Sabrina Carpenter’s much-anticipated new album « Short n’ Sweet » arrived on Friday. It features the hit singles « Espresso » and « Please Please Please. »
Despite its cheeky title, Sabrina Carpenter’s new album « Short n’ Sweet » arrived on Friday with a tall order to fill.
Carpenter’s sixth album was preceded by smash hits « Espresso » and « Please Please Please », which peaked at No. 2 and No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively, and dominated the annual contest for song of the summer. But « Short n’ Sweet » isn’t just Carpenter’s most anticipated release to date. It’s the best, most idiosyncratic work of her career.
Carpenter literally stands at 5 feet, as she clarifies in the album’s opening track, but the title isn’t simply derived from her Polly Pocket likeness. It also refers to important relationships she’s recently weathered, whose brief durations belie the emotional wreckage they caused — what Gen Z might describe as a « situationship. »
« I thought about some of these relationships and how some of them were the shortest I’ve ever had, and they affected me the most », she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe.
Indeed, throughout « Short n’ Sweet », Carpenter isn’t coy about the vulgar, demoralizing underbelly of modern dating. And yet, she renders it bearable — even better, fun! — with her enduring sense of humor. Sometimes, as the kids say, you just have to laugh.
Smartly released as the second single, « Please Please Please » offers the closest thing Carpenter has to a thesis: « Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another / I beg you don’t embarrass me, motherfucker.
