First she's funny then she's sweet

Sabrina Carpenter serves up sugar-pop laced with the acerbic in her new album "Short n' Sweet"

Sabrina Carpenter is having a great year. Since releasing “Espresso” in April, she’s been all over TikTok and Coachella and Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour. Her Emails I Can’t Send tour did well but after life on Girl Meets World, four Disney albums, and her fifth album as a sort of stunned reaction to being looped in to Olivia Rodrigo’s skyrocket to fame, “Espresso” officially made Sabrina the overnight success ten years in the making.

Her sixth studio album, Short n’ Sweet, came out two weeks ago, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with all 12 tracks charting in the top half of the Hot 100. She’s officially the cherry on top of a pop girlie summer and it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Like the artist herself, her songs seem unassuming—generic pop, born for TikTok, a sort of mainstream self-confidence—but underneath the sweetness is an acerbic wit, a playful wink, a disinterest in taking anything at all too seriously. Whether it’s responding to a teenager calling her the other woman over a boy neither of them like now, or the way she’s besties with other sarcastic queen Joey King, she has a way of playing with misconceptions about her. She knows what we all assume when we see another Disney channel star with another star-studded breakup album, this one barely clearing 5’ forever trotting around in her babydoll lingerie. She leans into the camp, the Barbie doll of it all, the impish way she cast her own boyfriend in her music video about having bad taste in boyfriends.

She doesn’t have the same sort of moodiness of Billie Eilish or the indignation of Olivia Rodrigo. Her ballads aren’t romantic odes like Taylor Swift or wistful operatics like Gracie Abrams. Her waters may run more shallow than Beyoncé, her pop more bubblegum than Charli XCX, her camp far more straight than Chappell Roan’s. But she owns it. And there’s something refreshing about shaking her blonde mane at the current trend towards ever-somber pop and instead delivering candy-coated dick jokes galore.

She boasts a self-awareness of her own absurdity, her sheer cliché-ness of being young and blond and privileged and attracted to the same sort of problematic dude again and again. She plays it up, she shrugs it off. And she does it all with a wit that makes her lyrics jump out even as a variety of production stylings sweep us up.

Short n’ Sweet is aptly named, coming it at just about 36 minutes. It features throwback R&B samplings, jangly pop-country, subtle disco, even punk, all interwoven with her own signature girly pop. Her primary co-writer is Amy Allen but there’s also Julia Michaels, One Direction mastermind John Ryan, and (because there’s no pop starlet he won’t somehow find) Jack Antonoff.

There is a valid argument to be made that these songs all tread the same ground but I think that’s life in your 20s—vacillating sharply between overconfidence and startling insecurity, playful humor and eviscerating insults. And even if the themes are repetitive, she examines them from different angles, playing up the heartbreak, disbelief, and righteous indignation depending on the song. She owns her title as the straightest, blondest, tiniest little sexpot around. She’s not trying to be edgy so much as mischievous; coy so much as clever; emotive so much as witty. She may be small but she can still pack a punch (albeit a backhanded one) aiming her barbs at boys, rivals, and herself with equal giddiness.

So count me in for another shot of espresso as I lap up this bop-tastic album I’m probably too old to enjoy. Here I am ranking Short ‘n Sweet from best to skips:

Bed Chem

Her twisted humor gets extra attention on this over-the-top pop track. It sets itself up as the centerpiece of the album, tying in the vapid playfulness of lead singles and her more confessional tracks to come. As Sabrina tells it, she walked into the studio with a title and said “we have to make it sexy and a little bit unserious at the same time because it is such a ridiculous concept.” And, like Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle,” it’s so ridiculous it just might work.

Bonus points for an origin story on her and her beau, Barry.

It’s cheeky and oh-so-horny, all playing across a very retro sound production. It captures what’s so charming about Sabrina Carpenter and how her wordplay—even when this unserious—is delightful to hear unfold.

Most memeable line: “Come right on me / I mean comradery”
Favorite line: “Where art thou? Why not uponeth me?” is perfect.
Innuendo count: 🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆

Taste

This music video is a return to glam camp and I love every second. It’s bawdy and wild and playful and over the top. The fact that this song is about Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello, poking fun of their situationship she found herself caught between is just *chef’s kiss*. It’s fun, it’s wry, and it’s a perfect kiss-off for an unbothered queen.

