New LP features appearances from the Marías, J Balvin, and GloRilla
Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco would like to tell you about their love story via song. On Friday, the singer-producer couple released their anticipated first collaborative album, I Said I Love You First.
The 14-track LP features collaborations with Gracie Abrams on single “Call Me When You Break Up” and Latin superstars Tainy and J Balvin on “I Can’t Get Enough.” Maria Zardoya of the Marías also lends background vocals on “Ojos Tristes,” which interpolates the Eighties Spanish star Jeanette’s “El Muchacho de Los Ojos Tristes.”
While co-produced and written by Gomez and Blanco, producers Finneas, Cashmere Cat, and Blake Slatkin also make appearances on the project, while GloRilla makes a surprise appearance on “Cowboy” and joins in for a spoken outro. The pair led the LP with the Abrams collab and “Sunset Blvd,” a song inspired by their first date, as singles.
Gomez and Blanco spoke to Rolling Stone earlier this week to discuss the new album with Gomez saying that this was “the most intimate” she’s ever felt in the studio.
“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 said. “All the songwriting, it’s all our friends… We also kept this one really close to the chest, because I feel like it was so important for it to be written exactly how we wanted it and to feel exactly how we wanted it to feel.”
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The pair also stopped by Hot Ones this week and shared how the music allowed them to open up. “I was able to tell him things that I don’t think I would in another relationship, because he was also to me like the conductor of this record,” Gomez said. “I felt like I could tell him things that maybe I was feeling insecure about that I wouldn’t feel like I could open up to any other producer that way — let alone a partner.”
The album is Gomez’s first full-length release since her 2021 Spanish EP, Revelación, which featured Rauw Alejandro and Myke Towers. That year, Blanco also dropped his project Friends Keep Secrets 2.
