Selena Gomez on Growing into Her Own: 'I Needed to Find a Better Place for Me'
Selena Gomez is hours away from releasing her highly anticipated album Rare, and the singer couldn’t be happier to embrace a new era of music.
While all of her new songs are deeply personal, Gomez, 27, tells PEOPLE exclusively there’s one in particular that resonates most with her now: the album’s final track, “A Sweeter Place.”
“I feel like I’ve kind of found my way a bit more. Every year I’m constantly growing, and this time I actually recognize it and appreciate it,” says Gomez, whose first single off the album, “Lose You to Love Me,” broke records. “I just want everything to be great, and I think that song represents where I’m at, which is I needed to find a better place for me.”
The entertainer — who executive produced Netflix’s Undocumented Living last year — says she channeled her emotions and personal experience into her music in a way she hasn’t before.
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“Every song on the record has some sort of emotion or conflict or there’s something going on,” she says. “I related to everything on this record very, very clearly.”
It’s been four years since Gomez released her last album, Revival, and the star says fans will be able to find all stages of her emotions — and sound — over the last several years on Rare.
“I was just almost a different person every season of writing this album. You’re hearing things that I had three years ago, and then you’re hearing things that I just wrote last week,” she says. “I wanted it to feel however it was meant to feel. There’s a strong guitar moment for ‘Cut You Off,’ and I wanted ‘Crowded Room’ to feel like a wedding song. I had my reasons for each.”
And at the end of the day, Gomez hopes Rare helps her fans feel less alone as they go through similar life experiences.
“I wanted this to be theirs. I wanted it to be however [my fans] take it,” she says. “I want them to make it their own, and of course all I would want is for people to relate to it.”
