Following the recent win of her first Grammy in her musical career in the category of “Best Pop Solo Performance” for the hit song “Espresso”, singer Sabrina Carpenter released a deluxe version of her sixth studio album, “Short N’ Sweet” last Friday. This extended version features five new songs. Those include 15 Minutes, Please, Please, Please (featuring Dolly Parton), Couldn’t Make It Any Harder, Busy Woman, and Bad Reviews.
The deluxe album maintains the theme of the tracks previously released in the original “Short N’ Sweet” studio album. It contains a pop style with a sprinkle of country throughout the vocals and instruments. There are features of many risque lyrics that leave people either feeling good about the presence of a woman in the music industry who is able to express herself in the way men have for years or people thinking she’s too vulgar for an audience of younger people.
The first new song, 15 Minutes is a track with a retro upbeat sound as the introduction. Like many of her other songs, it is a beat that any girl could easily get up and jump around to in their room. Making you feel as though you are a teenage girl in a coming-of-age movie. The lyrics almost get lost in the beat due to the subliminal messages sprinkled within the title and catchy phrases. “I can do a lot with 15 minutes” is the overall message she left within the song.
A spin-off to the hit song in the summer of 2024, “Please, Please, Please”, Sabrina Carpenter changed the sound to be a bit more country and contain vocals from the iconic singer of the hit song from 1974 “Jolene”, Dolly Parton. Her high-toned, old-school, scratchy-sounding singing takes you back to hearing other performances she has done. Another change within the song is the lack of explicitness. Rather than the swearing that the original version contains, alternative words that would be in a radio, take the place of the lyrics. A music video had been created as well where the two artists created a sequel to the original video starring Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan. Following the accusations of him cheating on her, the video takes a twist from being a love story and becomes focused on getting revenge on the male lead for embarrassing her. This is contrary to her lyrics in the track where she says, “Please, Please, Please, Don’t Prove them right.”
“Couldn’t Make it Any Harder” is a song with a slower guitar entrance and vocal focus rather than instrumentally. Carpenter keeps her tone within a Soprano pitch with a sultry touch to it, adding a variety from the danceable songs previously queued. The song can be interpreted in multiple ways but the one that is depicted through the lyrics is Carpenter’s inability to make it any harder to love her, hinting she’s a difficult person.
“Busy Woman” is a fast-paced song with a more retro sound within the backing vocals and sounds sprinkled throughout. The song describes Carpenter being too busy for a real relationship and wanting less due to her being busy.
“Bad Reviews” has a sound similar to “Slim Pickins” from Carpenter’s album “Short N Sweet” with a strong country guitar sound and a folky voice. A violin also makes a strong appearance within the song. The track focuses on the singer being warned through bad reviews and bad news that the boy she likes isn’t great but she doesn’t want to lose any more boys and decides to pick him over all of the people who are trying to protect her.
This may be her biggest year career-wise with the achievement of reaching 17th on the most listened to Spotify artist’s chart, Sabrina Carpenter’s musical career started in 2015 with her debut album “Eyes Wide Open” which was released under a Disney contract.
In 2022, Carpenter’s album “Emails I Can’t Send” was released. One track called “Nonsense” featured an outro that the singer would switch into a new subliminal rhyme during each performance. The biggest was performed at Coachella and featured a comment about her now ex-boyfriend, Barry Kheogan. Her rise to fame had started at this moment with everyone waiting for videos on TikTok to reveal what was said at whatever concert was being performed that night.
Prior to this jump in popularity, Sabrina Carpenter had a controversial career with her release of the track “Skin” which is speculated to be about the drama involving Joshua Bassett and Olivia Rodrigo at the time. It was speculated that Bassett had left Rodrigo for Carpenter and she was targeting his ex and bragging about their relationship.
Carpenter was older than Rodrigo which left many feeling weird, especially when “Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo was released and held a more vulnerable theme describing how she was confused how he was okay when she was so heartbroken.
Since the drama, neither have commented too much on it or made amends so it is still unclear as to what happened and whether or not they hold a grudge against the other.
