Sabrina Carpenter on the cover of “Short n’ Sweet (Deluxe)” (Courtesy of Sabrina Carpenter and Sean Price Williams)
Rhett Kaya: From TikTok trends to the latest Taylor Swift album, there is always something CU Boulder students are obsessing over, opinionated about or adding to their vernacular. The Culture Critic will keep you up to date with the latest in entertainment and popular culture through content reviews, analysis and my self-proclaimed professional opinion.
In just a year, Sabrina Carpenter appeared on Saturday Night Live multiple times, graced the cover of Vogue, collaborated with brands like Dunkin’ Donuts and Prada and launched her own fragrance line. As she says on her new bonus track “Fifteen Minutes,” “I can do a lot in fifteen minutes,” and she has, perhaps due to a fear that her newfound fame will fade as fast as it came. Considering our culture’s quick attention spans, eagerness to move on and obsession with ingenuity, it would be reasonable for Carpenter to worry about the longevity of her career.
But the “Espresso” singer’s “Short n’ Sweet (Deluxe)” album is proof she has the (sharpest) tools necessary to succeed.
If the standard album was a beach bash, evident in the surf-rock-inspired “Taste” and vibrant “Espresso,” the deluxe version is a journey to a classic American ranch. On tracks like “Couldn’t Make it Any Harder” and “Bad Reviews,” Carpenter expertly captures the country-pop magic of Dolly Parton’s biggest hits like “Here You Come Again” and “9 to 5.” The Parton inspiration was already clear, making the pair’s scratchy remix of “Please Please Please” feel forced. If anything, the original version of “Please Please Please” seems like an ode to ABBA, a cited reference of Carpenter’s. Producer Jack Antonoff’s choice to mix groovy guitar riffs with tropical synths resulted in a nostalgic auditory explosion. The newer version swaps the beachy bass for a twangy array of strings; fun but not nearly as captivating as the original; fortunately for Carpenter, this is a foible in a near-perfect record.
“Couldn’t Make it Any Harder” is a welcome twist on Olivia Newton-John’s iconic “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” A quintessential ballad about unrequited love, “Hopelessly Devoted to You” is an oozing eruption of emotion. As Newton-John states, “There’s nowhere to hide/Since you pushed my love aside.” “Couldn’t Make it Any Harder” operates as an equally effective response to the former, in which Carpenter belts about a guarded heart rather than an open one. If Generation Z can relate to anything, it’s the “pivotal formative comments,” and Carpenter’s song proves that sometimes burying love is easier than displaying it.
“Bad Reviews” is Carpenter’s most country song yet and encapsulates an essential truth to Carpenter’s music: men are just a plot mechanism. Throughout “Short n’ Sweet,” men are not muses but an idea that Carpenter both rejects and desires depending on the circumstance. In “Bad Reviews,” she talks about her ability to mold a relationship into something promising: “If I close an eye, it’s almost like your red flags are blue.” She’s motivated by loneliness and a desire for stability, not a specific man. The men will come and go; Carpenter’s internal and external motivations remain, evident in “Busy Woman,” where she states, “If you don’t want me, I’ll just deem you gay.”
The self-written track might just be the most Sabrina Carpenter song yet; it’s upbeat, affirmational and full of innuendos. “Busy Woman” cleverly plays on the hot and cold trope, in which Carpenter claims her calendar is full… until it’s not. Again, Carpenter retains control of the narrative as she both vilifies and expresses blind devotion to someone within the same song. As a standalone song, “Busy Woman” is a perfect example of Carpenter’s lackluster lyrics that somehow work, but within the context of the album, Antonoff’s array of 80s-esque synths stand out as busy and overly polished compared to the more string-based country songs.
The disco-infused “Fifteen Minutes” is an upbeat song that does mesh well with its counterparts, framing Carpenter as a classic American star attempting to make the most of her time in the spotlight.
In “Short n’ Sweet (Deluxe),” Carpenter commits to indulging in the complexities of romance. She isn’t afraid to pine, to swoon or to rebuke in the name of love, and she does so by brilliantly referencing her predecessors. From ABBA to Dolly Parton, Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet Deluxe” references the rich sound of disco and country pop from the 70s while retaining a unique sense of humor and the chaos of modern romance.
Contact CU Independent Opinion Editor Rhett Kaya at rhett.kaya@colorado.edu
