Sabrina Carpenter bids farewell to the solemn drafts from her previous album “emails i can’t send” of 2022 and fully embraces a confident and sultry persona for “Short n’ Sweet,” her new album released on Aug. 23.
“Espresso,” the record’s lead single, rocketed the singer to pop stardom and arguably became 2024’s summer anthem. Sonically, the song’s upbeat production and entrancing melody evoke the feeling of enchantment on a sunny day at the beach in the listener. The hook, “That’s that me espresso,” is undeniably one that becomes stuck in one’s head all day.
After Carpenter announced the release of the album, the second single “Please Please Please” followed up the same week, continuing to reflect her move into a catchier sound. Carpenter finds herself in a relationship in which she remains concerned about potential humiliation from her partner, Barry Keoghan, regardless of her love for him. The chorus’s melody further insinuates Carpenter’s fear of embarrassment, as she sings with a pleading inflection.
Another highlight of Carpenter’s music is her infectious melodies and captivating music videos accompanying her singles. “Taste,” the third single of the album, tackles the topic of a man’s infidelity and Carpenter’s desire for revenge. The music video, directed by Dave Meyers and starring Carpenter, Jenna Ortega and Rohan Campbell, portrays Carpenter and Ortega discovering Campbell, who is the boyfriend, discovering he’s been dating both women behind their backs. The two go on an elongated spree to get revenge on one another, until the boyfriend’s passing. From there, the two make amends and become friends.
Although album depicts a wiser and more powerful version of Carpenter, wistful feelings still linger. The track “Dumb & Poetic” finds Carpenter longing over a relationship that she once adored, before realizing her partner was holding up a facade. The song opens with the lines, “You’re so dumb and poetic, it’s just what I fall for, I like the aesthetic,” reflecting Carpenter’s naivety in jumping into the relationship quickly for the enchantment that romance brings. With a stripped-down production and a mournful inflection in Carpenter’s voice, the track is truly gut-wrenching and inevitably an album highlight.
Unlike most artists, however, Carpenter uses her contagious humor to describe her pensiveness. The cut “Slim Pickins” finds Carpenter accepting her loveless-fated life, as her love pool is small and not a very bright one. Regardless of her mourning over her deprived love life, Carpenter refuses to allow a boy who “doesn’t even know the difference between ‘there,’ ‘their’ and ‘they are’” to sadden her any more than she is.
On previous records, Carpenter has shown herself to be quite a diverse artist, exploring numerous sounds in her album tracks such as R&B or country. “Short n’ Sweet” continues to deliver Carpenter’s attempts at exploring genres. The final song on the record, “Don’t Smile,” has numerous R&B influences and is slightly reminiscent of SZA, mainly her latest single “Saturn.” The hook is the inverse of the phrase “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened,” a rather solemn interpretation. Although the album opens with the third single “Taste,” where Carpenter’s former partner regrets what occurred between the pair, “Don’t Smile” finds Carpenter longing for the same partner to feel an ounce of remorse.
“Short n’ Sweet” is arguably Carpenter’s best project to date, an album full of classics. Carpenter’s artistic growth shines immensely on the record, cementing her status in the mainstream scene. It is a catastrophic yet beautiful album that tells numerous anecdotes from start to end in unique ways, especially through humor.
Grade: 5/5
