractions with the release of her second solo album, “Revival,” a musical confessional that allows the 23-year-old former Disney star to reconfigure her career with unabashedly pop tunes that breach her heretofore impenetrable wall—and help her get her act together!
Selena’s latest collection, which is expected to take the No. 1 spot from Janet Jackson’s “Unbreakable” on the Billboard 200 next week, scintillates with its confidently rendered tunes that incorporate her heartfelt musings about love, sex (the relentlessly unshakeable “Me and the Rhythm” and the galloping, Mexican-flavored “Body Heat,”), heartbreak and recovery with inventive, EDM-garnished arrangements.
As compelling as the music that frames them, the repertoire’s intimate themes coalesce into coherent confessions made more pertinent by the familiar stories that drive them—it isn’t rocket science figuring out whom she’s singing about:
In “Same Old Love” (with a cameo from Charli XCX), Gomez has had enough of her misbehaving lover: “Take away your things and go/ You can’t take back what you said/ You left in peace, (but) left me in pieces!”
The “culprit” in question is often more naughty than nice—but, when he’s on his best behavior, Selena will do whatever it takes to please him (Max Martin finger-snapping number, “Hands To Myself,” and “Good For You,” the No. 1 carrier single, featuring Asap Rocky).
The songstress’ bittersweet realization in the stirring ballad, “Camouflage,” is about the passionate but fleeting nature of young love.
In “Sober,” her paramour pulls “me closer, saying all the right things you’re supposed to/ But, you don’t know how to love me when you’re sober!” Ouch.
Elsewhere, Selena sings about believing in yourself (the rousing “Rise”), turning the other cheek while overcoming obstacles (“Kill ‘Em With Kindness”) and, in the title track, finally coming into her own and acknowledging the struggle to keep her personal demons at bay!