Sabrina Carpenter stuns with complex and mature album ‘Short n’ Sweet’

Sabrina Carpenter’s swift rise through the pop star ranks ought to be studied.
The 25-year-old got her start on Disney Channel a decade ago, and in the years since “Girl Meets World” she’s managed to forge a pop career relatively unscathed by the tabloid haze that haunted Disney predecessors Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato. Sure, whispers of past relationships have gone agonizingly public — she’s all but confirmed to be the “blond girl” in Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 single “Drivers License” — but by and large, Carpenter’s ascent to the throne of the Kingdom of Pop Girly has been relatively straightforward.
Enter “Short n’ Sweet,” Carpenter’s highly anticipated sixth studio album. Led by mega-viral singles “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” the record slaloms between genres, blending elements of country, lo-fi and bedroom pop. In recent interviews, Carpenter called “Short n’ Sweet” her “big girl album” — a step forward into musical maturity from 2022’s “Emails I Can’t Send” — and indeed, the album delivers a listening experience vastly more complicated than that of the cheeky singles heard from Carpenter while on tour with Taylor Swift.
What immediately jumps out from “Short n’ Sweet” is Carpenter’s embrace of contradictions. In many ways, this is a confident album — easy vocal flips into the stratosphere on tracks like “Coincidence” pair well with lyrics like “It’s not that complicated — you should stay in my good graces.” Over the last few years, Carpenter has created an uber-assured personality for herself, a coquettishness with room for lewd jokes and playful vocal tricks.
But on “Short n’ Sweet,” that poise pairs with a more confessional intimacy, a streak of self-doubt that adds heft to Carpenter’s songwriting. “Sharpest Tool” quickly emerges as a standout — against an acoustic backdrop, she lambasts an unnamed lover in clipped, barbed terms (“I know you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed / We had sex, I met your best friends, then a bird flies by, and you forget”).
Soon enough, though, the track explodes with a dance beat. Carpenter’s vocals layer, then spiral around her like a cloud of self-aware panic. “If that was casual, I’m an idiot,” she reflects, turning the knife of her songwriting against herself. “Seems like overnight, I’m just the b—-h you hate now.”
Carpenter punctuates “Short n’ Sweet” with stylistic nods to other artists, creating a pop genealogy on which she can announce herself as the genre’s newest heir. Shania Twain, Dolly Parton and even Hannah Montana are all over the album, from the country lament of “Slim Pickins” to the energized strums of “Coincidence.”
Taylor Swift-esque storytelling peeks through in the acoustic track “Lie to Girls,” with punchy lines like “I’ve never met an ugly truth that I can’t bend” and Morrissette-isms like “I’m stupid, but I’m clever, yeah, I can make a s—t show look a whole lot like forever.” You can hear the influence of Billie Eilish on some production choices. “Dumb and Poetic,” in particular, flexes the same reverb and lyrical nakedness that launched Eilish in the late 2010s.
All in, “Short n’ Sweet” is an impressive next step in Carpenter’s discography. A star-studded roster of producers, including Swift collaborator Jack Antonoff, makes it feel less like an album and more like a world, richly lived-in and considered.
The sticking point for me, however, is Carpenter’s habit of underwriting — half the tracks on “Short n’ Sweet” clock in at under three minutes. She’s found success with short songs before — “Espresso” and “Nonsense” are both no-nonsense, two-and-a-half-minute bops — but I wish she’d let the better tracks linger for a few moments more. It seems as if she’s tried to sell short songs as a concept album of sorts, hence the title, but Carpenter’s a strong enough writer that it’s tough not to miss those few extra seconds of music.
That quibble aside, the album suggests a promising pop career still to come. “Short n’ Sweet” will tour well — it’s easy to imagine an army of young women, clad in hairbows, scream-singing “Sharpest Tool” at Scotiabank Arena when Carpenter comes to Toronto next month — and the album boasts deep cuts as strong as its inevitable singles, songs likely to grow with their listeners over the years. It’s time for Carpenter to trust the confident persona she’s built within the glittered walls of her music. She’s got the chops to take over the industry, if she chooses to use them to their fullest potential.