Rating: 4.5/5 stars

 Sabrina Carpenter (“Short n’ Sweet”) has slowly but surely become the next rising pop star princess with her hit singles like “Espresso” and “Please Please Please”. With the release of her sixth studio album “Short n’ Sweet”, Carpenter has set a new wave of the rise of girly pop music with hints of country twang and true, fun pop. Carpenter’s witty lyrics and catchy beats have created her songs to hit number one on Billboard and several of her snippets of her songs to become big TikTok trends. 

It seems that Sabrina Carpenter cannot be brought up without mentioning her hair and the culture around it. Carpenter’s bright blond locks and beautiful thick curtain bangs have brought many girls going to the salon to get the “Sabrina Carpenter haircut”. With her latest new album, Carpenter’s style has definitely evolved into a more hyper-feminine aesthetic with her style and hair paying homage to celebrities like Bridget Bardot (“And God Created Woman”) and other 60’s style icons. 

One surprising factor in Carpenter’s new albums is the hint of country that is crept through the album. Songs like “Slim Pickins” and “Coincidence” have an upbeat acoustic guitar that has fun, folky lyrics. It seems famous producer Jack Antonoff (“Tiny Moves”), who has worked with artists, most notably Taylor Swift (“Tortured Poets Department”), seems to be behind this new country sound from Carpenter. Antonoff produced “Sharpest Tool”, “Lie to Girls”, “Slim Pickins”, and more which heavily rely on that country guitar sound. Carpenter’s voice compliments this sound and was an interesting step to take for Carpenter that worked heavily in her favor. 

Many of the songs delve into problems of dating in a fun way that Carpenter typically will poke fun at. In songs like “Please Please Please” instead of writing about not breaking her heart, Carpenter begs the men in her life to not embarrass her saying, “Heartbreak is one thing/My ego’s another/I beg you don’t embarrass me”. These non serious lyrics that delve into more serious love topics seem to be Carpenter’s strong point that showcase her humor and personality. 

On this album, Carpenter doesn’t dive too heavily into any serious topics, only in a few songs like “Dumb & Poetic” she mentions the harder parts of situationships or relationships in general. Lyrics like “Jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen/Don’t think you understand/Just cause you act like one doesn’t make you a man” are one of the few lyrics where Carpenter takes a more serious tone. 

“Short n’ Sweet” as an album is a very cohesive album with the themes of love and the silliness of it blending well to make another great album from Sabrina Carpenter for the girls. One thing missing from Carpenter’s album is more serious tones. Carpenter has always played more into the witty humor in her music, but she can also write beautiful ballads. If “Short n’ Sweet” had a few more serious moments where Carpenter opened up in her music, it would add a great, real element to elevate her humorous side even more. Overall,Carpenter’s sixth studio album delivered everything and more, and the album’s stats reflect that well. We will hopefully be seeing Carpenter for some nominations at this year’s Grammys. 

Image via Sabrina Carpenter via Instagram