Selena Gomez and Lady Gaga are among the A-list singers who have recently promoted new albums by highlighting the contributions of their partners.
If Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco want you to take away one thing from their new album, it’s not that they can make a great song — it’s that they’re madly in love.
The couple unveiled «I Said I Love You First» on Friday, just over three months after Gomez announced their engagement. The 14-track collaborative album isn’t especially profound; it’s mostly comprised of nondescript pop arrangements that evoke better songs from Gomez’s past, like «Good for You» and «Fetish», or better albums by other artists, like The Marías’ «Submarine» and Charli XCX’s «Brat.»
But it seems that for Gomez and Blanco, the fact that they made the album together at all is just as important as how it sounds, if not more so.
«She’d wake up, I’d have a pen out, and I’d write what was on her mind. Then we’d go into the other room and create it, and it became a song. It was such a cathartic and therapeutic experience», Blanco told Rolling Stone.
Indeed, the rollout has been predominantly devoted to celebrating the couple’s domestic bliss, their positive experience working as collaborators, and their respect for each other’s talents. The album mostly functions as a souvenir of their journey thus far.
What Gomez and Blanco are doing isn’t exactly new; musicians have collaborated with their romantic partners throughout history, especially when their partners are fellow musicians. However, the public-facing emphasis on their real-life romantic connection, rather than letting their creative synergy speak for itself, does belong to an emerging trend among pop stars — a pronounced streak of pride in their thriving love lives.
