When asked recently about the controversy surrounding her music video being filmed in a church, Sabrina Carpenter didn’t miss a beat: “We got approval in advance. And, Jesus was a carpenter.”
I’m no religious scholar, but who’s to say he wouldn’t be a fan of her ultra-catchy funk-pop hit “Espresso.” The rest of the U.S. is already on board: Carpenter just scored her first #1 single (“Please Please Please”) while “Espresso” was still hanging on to the #3 spot on the charts. That makes her the first artist since The Beatles to have two songs debut within the top three spots of the Billboard Hot 100. On Friday, tickets go on sale for Carpenter’s first headliner arena tour, including two nights in New York City and three in Southern California.
While it may feel like Carpenter and her music are suddenly everywhere, this summer’s it girl isn’t actually new to the pop scene.
But while it may feel like Carpenter and her music are suddenly everywhere, this summer’s it girl isn’t actually new to the pop scene. In fact, Carpenter first signed a record deal a decade ago, around the time she landed a starring role on Disney’s “Girl Meets World.” She released four albums with that label before making gossip headlines as the alleged other woman that Olivia Rodrigo obliquely refers to in her 2021 viral hit “Driver’s License.” Carpenter responded by releasing two tracks, “Skin” and “because i liked a boy,” to share her side of the story. She then changed labels, released her fifth studio album in 2022 and opened for acts as big as Taylor Swift while promoting it. Carpenter’s playful, feminine outfits, charming stage presence and raunchy custom “Nonsense” outros made an impression. By the time she performed “Espresso” at Coachella in March, her pop profile was peaking.
It’s also no surprise that Carpenter’s breakout track is peaking with the hot weather. Summertime demands soundtracks for the endless potential of a 9 p.m. sunset, the way your heat-driven brain fog keeps you from overthinking bad decisions. “Espresso” is not a song for deep contemplation. Who among us is actually singing “I can’t relate to desperation” — and meaning it? Give me your therapist’s number. I can’t even drink coffee without triggering intense anxiety.
But it’s not relatability that most of us are seeking from a Sabrina Carpenter song. What’s so compelling about “Espresso” is her commitment to the bit, the way she delivers the almost nonsensical lines with dedication that borders on camp.
“Please Please Please” adopts a facade of desperation. Carpenter begs an ex to “act like a stand-up guy.” But even this track is emotionally removed. It’s not heartbreak that Carpenter is concerned with, it’s a bruised ego: “Heartbreak is one thing/ My ego’s another. I beg you, don’t embarrass me, m———–.” That last word is sung with such a determined twang that the song ends up feeling more like a warning than a plea.
Popcast hosts Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli mention the occasional wrong-ness of her delivery: the elongation of her curses, the way some of the lyrics in “Espresso” could have been written by AI. It’s that shimmer of weirdness that makes her pop confections so idiosyncratic. Liking a Sabrina Carpenter song feels like having a secret, or at least, like you understand what “that me espresso” actually means.
In a review of Charli XCX’s “BRAT,” Meghan Garvey wrote about the “relatable girl” moment happening in pop music right now. Stars use their music to “radically” share their vulnerabilities and learn to love themselves. But these revelations rarely feel honest, Garvey writes, because they lack self reflection or personal accountability. You listen to these songs thinking, “That’s your big secret? You’re … too much of a people pleaser? Too big of an empath? I’ve shared juicier gossip about myself to a stranger while we waited in line for the Greyhound bus.”
Charli complicates this concept of paint-by-number vulnerability with tracks that oscillate from self-assured to genuinely, deeply personal. She sets up Lorde as a villain on “Girl, So Confusing” and then invites her alleged rival to share her perspective on their beef, showing how both of them are culpable in the conflict. Carpenter has written her fair share of serious and vulnerable songs. The title track of “emails I can’t send” features all the detailed reminiscing of a Taylor Swift song, down to the references to specific time stamps, and “Lonesome” details how she’s kept awake wondering whether an ex ever truly loved her.
Stars use their music to “radically” share their vulnerabilities and learn to love themselves. But these revelations rarely feel honest.
But the moments in Carpenter’s career that are the most exciting are the ones where she exudes total nonchalance. Rather than digging into her deepest fears, complicating vulnerability like Charli does, Carpenter offers a sense of escape from the darkness from it. What sets her apart in a climate of performative earnestness is her sense of humor and irony, her flirtatiousness, her easy, unending confidence.
I first started seriously paying attention to Carpenter when her “Nonsense” outro picked up momentum on TikTok. The three lines of the outro change depending on where she’s performing, but typically weave together a bit of self mythologizing with an explicitly sexual brag and a geographical tie. Sophie Kemp recently wrote about a Sheila Heti passage she loves for its explicitness: “You don’t feel bad for her,” Kemp wrote. “She isn’t a sad girl.” Carpenter’s lyrics are never quite as explicit or as involved as the writing Kemp is referencing, but I feel similarly about the way she sings about sex. There is no hand wringing, no hyper fixation on insecurity or self doubt, just unfiltered bravado and desire. The listener can take it or leave it.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Carpenter said, “Those real moments where I’m just a 25-year-old girl who’s super horny are as real as when I’m going through a heartbreak and I’m miserable.” Carpenter serves as a reminder that pop music doesn’t just have to be a vehicle for moral enlightenment or cosmic connection, sometimes it can simply be fun.
Leave a Reply