There are three licensed plateaus of Sabrina Carpenter consciousness, in accordance with most gurus of pop-girl-ology.
The extent of Sabrina sentience held by most adults perceives this blond ball of radiance to have materialized out of the air this April with the moment song-of-the-summer contender “Espresso.” That’s the tune with the irresistible post-disco, Nineteen Eighties roller-rink groove (although, as Dan Charnas defined in Slate, it’s much more difficult than that) and the sublimely syntax-scrambled lyrics like “That’s that me espresso” and “I Mountain Dew it for ya” (which aren’t any extra difficult than that). A portion of this crowd will even pay attention to Carpenter’s lilting cosmic-cowgirl follow-up “Please Please Please,” which, as my colleague Chris Molanphy defined in June, really charted greater than “Espresso”—and which I personally desire a bit, primarily for one of many all-time-great deployments of the phrase motherfucker—however now, within the final stretch of summer time, stands a few notches decrease than its caffeinated cousin in Billboard’s seasonal rankings, which appears celestially simply.
If anybody on this cohort occurred to listen to that Carpenter’s album Brief n’ Candy was being launched Friday, they’d most likely muse, “Hmm, marvel if the full-length debut will stay as much as these two singles?”
A subset of us, nevertheless, had already achieved diploma two of Sabrinawareness: We heard about her in 2021 when Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” blew up, adopted by the album Bitter, and Carpenter was reputed to be the opposite girl in a tug-of-war over some hunk of boy whose betrayal fueled all of Rodrigo’s songs. All involved had been one way or the other linked by the Disney Channel. We had been most likely additionally dimly cognizant that Carpenter put out a solution tune known as “Pores and skin” and a subsequent 2022 album, Emails I Can’t Ship, which additionally addressed the matter in songs like “As a result of I Favored a Boy,” with a video depicting a literal circus to indicate what the Rodrigo donnybrook had executed to Carpenter’s life. That album additionally featured the fortunately unrelated breakout hit “Nonsense,” adopted by “Feather,” with a video that acquired Carpenter in sizzling holy water with the Catholic Church. Then Carpenter was invited to open for Taylor Swift on a few legs of the “Eras” tour this yr, partly owing to Swift’s personal tedious rumored spat with Rodrigo over one thing or different, which was how Carpenter had ascended to a spot the place the “Espresso” phenomenon might occur.
This subgroup would have anticipated Brief n’ Candy pondering, “So, will this second album break free from the heavy Swift mimicry on Emails and notice the cheeky potential of these few hits?”
However this cohort, too, lived in darkness. I knew vaguely that Carpenter had put out some songs in her years laboring within the mines of Disney TV, which I assumed had been disposable fluff. However the true adepts who inhabit the third and highest circle of Carpenter consciousness have identified all alongside that, really, Brief n’ Candy is barely Carpenter’s second major-label album. In actual fact, after the age of 14, the Pennsylvania-born teen singer and actress had an entire recording profession on Disney-affiliated Hollywood Data, which started with fittingly infantile, mild self-affirmation tunes however shortly grew extra subtle and by 2019 was pointing clearly towards her grownup fashion.
Brief n’ Candy is thus the 25-year-old Carpenter’s sixth studio album. Quite like one in every of 2024’s different breakthrough artists, Chappell Roan, Carpenter is an “in a single day success” provided that you posit an alternate Earth the place the nocturnal rotations final eight or 9 years. And this album feels precisely like one made by a former apprentice who’s now in command. It sparkles with confidence, streaked by with the jadedness of 1 who’s seen a number of trials. It’s teen pop all grown up and in reality generally intentionally evokes the sound of Carpenter’s turn-of-the-century Disney-kid predecessors Britney, Christina, and Justin, whereas steering pointedly huge of the traps and treasons that befell them. However its musical and lyrical vocabulary can be extra assorted than that. And rather a lot dirtier.
It’s as a poet laureate of intercourse that Carpenter’s strengths shine brightest on this album. She’s been campaigning for the designation for a yr or two together with her improvised (or a minimum of swiftly deliberate) codas to her stay performances of “Nonsense.” They normally embrace a shoutout to town or nation she’s touring, rhymed with a tribute to the carnal arts: “How one can trip it, I can consider 5 methods/ My head goes so onerous I’m giving migraines/ How loud do you get in Buenos Aires!” or “Boy, come over, this isn’t a drill/ He mentioned, ‘Get on prime,’ I mentioned, ‘I’ll’/ Then he made me come—to Brazil!” However perhaps the very best, or a minimum of most insolent, was the one she did for BBC Radio 1 that was shortly taken off official channels, which referred to, let’s say, the slang that means of the British broadcaster’s initials, together with the truth that that they had expressly requested her to not.
That monitor file ought to alleviate any doubt that Carpenter’s the one writing many of the intercourse jokes on Brief n’ Candy, like threatening on “Good Graces” that if a boyfriend doesn’t deal with her properly, “I’ll inform the world you end your chores prematurely,” or just about each phrase of “Juno,” which, by the use of the 2007 indie movie a couple of knocked-up teen, makes use of its title as a synonym for being pregnant: “Should you love me proper, then who is aware of? I would allow you to make me Juno,” since in spite of everything, “Certainly one of me is cute, however two, although?” That tune and “Mattress Chem”—an abbreviation for “mattress chemistry” that will probably be widespread on-line parlance earlier than you end studying this sentence—are vying for the title of horniest monitor, and “Mattress Chem” positively has probably the most penis-size euphemisms. However I believe “Juno” wins, not solely as a result of its music is extra racingly buoyant, however as a result of it simply goes forward and says, “Maintain me and discover me/ I’m so fuckin’ attractive.”
