Sabrina Carpenter- Short n’ Sweet
Label: Island
Producers: Jack Antonoff, Ian Kirkpatrick, John Ryan, Julian Bunetta
As Sabrina Carpenter rolls out her sixth studio release, and her second since obtaining creative control over her music with 2022’s Emails I Can’t Send, she finds herself on the precipice of complete pop domination. This development may seem rather sudden on the surface in the aftermath of her stint as Taylor Swift’s opening act on the international leg of the iconic Eras tour, however Carpenter has slowly been baking her royal pop bonafides for nearly a decade, dating back to her days as a Disney teen star. As a result, Short n’ Sweet finds an artist who is already impressively fully-formed (mostly) in spite of the tenderness of both her age and her mainstream profile. The massive success of smash songs “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” have firmly established Carpenter in the same camp as pop-breakouts like Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan as 2020s-era heirs to Swift’s queendom. With a sparkly synth-laden sound and a lyrical prose that combines a lyrical bite with folk-leaning poetry, all while hiding behind a sickeningly sweet voice, she definitely stands out as the icon’s most direct descendent. Bops like the aforementioned singles, as well as other irresistible moments like “Juno”, “Taste”, and “Good Graces” are as infectious as Swift’s biggest earworms, while also resembling many of Kylie Minogue’s latter-day, definitive dance moments. Late-era Minogue or Miley Cyrus may actually prove to be one of the larger influences detected in the record, with Carpenter proving on numbers like “Sharpest Tool”, “Coincidence” and especially “Bed Chem” that she’s unafraid to push the overt sexuality of her lyrics further than many of the aforementioned pop darlings. This direct brashness of Carpenter’s pen and those of her collaborators definitely proves to be the tasty ingredient that sets her apart and gives her a distinct identity that rises above this sea of comparisons. Truth be told, one wishes that the record took some bigger swings sonically, as it can get somewhat stuck in a monotonous sea of faceless synth by the mid-point, lacking the color that Rodrigo’s punk-leanings of Roan’s drag aesthetics add to their respective recordings. Such a pivot arrives late in the album with tracks like “Dumb and Poetic”, and especially “Slim Pickins”, when Carpenter makes a surprising country left-turn. These moments could have easily been at home in Kacey Musgraves’ first two album eras, and Carpenter sounds remarkably natural in this setting, suggesting another intriguing avenue for her to dive into deeper in the future. Packing a dozen solid, hit-worthy songs into an efficient thirty-six minutes, Short ‘n Sweet lives up to its title, which also makes the outing feel rather refreshing in this streaming-defined era that loves to inundate us with double or triple albums, which can feel exhaustive at times, no matter how prolific or excellent the record may be. (Though, there is undoubtedly a trendy expanded edition, probably titled Not So…Short ‘n Sweet in our immediate future.) All in all, this is an effortlessly contagious and durably entertaining release that should satisfy one’s appetite for catchy pop bops with a bite as potent as their bark. The occasional shortfalls do not ultimately detract from the overall enjoyment of the project, but rather serve as exciting growth opportunities for a young artist who has already demonstrated a confidence and assured artistry well beyond her twenty-five years.
Track Listing:
- “Taste” (Sabrina Carpenter, Julia Michaels, Amy Allen, John Ryan, Ian Kirkpatrick)
- “Please Please Please” (Carpenter, Allen, Jack Antonoff)
- “Good Graces” (Carpenter, Michaels, Allen, Ryan, Julian Bunetta)
- “Sharpest Tool” (Carpenter, Allen, Antonoff)
- “Coincidence” (Carpenter, Michaels, Allen, Ryan, Kirkpatrick)
- “Bed Chem” (Carpenter, Michaels, Allen, Ryan, Kirkpatrick)
- “Espresso” (Carpenter, Allen, Bunetta, Steph Jones)
- “Dumb & Poetic” (Carpenter, Michaels, Allen, Ryan)
- “Slim Pickins” (Carpenter, Allen, Antonoff)
- “Juno” (Carpenter, Allen, Ryan)
- “Lie to Girls” (Carpenter, Allen, Antonoff)
- “Don’t Smile” (Carpenter, Allen, Jones, Ryan, Bunetta)
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