From her enormous hits “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” and her incredible performances at Coachella 2024 and The Governors Ball 2024, Sabrina Carpenter has brought us her 6th studio album “Short n’ Sweet.” This album is a deep dive into how Carpenter’s mind works, and how she can seamlessly weave emotional facets of her life into pop-defining melodies that flow across a 12-track body of work. From playful and upbeat tracks such as “Bed Chem” and “Good Graces,” to the more stripped-back and emotional tracks such as “Dumb and Poetic” and “Slim Pickins,” Carpenter has managed to string together another incredibly well-rounded album, following her success with “emails i cant send.”

On April 12th, 2024, Sabrina Carpenter released the smash-hit leading single of the album, “Espresso,” and it was met with an extreme amount of praise and success immediately. It became one of the top contenders for song of the summer across the world, and has retained its popularity even now. The song included a line that goes “thats that me espresso,” and this line became extremely popular online following the release of the song, and eventually led the song to becoming Carpenter’s first number one hit on The UK’s Official Charts, as well as the number three position on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Following the release of “Espresso,” Carpenter announced “Short n’ Sweet” on June 3rd, 2024, in an Instagram post featuring the front and back cover of the album, as well as a mention of a surprise for Thursday of the same week, which the public would soon find out was the release of the second single off of the album.

Official Cover Image of "Short n' Sweet," Sabrina Carpenter’s Sixth Studio Album

From “that me espresso” we moved into the second single titled “Please Please Please” which was met with a lot of pressure when it was announced due to the major success of its predecessor anthem. On June 6th, 2024, Carpenter released the song and music video for the second single, and it absolutely shocked the world. Not only was the song yet another smash hit, but the music video was starring her boyfriend, Barry Keoghan, alongside her in a thrilling crime-scene environment. The song makes many references to Keoghan and their relationship together, and it includes another tremendously catchy lyric of 2024, “I beg you don’t embarrass me, Motherf-cker.” This single broke another record for Carpenter, which would be finally reaching the number one spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart for the first time in her career. This is a major milestone that almost every musician hopes to reach one day, and because of the massive hype surrounding the two singles, Carpenter was able to make that dream a reality. These two singles were the perfect tracks to release before heading into the album, and now that it’s here we can dive further into this brand new project.

“Short n’ Sweet,” Carpenters sixth studio album, has a runtime of 36 minutes and 12 seconds across 12 separate tracks including “Espresso” and “Please Please Please.” Its a pop-filled body of work, with little flickers of folk and country, and late 90’s early 2000’s R&B trickled throughout. The album starts off with the raspy guitar of the track “Taste,” which is newly the third single off the album. Its full of slight sexual innuendos, known to be one of Carpenter’s favorite lyric tropes to place in her music, many of which appear throughout the album in the perfect places. “Taste” serves as the perfect upbeat tone to start us off in the album and hook us into it, especially with the first line of the song being “Oh I leave quite an impression.” As a cheeky reference to her ex-boyfriends going back to women that they were with prior to Carpenter, the chorus chants “you’ll just have to taste me, when he’s kissing you.” This chorus is bound to get caught up in your head, and have you yearning to go back and replay the song over and over again.

Alternate Cover Image of "Short n' Sweet"

As we move through the album we hit the second track “Please Please Please” and the third track “Good Graces,” both of which are fun pop moments on the record. “Good Graces” has yet another impressively catchy chorus, and it also includes a hook like no other that repeats “I dont give a f-ck about you” throughout the song. “Good Graces” serves as a warning to her current boyfriend to stay on her good side, because its easy for her to “turn loving into hatred,” which echo’s similar topics to those heard in “Please Please Please.” These two tracks might have correlating topics but serve two separate purposes on the album, and it seems almost crucial to have them both included on the record.

The following two tracks are “Sharpest Tool” and “Coincidence,” and both have a more acoustic sound to them but in two very different ways. "Sharpest Tool" provides Carpenter's way of highlighting how oblivious men can be in relationships, while the women, often left yearning for more, struggle to connect with these clueless partners. She gets this point across in a track pleated with acoustic instruments, in a soft manner that, towards the end of the track, becomes more apparent and front-facing to the listener. “Coincidence” has a very upbeat folk feeling to it, and it lyrically tracks how wishy-washy men can be when it comes to relationships. One week a man can be obsessed with you, and then the next week he can be kissing someone else. Carpenter gets her point across very clear in these two tracks.

