It’s hard to describe the chokehold that “Espresso” had on this past summer. Viral TikTok audios, Van Leeuwen ice cream collabs, and the widespread colloquial use of “that’s that me espresso” had audiences romanticizing an unabashedly colorful, carefree summer in caffeinated anticipation of Sabrina Carpenter’s sixth studio album, Short n’ Sweet (2024).
As Carpenter’s mainstream popularity grows, she’s become her own brand of pop star. Her recent performance at Outside Lands began with a 1950s-esque introduction, complete with a neon sign and a booming broadcaster voice in the likeness of Corny Collins from Hairspray (2007). Carpenter has become the embodiment of an ultrafeminine, pastel-ridden take on vintage aesthetics, and has imbued her latest album with that same energy. No one else is doing it quite like Carpenter, culminating in public anticipation for Short n’ Sweet.
In the past year, pop music has developed rapidly. New names and variegated musical influences have increasingly infiltrated the mainstream music scene, repainting the tired, monotonous hum of 2020s pop music. With brat (2024), Charli XCX flaunts club culture, hyperpop, and throwbacks to the messy ‘it-girls’ of the early 2000s, and Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (2023) pays homage to drag, ’80s synth pop, and maximalist, campy aesthetics. What’s becoming increasingly apparent is that audiences no longer want one type of mainstream music. World-dominating pop icons need to deliver interesting, fresh, and diverse music while remaining palatable to audiences far and wide.
And Short n’ Sweet delivers.
The album solidifies Carpenter’s place in pop music with dreamy vocals, cheeky sex jokes, and hyperfemininity. The 12-track record combines the best elements of different genres, filtering them through the singer’s flirty charm for a well-balanced album. Carpenter fills a blonde, five-foot gap left by Roan and Charli, completing the holy trinity of current recession pop. The term gained traction in the early 2010s, referring to songs whose central themes were partying and feeling good, seemingly in response to the economic precarities of the Great Recession.
While Carpenter is a pop star at heart, influences from R&B, EDM, folk, funk, and alternative rock trickle into the writing and production on Short n’ Sweet—much like SZA’s SOS (2022) or Ariana Grande’s eternal sunshine (2024). Partially because of this, Short n’ Sweet isn’t the most unique or innovative; on a purely musical level, it lacks the individuality that, say, Cowboy Carter (2024) or Charm (2024) overflow with. But it’s a record that gets better the more you listen to it. After a few listens, it expands from a mere amalgamation of varying sounds to a curated collection of pop songs that are distinct, but still complimentary.
The record opens with classic Carpenter-brand humor: “I leave quite the impression / five feet to be exact.” This casual, down-to-earth humor became a large part of the artist’s persona as her “Nonsense” (from 2022’s emails i can’t send) outros gained popularity on social media in late 2023. In these outros, Carpenter would incorporate new location-relevant puns and dirty jokes at the end of each live performance. That humor is consistent throughout the record, like in “Slim Pickins,” when she laments, “this boy doesn’t even know the difference between their, there, and they are.” Carpenter’s blunt lyricism makes her music all the more relatable. “We had sex / I’m at your best friend’s,” she sings in “Sharpest Tool,” before countering with “then a bird flies by and you forget.” Colloquial and conversational, her music is heartfelt and vulnerable without being too serious.
Musically, the album is diverse, though every song is identifiably pop. The grungy wash and electric guitar on “Taste” has undeniable indie-rock influences despite being carried by Carpenter’s breathy vocals. “Slim Pickins” even plays around with country and folk, a gentler, acoustic song with a banjo to match Carpenter’s warbling vibrato.
Carpenter’s previous works, particularly emails i can’t send, have been strongly influenced by R&B—and Short n’ Sweet is no exception. But the songs on this record feel more varied: “Bed Chem” and “Don’t Smile” have smooth basslines and spacey mixes that come together to create a more settled and effortless sound, rivaling the hyperactivity of emails i can’t send. “Good Graces,” sprinkled with ear candy, mimics the computerized sounds of K-pop, and “Lie to Girls” is reminiscent of Lizzy McAlpine’s oeuvre.
Among these moody, dreamy soundscapes, “Coincidence” stands out. The song relies on an acoustic guitar for a lighthearted, percussive accompaniment that contrasts with the earlier tracks. Short n’ Sweet is lush, complex, and grown-up, but “Coincidence” shows off an earnest, sweet side of Carpenter’s emotionality that’s similar to her first album, Eyes Wide Open (2015). It’s songs like this that make her a captivating artist; she’s not afraid to explore and expose different parts of herself and her music.
Short n’ Sweet sees Carpenter coming into her own, and this artistic maturation lends itself to the album’s cohesiveness. Alongside her cheeky sense of humor and straightforward lyricism, she’s developed her own singing style, which is breathier and more speech-like than her past albums. These elements combine to create the “Sabrina Carpenter sound” that ties together the musical variety across her tracks. Still, the album isn’t exactly revolutionary, but perhaps that’s all the more reason that it’s a fitting album to go mainstream right now. It sounds familiar enough that it’s an easy listen, but different enough that you want to listen.
Short n’ Sweet is the fun that pop music needs right now. With the resurgence in recession pop, audiences crave music that can blissfully distract them from the uncertainties of reality. “Fun-ness” has become media currency, and Sabrina Carpenter is rich in it—she may be relatively new to the mainstream pop-music scene, but Short n’ Sweet sure does give other artists a run for their money.
Voice’s Choices: “Bed Chem,” “Coincidence,” “Don’t Smile”
