On August 23, 2024, singer-songwriter and actress, Sabrina Carpenter, released her sixth studio album: Short n’ Sweet. The album has gone on to be number one on the Billboard 200 for three weeks running, and has garnered the most streams in it’s first week of any of her other albums.
“Short n’ Sweet garnered 233 million first-week streams, the top streaming album of the week, per Billboard,” Ethan Millma from Rolling Stone said.
The success of this album didn’t start on the release date, it began months prior. Carpenter opened for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour from August of 2023 in South America until March of 2024 in Asia, where fans at the shows began to fall in love with Carpenter’s back catalog, bringing more attention to the singer. This attention continued to grow until the release of the lead single from the album, ‘Espresso’, on the day of her set at Coachella on April 12, 2024. The single blew up, immediately becoming a hit stuck in everyone’s head. The single went on to be the third fastest song to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify. Then, just 2 months later, on June 6, 2024, the second prerelease single Please Please Please was released… and immediately became a hit, doing extremely well on streaming and shooting up to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The huge release of these two singles got the public and Carpenter’s fans more excited for the upcoming album release.
After 5 months of building anticipation, the album was finally released on August 23, 2024. Fans, the general public and critics immediately fell in love with the album.
“After a summer of hit singles, Sabrina Carpenter sets a high bar for big pop with a refreshingly light album that’s cheeky, clever, and effortlessly executed,” Quinn Moreland said for Pitchfork, “So here we are at Carpenter’s sixth album, Short n’ Sweet, a tee-hee title for a 36-minute album by a singer who stands just under five feet tall. In a pop landscape recently plagued by self-seriousness and a tiresome obsession with authenticity, Short n’ Sweet is a refreshing glass of escapism.” Which perfectly describes this album and its sound.
With album highlights like Taste, Good Graces, and Coincidence, this album varies in genre and themes ranging from upbeat pop to country-esque songs. Taste, the third single off the album, is an upbeat, catchy hit, and its music video perfectly encapsulates the album as a whole. The song uses suggestive innuendos and punchy one-liners to tell the story of someone’s boyfriend cheating on them, but takes a spin on it by singing to the person he is cheating with and reminding her that she was with him first, “You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you”. The music video, which features actress Jenna Ortega playing the other girl, takes a more graphic take on this story, showing Carpenter trying to kill Ortega. The video perfectly encapsulates the song and adds to Carpenter’s list of comedic and well-done music videos.
Another song that immediately caught the ears of the fans is “Good Graces”, another upbeat pop hit with a catchy chorus and fun melody that will immediately be stuck in your head. Featuring lyrics such as “Boy it’s not that complicated/You should stay in my good graces/Or I’ll switch it up like that so fast/ Cause no one’s more amazing at/Turnin’ lovin’ into hatred.” The upbeat style of this song makes it one that you will want to play on repeat, no matter what you’re doing.
Lastly, a song that stands out from the others on the album is Coincidence. The song could be considered country-esque with the camp-sounding guitar that can be heard throughout the song. With lyrical highlights such as, “The second I put my head on your chest/She knew, she’s got a real sixth sense,” and “Last week, you didn’t have any doubts/This week, you’re holdin’ space for her tongue in your mouth.” But, the true highlight of this song is the bridge, the vocal delivery is incredible and the very blunt but strong lyrics make it stand out from the rest of the song.
All of these incredible songs, and the anticipation that was built up over the 5-month prerelease promotional period led to the album, according to Billboard’s Keith Caufield, earning it a total of 362,000 equivalent album units, earning it a #1 stop on the Billboard 200. It also earned 233 million on-demand streams in its first week, making it Carpenter’s biggest streaming week ever. The album has continued to chart #1, with this week being the album’s third consecutive week at #1. This album not only showcased Carpenter’s personality but showed her growth as a singer and songwriter, and has become arguably one of the biggest albums of this year.
Tracklist for Short n’ Sweet:
Taste
Please Please Please
Good Graces
Sharpest Tool
Coincidence
Bed Chem
Espresso
Dumb & Poetic
Slim Pickins
Juno
Lie to Girls
Don’t Smile