Cover of "Short n' Sweet" Bonus Track LP

The next track on the album has the potential to be one of the highlights of the record, and that would be “Bed Chem,” which is the sixth track, and the halfway point of the album. This track has 90’s/2000’s R&B sounds all woven throughout it, including a deep groovy bass and the twinkling sound trickled across the song. The lyrical content itself includes many of those spicy innuendos that Carpenter is fond of, and it adds such an incredible layer of cheekiness to this song. She sings about believing she would have “really good bed chem” (chemistry in bed) with this man she is dreaming of. At one point in the track she sings the lyrics “where art thou, why not uponeth me, see it in my mind lets fulfill the prophecy,” which almost contradicts the heavy 90’s feel of the song in such a creative way, adding even more flare and fun to the pop song. Its the perfect song to be placed as the track leading into the worldwide smash-hit “Espresso,” which comes in at track 7 in the album.

The next two tracks are, again, two more acoustic-leaning songs following pop hits, and both songs have two different styles of instrumentals, and very different lyrical content. The eighth track on the album is “Dumb & Poetic,” which expresses Carpenter’s attraction towards men who happen to be readers and/or lovers of words, but these men use their love of words as a ploy toi come across as smart, when they couldn’t be further from such. She sings the sentiment, “gold star for high brow, manipulation, and ‘love everyone’ is your favorite quotation, try to come off like your soft and well-spoken, j-ckoff to lyrics by Leonard Cohen.” She is pleading that this man tries to come across as a very intelligent man when, in reality, he is just acting dumb & poetic.

Courtesy of Sabrina Carpenter on Instagram

Following “Dumb & Poetic” is track nine, “Slim Pickins,” which was previously performed at a Grammy Museum performance by Sabrina Carpenter, alongside one of her producers on the album Jack Antonoff. They performed this song only weeks before the release of “Short and Sweet,” and little did we know that the performance would be a mere replica of the song itself in regards of production. “Slim Pickins” has this deep acoustic country sound to it that is almost unheard of from Carpenter, but fits her voice so immaculately. This track serves as Carpenter’s outlet for expressing her feelings on finding love, and how it can be hard to find someone that will actually be worth your time in the long run.

Track ten on the album is titled “Juno” and is a reference to the 2007 film of the same name. The lyrics reflect the film by referencing the fact that Juno is pregnant in the movie, and Carpenter sings “If you love me right, then who knows? I might let you make me Juno,” meaning she will let the guy impregnate her. Its such a clever way to say that she wants to have sex with someone without being so on the nose about it, and it brings such a fun element to the album with the production of the track as well.

Were nearing the end of the record as we explore the last 2 tracks titled “Lie To Girls” and “Dont Smile.” Track 11, “Lie To Girls,” feels almost like the most angry and/or vitriolic track on the album, with the lyrics exploring the way that men can lie about anything without even thinking of telling the truth and, even though they do this, girls will go out of their way to make excuses for them out of the love they have for them. In the outro of the song Carpenter pleads that “Girls will cry and girls will lie and Girls will do it 'til they die, for you,” which expresses the stark contrast in what men and women bring to relationships. Its an uneven balance in these relationships, where women have love for the men, but these men can comprehend what loving someone truly means.

The last track on the album is titled “Dont Smile,” and is such an exquisite way to close out this body of work. Starting with a nice smooth beat into the chorus of the song stating, “Dont smile cause it happened, baby, cry because its over” which is a play on the common saying ‘Don’t cry because its over, Smile because it happened.’ This is a very clever lyric for ending the album as she is saying to “cry because its over,” but also is mainly referring to this relationship that is ending for her. It rounds out the album in a way that is positive for her as we have listened to her suffer through these situations she has experienced with men over the course of this album, and she is finally free of them, even though she might be upset that the relationship is no longer active.

Sabrina Carpenter's 6th studio album, “Short n’ Sweet,” is a vibrant exploration of her personal and emotional perspective of the world, woven through 12 tracks that blend pop with elements of folk, country, and late 90's/early 2000's R&B. Following the success of hits like "Espresso" and "Please Please Please," which both topped charts and set high expectations, Carpenter delivers a body of work that reflects her growth as an artist. From the playful and cheeky "Bed Chem" to the introspective "Slim Pickins," the album showcases her ability to mix catchy melodies with deeply personal lyrics.

The album's lyrical themes range from love and heartbreak to self-discovery and empowerment, all delivered with Carpenter's signature wit and honesty. Tracks like "Dumb & Poetic" critique superficial relationships, while "Lie To Girls" and "Please Please Please" dive into the complexities of love and its emotional toll. The closing track, "Don't Smile," cleverly flips a common saying to encapsulate the bittersweet end of a relationship, rounding out the album on a reflective note. “Short n’ Sweet” solidifies Sabrina Carpenter's place in the pop landscape, offering a nuanced, emotionally resonant, and thoroughly enjoyable listening experience.

Listen to “Short n’ Sweet” now on Spotify!

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