After Sabrina Carpenter’s summer takeover with “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” the anticipation for Short ‘n Sweet was at an all-time high. On her sixth album, the pop singer keeps the surprises coming as she delivers a masterclass in clever songwriting and hops between R&B and folk-pop with ease. Carpenter writes about the frustration of modern-day romance, all the while cementing herself as a pop classic. Here’s everything we gathered from the new project.
Please Please Please Don’t Underestimate Her Humor
Carpenter gave us a glimpse of her humor on singles “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” — she’s working late because she’s a singer; ceiling fans are a pretty great invention! But no one could have guessed how downright hilarious she is on Short n’ Sweet, delivering sugary quips like “The Lord forgot my gay awakenin’” (“Slim Pickins”) and “How’s the weather in your mother’s basement?” (“Needless to Say”). She’s also adorably nerdy, fretting about grammar (“This boy doesn’t even know/The difference between ‘there,’ ‘their’ and ‘they are!’”) and getting Shakespearian (“Where art thou? Why not uponeth me?”). On “Juno,” she even takes a subject as serious as pregnancy and twists it into a charming pop culture reference for the ages: “If you love me right, then who knows?/I might let you make me Juno.” It’s official: Do not underestimate Ms. Carpenter’s pen. — A.M.
She’s Stuck in Another Love Triangle
On her sixth album, Carpenter somehow finds herself in the middle of yet another love triangle. She’s no stranger to this, having penned “Skin” and “Obsessed” in response to the teen saga that Olivia Rodrigo sang about on Sour. But on Short ‘n Sweet, the songs are more explicit, the stars are bigger, and the stakes are even higher. The flighty dude who “found God at [his] ex’s house” on “Sharpest Tool” is presumably Shawn Mendes, and the ex to who Carpenter directs the tongue-in-cheek “Taste” at appears to be Camila Cabello. She may be writing about A-List singers, but Carpenter remains fearless.“I write songs about exactly how I feel, so I guess I can’t be so surprised that people are interested in who and what those songs are about,” she told Rolling Stone in May. “That’s something that comes with the territory.” — M.G.
Editor’s picks
Carpenter Goes Country
Carpenter has always been a Tay-daughter (a musical daughter of Taylor Swift), but she seems to be taking notes from other country pop stars and legends like Kacey Musgraves and Dolly Parton. The silly “Slim Pickins” veers into country territory the most; her vocal trills channel both Musgraves and Parton with incredible precision. “The little vocal runs she does are so bizarre and unique — they’re doing this really odd, classic, almost yodel-y country thing,” producer Jack Antonoff told Rolling Stone earlier this year. Sonically, Short ‘n Sweet finds Carpenter leaning into plucky acoustic guitars throughout the record. In two years time, she just might pivot into full twang.— M.G.
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Leonard Cohen, Pop’s Hottest Muse
It wasn’t too long ago that boygenius put out a song about Leonard Cohen, who was casually “at a Buddhist monastery writing horny poetry.” Carpenter takes a note from the boys on “Dumb & Poetic,” a two-minute acoustic ballad where she bids farewell to a man of wellness, the awful kind who steals quotes from self-help books. She delivers some great burns here — “Save all your breath for your floor meditation,” “I promise the mushrooms aren’t changing your life” — but nothing is more biting than a reference to the late songwriter who had a way with the ladies. “Try to come off like you’re soft and well-spoken/Jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen,” she sings — and that’s just the first verse. Cohen died eight years ago, and one can only imagine his reaction to being pop’s hottest muse. — A.M.
Retro Power
For more basic pop artists, “Eighties retro” often means throwing some New Wave synths on your song and calling it a day. But when it comes to retro-pop recombinations, Sabrina Carpenter has a unique light touch and a scholar’s attention to detail. Short ‘n Sweet kicks off with the excellent single “Taste,” a mega-catchy kiss-off to an ex’s new partner with a melody that lovingly and movingly calls back to Kim Carnes’ classic “Bette Davis Eyes,” which spent nine weeks at the top of the charts in 1981 and won a Grammy for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. Carpenter totally makes that vintage reference her own, just as she did on her previous summer smashes “Please Please Please” and “Espresso.” — J.D.