Most memeable line: “la la la la la la”
Favorite line: “You can have him if you like / I've been there, done that once or twice”
Innuendo count: 🍆🍆

Juno

What a vibe. Such a bop. I don’t know how to feel about the theme of the song (being a woman so enamored with a boy she wants to be impregnated like the teen pregnancy movie of the same name) but the production here is perfection. She once explained she’s a “normal” level of horny, she just “love[s] play on words and funny innuendos” so, yes, I do believe this song is her everything.

Most memeable line: “I showed my friends, then we high-fived / Sorry if you feel objеctified”
Favorite line: “You make me wanna make you fall in love”
Innuendo count: 🍆🍆🍆🍆

Coincidence

She has a lot of fun with wordplay on this chatty track. It feels like a backyard jam session (in the best way).

Most memeable line: “Your car drove from LA to her thighs”
Favorite line: “Last week you didn’t have any doubts / this week you’re holding space for her tongue in your mouth”

Good Graces

Given the other songs on this album, methinks she might protest too much. It’s the perky antithesis to the more honest “Lie to Girls” with a therapeutic threat thrumming through the chorus. The trap beat gets a tad repetitive but it’s forgivable with this sort of tongue-in-cheek faux confidence. I mean, “I’ll tell the world you finish your chores prematurely” is just delicious shade.

Most memeable line: “break my heart and I swear / I’m moving on with your favorite athlete.”
Favorite line: “Don't confuse my kindness for naivety."
Innuendo count: 🍆🍆

Please Please Please

The PR-relationship launch seen round the world, the music video made it clear how unserious their relationship was/is. It was fun and sexy and funny, but it also didn’t make me think anything beyond these two crazy kids were having fun. And this song is fun. A touch of country, a sprinkle of soft rock, a dash of disco. It made for a perfect single and it still holds its own on the album.

Most memeable line: “I beg you, don’t embarrass me / motherf*cker”
Favorite line: “And we could live so happily if no one knows that you’re with me.”

Lie to Girls

I love what she’s playing with here. It’s raw while also being acerbic. Personally I don’t think men need to be knowing our business like this but I’ll forgive her. If only because the way she sings “all of your best excuses” scratches my brain.

Most memeable line: “It’s lucky for you I’m just like/ My mother (and my sisters) (all my friends)”
Favorite line: “Isn’t ideal, but damn / you don’t even have to try / turn you into a good guy”

Espresso

It’s silly, it’s lite, it’s built for TikTok. We ate it up and it continues to be a bop. She wrote it as a sort of manifestation when she was feeling chronically single—and even that shows the duology of self-awareness and sarcasm. There’s an irresistibly smooth delivery of clever, catchy lyrics highlighting her self-proclaimed “twisted humor.”

Most memeable line: “My give-a-fucks are on vacation”
Favorite line: “I Mountain Dew it for ya”

Slim Pickins

It’s fun to see her turn the country genre, usually all about finding your all-American man, on it’s head to say it’s actually hell out there. She brings a country twang to match the image of fixin’s and kitchens and Jesus as both a curse and a prayer.

“A boy who's nice that breathes / I swear he's nowhere to be seen”: the bar is on the floor, ladies, and it’s time we say something about it.

Most memeable line: “This boy doesn't even know / The difference between "there," "their" and "they are"”
Favorite line: “Play ‘em like a slot machine / if they’re winnin’, I’m just losing”
Innuendo count: 🍆

Don’t Smile

Sometimes we just want to cry. She slows things down abruptly but it’s still groovy.

Most memeable line: “my friends are takin' shots / you think it's happy hour, for me it’s not”
Favorite line: “take my phone and lose your number / I don’t wanna be tempted / pick up when you wanna fall back in”

Sharpest Tool

This has Jack Antonoff’s hands all over it (derogatory). It starts with an absolute god-tier opening verse—“we had sex, I met your best friends / Then a bird flies by and you forget.”—but it never really holds on to that same wryness, choosing instead repetitive, synth-heavy loops.

That being said, dating these days seems like hell. I appreciate the way the anxiety builds up with nowhere to go, much like her opining for closure she’ll never get.

Most memeable line: “Found God at your ex’s house”
Favorite line: “We were going right then you took a left / left me with a lot of shit to second-guess.”

Dumb & Poetic

She sounds great but it’s too much of a snooze for me. Maybe it’s her proximity to Taylor Swift and The Tortured Poets Department, but this feels too close to that title track or fan favorites like “Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.” Even if there are some clever lines here, nothing about it lives up to what we’ve seen on the rest of the album.

Most memeable line: “Jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen.”
Favorite line: “I promise the mushrooms aren’t changing your life.”