Overview:
Today is a crazy day for music fans all around the world. With not only the worldwide release of Travis Scott’s DAYS BEFORE RODEO (review for that coming soon), pop fans rejoice as Sabrina Carpenter drops her new album Short n’Sweet.
Now before we get into it, just a DISCLAIMER: This blog is typically a rap and K-Pop blog, and I have never listened to a full-length Sabrina Carpenter song until today.
My goal for this post today is to give insight from a non-fan and casual listener’s perspective. Additionally, I’d like to get people like me who aren’t too familiar with Sabrina to give her a shot like I am today for the first time.
For returning fans of my blog, I will be covering album reviews from here on out much differently, which you will see below. I won’t cover in-depth every individual song. But rather I will talk about the over vibes of the album and then make a tier list of all the songs while still individually ranking them and the album overall from 1/10. Without further ado, let’s hop right in!
The Review:
The songs on this album share recurring themes of either being about Sabrina’s ex and/or the boundaries/standards she establishes in relationships and how she feels if they’re not met. She illuminates the versatility of her vocals with this album by singing over many different kinds of instrumentals, touching a multitude of genres in the process. Overall, as a fellow generation-Z individual, this song really touches topics most people in my age range experience which adds to the eloquence of the album.
Throughout the album, you can find elegant disco pop with ‘Good Graces’, ‘Bed Chem’, ‘Don’t Smile’ and ‘Espresso’, alternative pop-rock with songs like ‘Taste’ and ‘Juno’, country in songs like ‘Please Please Please’ and many RnB type songs in which most of them use an acoustic guitar as the main instrument like ‘Sharpest Tool’, ‘Coincidence’ and the rest of the album.
While I’m not personally very knowledgeable about the artists similar to Sabrina (Madison Beer, Gracie Adams, etc.) as a fan of lots of other music, I feel this album connects mostly with the joy I have listening to something like Blonde by Frank Ocean, or some songs on folklore by Taylor Swift. As a K-Pop fan as well, I can definitely see the influence Sabrina has on some of the girl group music I listen to (I was thinking a lot about ARTMS throughout my listening experience).
Sabrina’s lyricism and flow also rivals those of modern day rappers and other great mainstream RnB artists. Her lyrics are very sweet and then sour, meaning her elegant and dreamy voice will say something unhinged or explicit out of nowhere. The most popular songs on the album, ‘Espresso’ and ‘Please Please Please’ are prime examples of this. Despite not having interludes, some songs do feel like them due to their length and the way she flows through them so casually.
What separates Sabrina from other pop artists for me, are her versatility which I mentioned above but also how natural she sounds. Frankly, I’m not a fan of Olivia Rodrigo just because I feel like she forces her music into the listener, it’s like if somebody just randomly decides they want to be moody for a day despite people trying to cheer them up.
The Tier List:
My favorite track: Espresso (10/10) (sorry for being mainstream, but that song’s crazy)
Great: Taste (9/10), Lie to Girls (8/10), Please Please Please (8/10)
Good: Juno (7.5), Good Graces (7.5), Coincidence (7.5), Don’t Smile (7), *Needless to Say (7) Bed Chem (6.5), Dumb Poetic (6)
Okay (my least favorite track): Slim Pickins (5.5)
*Needless to Say is Vinyl Exclusive, and the sound quality I could find was not optimal so I can’t evaluate it fairly.