Gomez, at 28, is in the middle of a political awakening. It was delayed, perhaps, because of ambient pressure to not alienate parts of her audience. An impossible task when you have more Instagram followers than almost every country in the world has people: When Gomez posted in protest of the abortion bans that swept the deep South in , her comment section flooded with vitriol as well as love.
Also, Gomez has been off the internet for three years—she sends photos and text to her assistant to post to Instagram and Twitter. I cried a lot during quarantine, just for the pain of everyone else. It was especially remarkable given the fact that Gomez had never voted before During election week, she was tense and terrified; she stayed up late watching the news, waiting for new batches of votes to be counted.
Gomez was born in Grand Prairie, Texas , a midsize town outside Dallas that once had a professional baseball team called the Airhogs, the kind of place where the top employers include Lockheed Martin and Walmart. Her parents were both 16 when she was born, in She was named after Selena Quintanilla, whose music both her parents loved. Her mom let her splash around in the yard during rainstorms; her dad liked to watch Friday and Bad Boys with his cherubic baby girl.
As a kid, Gomez was sensitive but fearless: A picture of her comforting another kid on the first day of pre-K made the local paper. She staged concerts in the living room and loved frilling herself up to compete in that particular Southern ritual—the beauty pageant.
She ably shielded Gomez from the ever-present financial difficulties. But I felt like we did because my mom was always doing a hundred million things just to make me happy, and we volunteered at soup kitchens on Thanksgiving; we went through my closet for Goodwill. Three years after she wrapped her run on the show, she secured the role of Alex Russo on the Disney Channel show Wizards of Waverly Place and moved to Los Angeles with her mom.
But Alexandra Margarita Russo still radiated the essential Disney-girl quality: a spunky, unselfconscious precocity and confidence. She was 15 when paparazzi began showing up on set.
Her onscreen brothers, David Henrie and Jake Austin, felt protective of her. That is a violating feeling. I ask Gomez whether she was aware of how invasive this situation was as it was happening, or if she brushed it off in the moment.
By dint of her personality, as well as the fact that she was a young woman in the spotlight, she had to be unconditionally grateful, composed, sparkling. Gomez is jet-lagged. She woke up at 4 a. The room is warm, and the afternoon is becoming opaque, and the superstar in front of me is giving off a soft, bruised quality. I find myself, as many fans and casual observers of Gomez have found themselves, wanting to protect her, to make her happy, to cheer her up.
Gomez is so invested in preserving a sense of normalcy that she swallows, in most moments, the strange side effects of having been on camera for two-thirds of her life. The confidence came first; then came the confidence to let it drop. In between, though, there was a non-negligible amount of chaos.
At 18, when she was still filming Wizards, Gomez entered a serious relationship with a teen heartthrob, an entanglement whose off-and-on ups-and-downs were dissected constantly and voraciously until it ended in Before you ask, don't worry, Selena Gomez can sing — but here's why she didn't perform her best.
But taking the stage for the first time in two years — especially on live television and at an award show like the AMAs, Selena was understandably nervous. A source close to the fan revealed that just before the set, she suffered a panic attack — which attributed to her off-key performance. She really wanted to deliver. The source said the panic attack happened "at the last minute," which threw her off right before she went on stage. Despite the panic attack that off-set her performance, Selena was able to recover enough to enjoy the rest of her night.
She could be seen in the crowd enjoying the rest of the night. All of this is for you and because of you. Excited for this chapter. The Petra Collins-directed music video was the perfect combination of cheeky and sinister. With "Bad Liar," Gomez's "transformation into an alt-pop provocateur was complete. It sees Gomez both alluring and eerie, batting her eyelashes while she sneers. The song is further strengthened by its spectral, unhinged aesthetics — as if Gomez was born to writhe around on her kitchen floor and stick her tongue in an eyelash curler.
The "Virgin Suicides" vibe suits her so well. We've come to expect former child stars, especially those in the music industry, to assert maturity by embracing sexuality — but Gomez subverts that tradition by giving hers the hint of a horror movie or Shakespearean tragedy. But Gomez doesn't simply weaponize her sexuality and confidence like many pop stars of yore; armed with Max Martin's twinkling production, "Hands to Myself" is a winking power play that makes seduction look fun and effortless.
Gomez can't belt the high notes like many of her peers, but "Hands to Myself" illustrates how her feathery swoons and breathy whispers can be just as effective. And after she spends two minutes making her lover feel like he's in control, toying with his sense of pride, her contradictory admission "I mean I could, but why would I want to?
This is also Gomez's own favorite song on "Revival" and the noted favorite of Taylor Swift , Gomez's best friend and our generation's preeminent singer-songwriter.
Gomez has historically had trouble making non-irritating dance anthems. Much of her early discography was populated by excessive EDM-flavored songs, most of which felt like sequined outfits she was handed to try on. In recent years, she has triumphed when she ignores that urge and bucks radio trends. Gomez broke that tradition with "Dance Again," a song explicitly designed to make you want to shimmy and groove, and it does exactly that — not just effectively, but irresistibly.
If you don't find yourself at least bopping your head to that sparkling 70s bass line in the chorus, you're probably not much fun at parties. It's a deliriously pleasant listening experience, to be sure, but perhaps the song's greatest triumph is how it feels like an honest reflection of Gomez's soul — that swirling, starry-eyed ether that has made her one of our most relatable and endearing celebrities.
It's difficult to translate that kind of magic into music, and yet she accomplished it in three minutes and 12 seconds. Gomez delivers a slightly bratty, slightly pained variety of attitude on this post-breakup bop — clearly taking cues from experimental-pop darling Charli XCX, a cowriter and background vocalist on the song.
That "Same Old Love" doesn't blend into "Revival's" track list is a good thing. It proves how she can bend different genres to her will, how malleable her voice can be, and how she's willing to abandon molds and expectations to follow her many-hued artistic instincts. It ain't me. Gomez lends a sense of authenticity to Kygo's formulaic folk-pop production.
Her imperfect voice is actually a strength here: It strains and crackles, lilts and soars, beautifully contrasting the glossy dance floor bait and making you believe every word of her righteous indignation. As Sal Cinquemani noted for Slant magazine , Gomez is at her best on "Revival" when she reinterprets well-worn pop music tropes with sincerity and self-awareness — that is, an awareness that no human experience is straightforward or correct, that every emotion has layers and grooves.
That strength is illustrated on "Perfect," a song that Gomez described as so deeply personal that she almost left it off the album entirely. As highlighted in its eclectic karaoke-themed music video , it revels in its own Eurodisco weirdness.
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