In the past, it was sometimes hard to work out who Sabrina Carpenter was. Her early albums, like 2015’s ‘Eyes Wide Open’ and its 2016 follow-up ‘Evolution’, presented a young pop star trying to find her groove but instead getting lost in the trends of the time. It wasn’t until 2022’s ‘Emails I Can’t Send’ – Carpenter’s fifth album, but also the first where she had full creative control – that her pop personality started to crystallise, evident in the coy cheek of ‘Nonsense’ and the addictive strut of ‘Feather’.
In the two years since that record was released, Carpenter has finally become a bona fide pop icon in the making. Her explicit, viral ‘Nonsense’ outros, tailored to the city she was performing in, endeared her to hordes of new fans. ‘Espresso’, the quip-heavy first single from her latest record ‘Short n’ Sweet’, was inescapable this summer. A supporting run on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, a solid Coachella appearance and a headline-grabbing relationship have all boosted her profile even more.
As ‘Short n’ Sweet’ arrives, then, it feels like the 25-year-old singer is at something of a turning point. Keep Carpenter’s musical calling cards, justify the hype, and she’ll soon be levelling up to major festival headliner – and this record largely gets the job done.
Sassy, flirty lines and lyrics that put Carpenter’s romantic partners in their place are the order of the day here. “I know you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed,” she sings gently on ‘Sharpest Tool’. “We had sex, I met your best friends / And then a bird flies by and you forget.” Moments later, on the twanging ‘Coincidence’, she rolls her eyes at a lover failing to hide that he’s crawling back to his ex: “What a surprise, your phone just died / Your car drove itself from LA to her thighs.”
On the sparse acoustic strum of ‘Dumb And Poetic’, she eviscerates someone who tries “to come off like you’re soft and well-spoken / Jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen”. Sometimes, the star switches things up and puts herself in the self-deprecating crosshairs, as on the countrified ‘Slim Pickins’. “This boy doesn’t even know the difference between there, their and they are / Yet he’s naked in my room,” she sighs.
Musically, Carpenter mostly finds that niche she’s been searching for, getting comfortable in a country-pop groove on the likes of ‘Coincidence’ and ‘Please Please Please’, or nailing frothy pop bops like ‘Taste’ and ‘Juno’. Her individuality occasionally feels a little diluted, the likes of ‘Good Graces’ and ‘Bed Chem’ moulded in Ariana Grande’s image. For the most part, though, who Sabrina Carpenter is has never been clearer – and her long-awaited, hard-earned climb to pop’s summit should continue with ease.
