I Said I Love You First (2025)

I Said I Love You First is a collaborative studio album by American singer Selena Gomez and American record producer Benny Blanco. Following their respective studio albums Rare (2020) and Friends Keep Secrets (2018), it was released on March 21, 2025, through SMG Music, Friends Keep Secrets, and Interscope Records. The album features guest appearances from Gracie Abrams, the Marías, Tainy, and J Balvin, with additional contributions from Charli XCX and Finneas.

I Said I Love You First achieved the biggest first-week album sales for Gomez and Blanco's careers in the United States, debuting at number-two on the Billboard 200. It became the first album by a real-life couple to top the Vinyl Albums chart in history. Internationally, the album has charted within the top-10 in 15 counties. The album further received generally favorable reviews from critics; Rolling Stone named it as one of the best albums of 2025. The track "Bluest Flame" received a nomination for Best Dance Pop Recording at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards.

Background

The first time Gomez and Blanco collaborated in the studio was for the former's second solo studio album, Revival. For the album, Blanco has production credits on the singles "Kill Em with Kindness" and "Same Old Love". The pair then returned to the studio to record the collaborative single "I Can't Get Enough" with Tainy and J Balvin, which was released in February 2019. Later, Blanco also participated in the creation of Gomez's standalone single "Single Soon", which was released in August 2023.

In December 2023, Gomez officially confirmed her relationship with Blanco, and in December 2024, the couple officially announced their engagement. In October 2024, Gomez stated that she had no date in mind for her next album's release, telling Variety "I currently don't have anything, but I will say music is going to always be a part of me," and, "I don't think any movements are happening right now, but it will always be in my life." Gomez later affirmed "Music isn't going away," and "I just set it down for a second." On January 17, 2025, Blanco shared a short clip on TikTok responding to a fan who wrote him, "Benny please make some new songs for our queen."

The clip showed Gomez recording music in her home studio. Then on January 23, 2025, Gomez shared a video on her social media while working on new music in her home recording studio. After a number of speculations, on February 13, Gomez announced the release of the album on March 21 and released a surprise promotional single "Scared of Loving You" for Valentine's Day. Many different signed, regular and limited CD, LP and 12-inch vinyls of the album were available for pre-order, along with pre-saving on streaming platforms.

Release and composition

Gomez announced her engagement to Blanco on December 11, 2024. Two months later, she revealed they worked on a collaborative studio album, writing in an Instagram post: "my NEW album I Said I Love You First with my best friend @itsbennyblanco, is out on 3/21". According to a press release, the album will celebrate "the pair's love story" and "chronicles their entire story—before they met, falling in love and looking to what the future holds".

I Said I Love You First is a pop, alt-pop, and bedroom pop album that also includes elements of synth-pop, pop rock, folk-pop, Latin pop and hyperpop. It follows a narrative starting with the end of a failed relationship to the meeting between Gomez and Blanco to "the couple's present-day happiness". Its first track is a voice recording of a speech given by Gomez to the cast and crew of Wizards of Waverly Place.

As part of the album's extended rollout, Gomez made the previously unreleased 2016 track "Stained", available for digital download via her official website on March 22, 2025. Two days later, on March 24, a new special track titled "Talk" was released as a digital exclusive; the song had previously been featured in an Apple commercial to promote the iPhone 16e and interpolates Cake's "Never There". Gomez released the Seven Heavens Version of the album for digital download on March 25, featuring the song "That's When I'll Care". The following day, she released the Call Me When You Break Up Special Edition, which included the acoustic and extended versions of "Call Me When You Break Up". She further released two digital limited editions, with live from Vevo recordings of "Scared of Loving You" and "How Does It Feel to Be Forgotten" included respectively. On April 30, she announced the deluxe version of the album, titled I Said I Love You First... and You Said It Back, to be released on May 2.