For a year that has featured a mind-boggling number of major album releases, from Taylor Swift to Beyoncé to Billie Eilish to Ariana Grande, pop music in 2024 has, surprisingly enough, been more clearly defined by smaller artists rising to meet their respective moments. We’ve seen it play out with Charli xcx over the course of Brat Summer, Chappell Roan as her audiences have ballooned to watch her seize festival stages, and Tinashe while “match my freak” has become common parlance.
And now, after Sabrina Carpenter joined pop’s A-list thanks to the back-to-back explosions of “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” new album Short n’ Sweet is a moment that’s perfectly timed, highly anticipated, and entrusted with lofty expectations.
Plenty of signs existed that Carpenter, a Disney Channel veteran who released four studio albums on Disney-owned Hollywood Records, was a special talent prior to “Espresso” becoming her first top 10 hit in April. Her 2022 album Emails I Can’t Send demonstrated a natural understanding of pop songwriting and vocal nuance, and was one of that year’s strongest pop projects. Yet Short n’ Sweet comfortably surpasses its predecessor by simultaneously expanding Carpenter’s sound and drilling down on the qualities that make her such a singular top 40 talent.
Carpenter tosses out shimmery hooks that stick in your brain and cheeky phrases that you’ll want to share with your friends — get ready for “bed chem” and “Juno” to turn into slang — but as her sexuality has become a bigger part of her musical identity, her romantic subjects have also become more fleshed-out, and her self-examinations more poignant. Meanwhile, the bubblegum riffs on Emails have deepened into explorations of country, rock, folk and R&B in ways that speak to an inherent curiosity yet never stray too far away from what Carpenter does best.
She has more radio-ready darts to throw, with the dazzling “Taste” appearing to be next up — but the finger-picked woe of “Slim Pickins” and the rhythmic bounce of “Good Graces” push Carpenter into bold new territory, and make for a more comprehensive full-length. Working with studio vets like Jack Antonoff, Amy Allen, Julia Michaels and Julian Bunetta, Carpenter has assembled a team of confidantes that know how to navigate an unfamiliar shade and maximize a refrain — and at 12 songs, Short n’ Sweet breezes by, a well-oiled machine without a uneven track in the bunch.
We shall see how many more hits Carpenter scores off of Short n’ Sweet, after already collecting two off of its track list. Regardless of which songs go viral or cross over to radio, though, the singer has unveiled one of the most accomplished pop albums of the year, making good on years of potential with a definitive statement. Consider the moment met.
We’re still digging into the Short n’ Sweet track list, but here is a breakdown and preliminary ranking of all 12 songs on Sabrina Carpenter’s latest:
