As Selena Gomez drops her latest album “Rare” into the world, fans should not expect to see any sexual music videos accompanying any additional single releases.
According to the “Lose You to Love Me” singer, she’s ready to close the door on that chapter of her career, last exemplified by the sexually-charged video for “Hands to Myself.” In that video, Selena dances around in a pair of waist-high panties and a bra, while also rolling around provocatively on a bed.
At her iHeartRadio album release party, Selena was surprised when that music video was played. She later told KIIS FM’s JoJo Wright that seeing it made her feel really embarrassed because her six-year-old half sister Gracie was in attendance at the event.
“I told my sister I will not be doing videos like that anymore,” Selena told Wright, per MTV. “It’s not really necessary, in my opinion.”
Instead, she wants to keep the focus firmly on her music. Her back-to-back single releases preceding the launch of “Rare” certainly skipped sensuality for making a bold statement in another way.
“Lose You to Love Me” was a stark, black-and-white vision with imagery focused almost exclusively on Selena’s face as she expresses the emotional turmoil of letting go of a bad relationship in order to truly find and embrace her true self. There was heartache in the imagery, but also something so powerful in its simplicity.
Then, she followed it up with “Look at Her Now,” with an accompanying video filled with joyful dance and bright colors. This is the woman who emerged from the previous video, strong and empowered and so much more sure of herself than perhaps ever before.
In a way, that’s what the journey of this album is for Selena, with many speculating that many of its songs are about her relationship and subsequent breakup with Justin Bieber, who proceeded to marry Hailey Baldwin.
“We wrote ‘Lose You to Love Me’ in the beginning of the year, early, and that happened very quickly,” Selena told iHeartRadio back in November. “I think emotions were high, but also settling at the same time, so I had enough strength to process it. And within maybe an hour, we wrote the song.”
“And then ‘Look at Her Now’ we did in the summer, and that was just for fun,” she continued. “I actually didn’t know if that was gonna go anywhere. But, it was also just that moment where I genuinely felt it.”
“I sound like such a nerd, but I cannot wait for this to come out,” Gomez said of the album. “It’s about vulnerability, it’s about strength, having fun, not letting yourself stay in a dark place, ’cause I tend to do that a lot … I’ve gotten better over time [at] understanding that it’s okay to feel it, but actually staying in it and pulling yourself back up again is one of the most rewarding processes.”
“Rare” is already receiving rave reviews from critics and fans on its first day of release. So it looks like Selena may be right, “it’s really not necessary” to be “overtly sexual” in order to make and sell great music.
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