Selena Gomez says her new music is 'very pop' even though she just wants to 'write ballads my whole life'
- Selena Gomez teased new music in a recent interview with Vanity Fair.
- "It's really powerful, strong, very pop," she said. "The theme generally is freedom."
Selena Gomez teased new music in a recent interview with Vanity Fair for the magazine's annual Hollywood issue.
The "Only Murders in the Building" star said she's been working on music that tackles "real things that I'm walking through."
"It's really powerful, strong, very pop," she said. "The theme generally is freedom — freedom from relationships, freedom from the darkness."
Gomez also admitted she'd prefer to work on slower, denser material, but she's prioritizing the happiness of her fans.
"If I had my way, I would probably write ballads my whole life, but I want to produce music that will make people smile," she said.
Gomez previously said she was leaning towards retiring from music because she didn't feel taken seriously. She later clarified the comment in an interview with USA Today, claiming she "said it wrong."
"The idea of retirement for me isn't that I would leave forever, it is that I do see myself taking a significant break from music," she said. "Not personally — I think I'll always be creating and doing music and hopefully maybe even do some side projects with people. I just want to maybe take a step back, but I'm not doing that anytime soon."
Gomez last released "Revelación" in 2021, a collection of six songs recorded predominantly in Spanish, for which she earned her first-ever Grammy nomination (for best Latin pop performance).
The 30-year-old multihyphenate hasn't released a full-length project since "Rare," which landed on Insider's list of the best female-fronted albums of 2020.
The album's lead single, the heartfelt breakup ballad "Lose You to Love Me," became Gomez's first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and was roundly praised by critics and fans alike.
In her Apple TV+ documentary "My Mind & Me," Gomez said it was "the fastest song I've ever written."
"We wrote the song in 45 minutes," Gomez said. "It's about more than just a lost love. It's me learning to choose myself, to choose life, but also hoping that people can find grace and peace in that, too. The song is about knowing that you completely lost every part of who you are, just to rediscover yourself again."
It's widely assumed that "Lose You to Love Me" was inspired by Gomez's on-and-off ex Justin Bieber, who had gotten married to Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin) a year before the single was released.
"Everything was so public. I felt haunted by a past relationship that no one wanted to let go of," Gomez said. "But then I just moved past it. And I wasn't afraid anymore."