In May of 2023, my floor ticket to Sabrina Carpenter’s emails i can’t send tour was just $50. Earlier this month, her Short N’ Sweet stadium tour sold out in days, and nosebleed tickets are now resold for $200 a piece.
Her meteoric rise to fame is attributed to opening for Taylor Swift’s 2023 Eras tour and the subsequent wildly popular singles, “Espresso” and “Please Please Please.” One year after her debut in one of the biggest tours in the world, it’s hard to walk into a mall or open TikTok and not hear Sabrina’s voice. So, after catapulting to official pop star status, her new album, Short N’ Sweet, was much anticipated, but did it live up to the hype? That depends on what you want out of music. The album is a perfect look into the timeless messiness and modern woes of girlhood, which is as cringy as it is relatable. Short N’ Sweet is both a background album for early 2000s rom-com montages where teen girls shop and get makeovers, and a soundtrack to navigating romance today.
“Taste” sets the tone for the album with its upbeat, pop sound. While the song is a little petty, it’s also exactly the type of song a group of girls would blast in their car after a particularly bitter encounter with an ex. It’s an anthem for reclaiming a personal sense of control in the chaos of modern dating.
“Heard you’re back together, and if that’s true / You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you.“
Though Short N’ Sweet tends toward blurring into one formulaic pop soup, some songs play with genre and style. The twang of “Slim Pickins” leans into a country feel, the guitars of “Coincidence” build a folksy atmosphere, and the lyrics of “Dumb and Poetic” emulate a Phoebe Bridgers-like angst. In a way, “Slim Pickins” and “Coincidence” feel like forced attempts to make the album more dynamic by adding allusions to genres that are currently ‘hot.’ However, “Dumb and Poetic” is a more elevated ballad, and it blends well with and diversifies Sabrina’s pop sound.
Something people either love or hate about this album is its complete lack of seriousness. Sabrina pushes the limits of absurdity with songs like “Juno,” a reference to the 2007 movie about teen pregnancy. “Bed Chem” is the perfect example of the witty and raunchy lyrics that pepper the album:
“Come right on me – I mean camaraderie!“
“Where art thou? Why not uponeth me?“
She’s telling the listener then and there that she isn’t Shakespeare — she’s a pop singer, so the listener can take the songs for what they are: fun.
It’s this playful relatability that makes the album. “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” did not go viral because of their thought-provoking lyrics, they went viral because they’re catchy pop songs with an appeal to the messiness of girlhood. Sabrina’s songs are about self-confidence and the threat boys often pose to it, while also self-deprecatingly aware of how easy it is to ignore red flags.
Will I be paying $200 to see this album live? No. Will I be mad when I walk into the mall and these songs are always playing? Also no. Life is filled with plenty of serious and important matters, and there are incredible, introspective albums to accompany them. Short N’ Sweet is not one of them. Sometimes, you’re getting ready for a night out, you need a mindless distraction, or you’re living out a makeover in a rom-com montage. And for moments like those, Short N’ Sweet is perfect.
Featured image from “Short N’ Sweet” – Sabrina Carpenter.
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