Short n’ Sweet - Sabrina Carpenter
Sometimes Metalheads need to take a breather from all the headbanging, moshing, screaming, and black clothes. One of my favorite ways to take that breather is diving headfirst into different genres that I love or have a general interest in and I recently decided to turn my eyes toward Pop! I spent so many years of my childhood raging against Pop music and how formulaic the machine is, spitting out dribble crafted by a team of songwriters and hitmakers. Sometime in my early adulthood though, something clicked, and I grew to appreciate Pop music and fall victim to the catchy choruses. In 2024, it was nearly impossible for me to escape the sounds of Sabrina Carpenter in my house, as her new record Short n’ Sweet had a stranglehold on my wife and her friends. I listened from afar, bobbing my head to a few tracks, but never sat down and gave it the proper attention until now. My only exposure to Sabrina before this record was the show Girl Meets World, the movie Tall Girl, and the song “Feather” from 2023, but my interest in her grew after hearing bits of Short n’ Sweet and learning that she grew up less than 40 minutes from where I grew up! I’m always interested in supporting a Pennsylvania native (shoutout to Breaking Benjamin, Motionless in White, Bradley Cooper, Michael Keaton, etc).
The lyrics are the biggest highlight of the record, so I leaned on my wife for the dirt on who some lyrics are about since I’m so out of touch when it comes to Hollywood gossip and relationships. Many of the lyrics primarily focus on Sabrina’s experiences with love and heartbreak, and her general outlook on dating in the modern era. At times, the lyrics are heartfelt, nihilistic, tongue-in-cheek, and just downright horny. I appreciate the humor that is present on the album, especially at a time when Pop musicians are so focused on being serious. It feels like this is a product of Sabrina’s age, her growing up during the Vine era, and at a time when memes are a language spoken amongst younger Millennials and Gen Zers. The album lives up to its name and is short and to the point. With Pop music, I’d rather have a shorter album, like how I prefer 90-minute runtimes for comedy movies. It fits the genre better and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Let’s break down some of my picks that are stuck in my damn head after listening to this record. “Taste” starts things off, with equal parts catchy singing and a Pop guitar that’s light on the distortion that I dig. The lyrics are petty but funny, harping on how Shawn Mendes jumped from Camila Cabello to Sabrina and allegedly back to Camila (y’know, the girl who got caught having super racist posts on her Tumblr from when she was a teen and who has since been taking “racial healing lessons”). “Sharpest Tool” is another song of heartbreak, seemingly related to Shawn Mendes again. The music has an acoustic sound at times, with light electronic instrumentation appearing throughout that doesn’t bog the song down and allows Sabrina’s singing and writing to be the main focus. One of the biggest Pop songs of 2024 was “Espresso” and for good reason. The chorus has a funk groove and overall sound that screams “It’s the Summer, roll the windows down and blare this track with your friends all singing along”, which reminds me of how I felt listening to Calvin Harris’s Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1. I read that this was Trent Reznor’s favorite song of 2024, and who am I to disagree with one of my music heroes? “Slim Pickins” is a Dolly Parton-inspired track where Sabrina displays her vocal range. I’m usually allergic to Country or Country-adjacent music, but the Dolly Parton flair helps make the pill go down easier and establishes it as a song that will stay in my rotation. Finally, I want to give “Bed Chem” an honorable mention just for the witty and profane lyrics draped over a DiscoPop sound with an R&B bed.
Short n’ Sweet establishes Sabrina as a serious Pop artist in my mind, separating her from the Taylor Swifts and Ariana Grandes of the Pop world. She clearly is inspired by those two, and you can hear that in her music, but Short n’ Sweet does a good job being its own thing. I always struggle to not be too critical of Pop music since it usually suffers from overproduction and way too many cooks in the kitchen on the writing and production team, with the singers having very little autonomy over their music. Sabrina wrote all of the lyrics (a rarity in Pop) for this record, but the album still suffers from overproduction at times, and way too many personnel. Despite these minor complaints, the album is fun, witty, catchy, and won’t leave your brain easily after a first listen. Short n’ Sweet is arguably the best Pop record of 2024.