Selena Gomez drops unreleased track ‘Stained’ from nine years ago

24 March, 2025

Selena Gomez has shared a long-teased track dating back to 2016, titled ‘Stained’ – find out more below.

Back in 2016, following the release of her solo album ‘Revival’ the year prior, Selena Gomez shared a snippet of the song ‘Strained’ for fans to check out. Produced by Benny Blanco – who last year got engaged to the singer – the song never got an official release, but was leaked online.

Since then, fans have been clamouring for ‘Strained’ to receive a proper release. Over the weekend, Gomez took to social media to announce that the track is indeed now available, though only through her official website. It is available as a bonus track for her new album ‘I Said I Love You First’ with Benny Blanco, with the whole package costing USD$5 as a digital download – purchase it here.

Gomez wrote of her decision to release ‘Stained’ so long after first teasing it: “Eight years later and you guys never forgot about this song 🖤 Your love for Stained has never gone away and I wanted to do something special to say thank you for all the love and support on the album.”

Besides ‘Stained’ as a bonus track, Selena Gomez has also announced a new edition of her joint album with fiancé Benny Blanco, which arrived last weekend (March 21). Titled ‘I Said I Love You First – Explained: Narrated by Selena Gomez’, it sees Gomez explain each song’s origin and process through accompanying tracks.

She wrote of the ‘Narrated’ version: “benny and I made so many amazing memories throughout the process of creating our new album. I wanted to let you guys in on some of those stories and the making of these songs.”

‘I Said I Love You First’ chronicles the couple’s “love story” – they worked together on several of her hit songs dating back to 2015’s ‘Same Old Love’. The pair confirmed their romantic relationship in December 2023, with Gomez confirming that she had been seeing the producer for about six months. They announced their engagement in December 2024.

The new record follows Gomez confessing to fellow actor Saoirse Ronan that while she thinks she’s “a little too old for the pop star life” now, she’ll “always have music in my life because my partner’s a musician, and I love having moments to do it for fun.”

Prior to that, she said that her music career “isn’t going away”, but that she’d like to focus on acting as she gets to hold on to her “sanity” as acting would allow her to tell other people’s stories rather than her own through music.

Previously speaking to NME‘s Alex Flood to promote her latest film Emilia Perez with Zoe Saldaña, she was asked for an update on new music as her last album, ‘Rare‘, had arrived back in 2020. When asked about a new album, Gomez replied: “Well, if I had one, I would love to talk about it. I think right now it’s been really nice focusing on this side of the playing field. We’ll see, you never know.” – read NME‘s full chat with Gomez and Saldaña here.

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