This is without doubt one of the ways in which Carpenter surpasses and sheds her Swift affect. Whereas Swift is commonly sensual in her songs, she will be able to not often be direct about intercourse with out sounding very self-conscious about being so grownup and naughty. And whereas she could be wickedly sharp when skewering herself and others, she’s seldom simply casually humorous. Carpenter sounds completely comfortable with each intercourse and jokes, and particularly with how usually the 2 go collectively. You actually see that within the new-this-morning, mock-horror video for the opening monitor, “Style,” that includes Gen Z’s personal scream queen Jenna Ortega.
The raunch and sarcasm aren’t only for their very own sake, although it could be sufficient in the event that they had been. It’s all in service to the album’s general intent, which, as she put it to Paper journal, is to chronicle the latest “collection of unlucky occasions I’ve encountered in relationships” (making an ideal Gen Z kid-culture reference)—and, by extension, to offer a grim survey of the modern courting scene. Listening to Brief n’ Candy, I usually really feel like I’m studying a very good feminist web site’s gossip and recommendation columnist, a report from an unusually salty-mouthed sociologist, or some mix of Shere Hite and Dorothy Parker.
The subtext of numerous the songs is far sadder than their surfaces, however due to the power she brings to them, I seldom actually really feel unhappy for Carpenter right here. She sounds fairly certain that in the long term she’ll be positive. I’m simply ready for the following zinger to strike down whoever’s making her unhappy, normally some disappointing dude, sometimes herself. She’s turn out to be ever more proficient at eviscerating fuckbois—witness the bloody cadaver–strewn flooring within the “Feather” video—just like the one right here who’s not the “Sharpest Instrument” within the shed: “We had intercourse, I met your finest pals/ Then a hen flies by and also you neglect.” (Although the remainder of the tune by no means fairly equals that opening.) Or the sensitive-posturing man within the folkie-strummed “Dumb & Poetic”: “Attempt to come off such as you’re tender and well-spoken/ Jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen.” (Who anticipated Boygenius’ tune from final yr to be one-upped so shortly within the skeptical Leonard Cohen–reference sweepstakes?) I’m unsure which is extra devastating, that or “I promise the mushrooms aren’t altering your life.”
Except for the occasional good lay, Carpenter actually makes it sound like an ordeal to be a younger straight girl in 2024, “For the reason that good ones name their exes wasted/ And for the reason that Lord forgot my homosexual awakenin’,” as she sings on the following monitor, “Slim Pickins.” The title there may be additionally a nod to the distinguished banjo line; it’s one in every of a number of songs right here that lean just a little nation and would have slot in properly on Kacey Musgraves’ 2018 Golden Hour, an album praised all over the place on the time that generally appears forgotten now. Not by Carpenter, who introduced Musgraves up onstage in San Francisco this month to duet on “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” calling her “an artist that I’ve simply cherished for my complete life.” (Which will need to have made Musgraves really feel outdated at 36.)
There’s additionally an acoustic solid to the penultimate monitor, “Mislead Ladies”—which actually ought to be the nearer fairly than the comparatively weak and sleepy “Don’t Smile.” It’s right here that Carpenter actually confronts her portion of the issue with the dud dudes, assuring one, within the midst of reaming him out for misbehavior, “You don’t need to lie to women/ In the event that they such as you, they’ll simply misinform themselves” after which cleverly looping it again: “Such as you, they’ll simply misinform themselves.” And, debate her as you’ll, she universalizes the problem to her entire gender: “It’s fortunate for you I’m similar to/ My mom (and my sisters) (all my pals)/ The lady outdoors the strip membership, getting her tarot playing cards learn.”
Carpenter is perhaps mentioned to circle these topics obsessively right here, however, as in these examples, it’s all the time from contemporary angles, and normally fairly concisely. She’s down with the aphorism that brevity is the soul of wit: Brief n’ Candy isn’t only a joke about her personal under-5-foot stature and the short expiration dates on many of those liaisons, however truth-in-advertising concerning the album. It is available in at 12 songs lasting simply over 36 minutes in complete. Which is a good aid in a yr when so many main pop albums, from Swift’s to Beyoncé’s to Publish Malone’s, have been clocking in at double-album lengths, justified in substance or not.
If there’s a disappointment right here, it is perhaps that “Espresso” stands alone in its giddy phrase salad–tossing; not one of the different songs match its benign contempt for comprehensibility. Likewise, many of the music is both moody or extra anthemic, not with the breezy-dancey vibe of the lead single. It’s partly produced by and written with varied L.A. music-biz stalwarts—many former associates of One Path, make what you’ll of that—and partly with the celebrated/infamous Jack Antonoff. Should you require additional proof that it’s not actually his fault that Swift’s previous couple of albums have felt so overwrought, could Brief n’ Candy please the courtroom. And actually, who else would have had the inspo to cite the riff from Pink Floyd’s “One other Brick within the Wall” in the midst of the period-appropriate Dolly-disco-country of “Please Please Please”?
No matter Carpenter may need wanted to show right here, I’d name it mission achieved. Somebody who, a yr in the past, appeared considerably of a footnote to a few extra well-known artists’ tales now looks like a completely autonomous auteur who’s in it for retains. Sure, the Sabrina-luminati by no means questioned that, whereas it’s dawning on a few of us benighted creatures actually immediately. However a minimum of we lastly Mountain Dew’d it, and that’s that, me.