In the world of pop, 2024’s summer soundtrack has been dominated by a handful of artists. Charli XCX ushered us into a ‘BRAT’ summer, her stone-cold smash of a record showing no signs of slowing down ahead of her incoming UK and US tours. Chappell Roan has similarly ruled, her sleeper hit of a debut album ‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess’ hitting the top spot in the UK earlier this month, aided by mammoth music festival performances and the killer ‘Good Luck, Babe!’.
And then there’s Sabrina Carpenter, who’s now on a fast-track to pop superstardom. Her anticipated sixth record ‘Short n’ Sweet’ comes after a mammoth two years for the 25-year-old artist. No stranger to the music industry – alongside a successful, Disney Channel-kick-started acting career Carpenter’s been releasing music since 2014 – it was with Carpenter’s previous LP, ‘Emails I Can’t Send’ (released in 2022), that she had her megawatt musical breakout moment. With earworm singles like ‘Feather’, and the innuendo-fueled, endlessly-viral outros of ‘Nonsense’, the album saw Carpenter’s fanbase grow exponentially; also aided by a huge slot supporting Taylor Swift on the Eras tour, and a buzzy performance at Coachella.
Carpenter’s position as popstar was then cemented with the two early singles taken from ‘Short n’ Sweet’. First came the groovy ‘Espresso’, and then the country-laced ‘Please Please Please’ (complete with its music video that features Carpenter’s IRL boyfriend, actor Barry Keoghan), both tracks mainstays of endless summer playlists (and both tracks hitting number one in the UK).
The rest of ‘Short n’ Sweet’ lives up to its title: a collection of 12 moreish, three(ish) minute pop tunes that rocket by and are dripping in Carpenter’s personality. Throughout her humour and brutal honesty shine through: “Adore me/Hold me and explore me/I’m so fucking horny” she sings breathlessly on ‘Juno’, a lascivious, Carly Rae Jepsen-evoking cut. Then there’s the half-spoken riff during ‘Bad Chem’, where she demands: “Said you’re not in my timezone, but you wanna be/Where art thou? Why not uponeth me?”
Sunshine drenched ‘Taste’, a slinky, slack-rock infused number, sees Carpenter wink: “I heard you’re back together and if that’s true/You’ll have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you”. And there’s the infamous eyeroll of ‘Please Please Please’ where Carpenter exasperatedly warns a new beau: “Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another/I beg you, don’t embarrass me, motherfucker”.
These pithy one-liners are buoyed by the album’s pop-rooted sonics that draw on country (‘Slim Pickins’, ‘Dumb & Poetic’), Laurel Canyon folk rock (‘Coincidence’), strutting 80s synth-pop (‘Bad Chem’) and – on ‘Good Graces’ – even a (very light) touch of UKG. Catchy choruses permeate throughout, Carpenter’s floating vocals cutting across the top, delivering kiss-offs and emotional excavations. And nestled among the morsels of pop sparkle is the brilliant, brutal ‘Sharpest Tool’. Its unusual song structure is accompanied by percolating guitar licks that launch into soft beats and lithe guitar licks, subdued instrumentals scoring Carpenter’s candid reflections (“We had sex, I met your best friends/Then a bird flies by and you forget”, “We were going right, then you took a left/Left me with a lot of shit to second guess”).
It’s a reminder among the megawatt moments that Carpenter is more than just catchy choruses – there’s personality and charm that have propelled her to pop-star of the moment. And the fact that ‘Short n’ Sweet’ more than lives up to its title? That’s the cherry on top.
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