selena gomez

interview 4

The singer tells TIME about getting personal on her new album, finding her voice and FaceTiming with super-producer Max Martin

Selena Gomez is making some big changes. When her new album Revival, led by the thumping A$AP Rocky collaboration  "good for you", arrives on Oct. 9, it will be her first full-length release outside of the Disney-owned Hollywood Records, where she first recorded as a teenager. Her mother is no longer her manager as of last year. Gomez has also stepped in the role of executive producer for the album, taking on unprecedented levels of creative control and wracking up more songwriting credits than ever. There aren't that many 23-year-olds singing about getting a second act the way Gomez does on Revival, but not many 23-year-olds have watched their personal lives and relationships becoming tabloid fodder the way Gomez has.

"It's not necessarily me being like, 'Hey, I figured life out and I'm amazing!'" Gomez says of the record's title. "It's more like, I had so much scrutiny and had so much of my life exposed. I never intended my life to be that. I just wanted to be heard."

TIME: This album shows off sides of your voice we haven't really heard before: the raspier side, the lower side, the quieter side. It suits you. Tell me about finding your voice on this album—not just figuratively, but literally.

Selena Gomez: I had to really discover what was going to work for me because there were times in my career where I sang things that just weren't me and weren't for me. You can hear it in my voice. You can hear it when it's inauthentic. This whole record is extremely intimate. I did executive produce it. I wanted to know that every single song meant the world to me, whether I wrote it or not. For me, I had to discover what was going to separate me. I know that I'm not the world's greatest singer, but I do know that I have a unique tone. And I'm an actress—I love being able to translate everything I'm feeling inside through my voice and through the songs.

You do have some straightforward dance tracks on this album, like "Kill 'Em With Kindness," but most of what I've heard has actually shied away from the big, stomping club-bangers happening in pop right now. Why did you go in a slower, more mid-tempo direction?

I am a pop artist, but that was something I was so aware of. The track is important, but I needed the lyrics to be more important, and that was something I told every producer. I was talking about it to Rock Mafia, who helped create "Revival" and "Kill 'Em With Kindness." The messages were really important. "Good For You" wasn't even supposed to be the first single, but I didn't want the obvious, huge song. I wanted to set the tone. That's what the next phase of my life and career is going to be. I was like, "How about we just put 'Good For You' out first?" We didn't know it was going to do that well. We thought it was going to be well received, but it's been insane to see how supportive people have been with the new direction.

Your personal life attracts a lot of tabloid attention. Is it liberating to open up as you did on "The Heart Wants What It Wants" or do you ever think about censoring yourself, knowing the scrutiny it'll invite?

No, and it was such a relief for me. It would be so unrealistic for me to be in pain and then release a song where I'm like, "Life is awesome and this is great!" "The Heart Wants What It Wants," and even the music video, was therapeutic. I felt free. I felt like a huge weight was lifted off of me. That's basically what pushed me to create Revival. It was a feeling where I was like, "This is what great music is. It's sharing your story." I can't care anymore that people are going to twist my words or talk about it. Everybody said every single thing they could say about me. I can't let that affect me from making the music I want to make, even if it is personal.