With her new album Short n’ Sweet  (2024), Sabrina Carpenter’s career has skyrocketed to a new echelon of pop stardom. The album’s two lead singles, “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” have cemented Carpenter’s place in the running for soundtrack of the summer with her playful pop energy, and the internet can’t seem to get enough of her “me espresso”—a grammatically fraught statement that has seemingly woven its way into the consciousness of every pop music enthusiast.

Short n’ Sweet explores many different musical forms, from ’60s retro to acoustic folk to standard pop aesthetic. While some listeners may have been lost in this constant shift in genres, her unifying tone and distorted view of even the most heartbreaking situations bring a sense of nonchalance throughout an album that doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously—even as Carpenter enters unknown heights of her career.

This unifying tone often finds humor, confidence, and unfortunate delusion in the most heartbreaking moments, like in “Please Please Please” as she reframes a doomed relationship into a catchy plea that only Carpenter could generate in such uncertainty.

“I know I have good judgment/I know I have good taste/It’s funny and it’s ironic/That only I feel that way,” Carpenter sings.

Similarly, in “Taste,” Carpenter finds confidence and humor in the betrayal of a former lover retreating back to their ex.

“You can have him if you like/I’ve been there, done that once or twice/And singin’ ’bout it don’t mean I care/Yeah, I know I’ve been known to share,” she sings.

Through playful sexual innuendos, like “Come right on me, I mean camaraderie” in the cleverly titled song “Bed Chem,” or in “Juno,” where she begs “Hold me and explore me/I’m so fuckin’ horny/Tell me I’m the only, only, only, only one,” Carpenter’s playful pop impulses and subtle, thematic construction make her work so profound in the modern pop landscape. She even confronts her own delusions with new clarity in “Sharpest Tool.”

“Guess I’ll waste another year on wonderin’ if/If that was casual, then I’m an idiot,” she sings.

In a gesture that seems to encompass all the central themes, she takes on a pleading tone in “Lie to Girls.”

“You don’t have to lie to girls/If they like you, they’ll just lie to themselves,” Carpenter sings.

Her nonchalant charisma, satirical imagery, and hopeful delusion (even as she acknowledges her hypocrisy) make her music feel almost like a guilty pleasure–as if there shouldn’t be an audience to her rambling and often distorted thoughts. The songs are, indeed, Short n’ Sweet. With no song over the four-minute mark, she crafts satirical innuendos to make even the most heartbreaking situations humorous and easily digestible.

Aside from the indescribable quality of Carpenter’s effortless thematic constructions, the musical production itself is brilliant. With its ambitious exploration of diverse genres, from the strong folk-guitar strums of “Coincidence” (very reminiscent of the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young/Laurel Canyon style) to the retro pop-groove of “Espresso” to the country acoustic feel of “Slim Pickins” to the pop-R&B hybrid of “Good Graces,” the quality of the production and songwriting feels unique in an era of mass “Pop Iconism” when our pop idols seem to pull from a limited selection of similar musical tropes.

Her lyrics navigate the borders of two camps of pop music: the sad-girl aesthetic (as best exemplified by Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers or more recently by The Secret of Us by Gracie Abrams) and high-pop intensity (like in Midnights by Taylor Swift or Radical Optimism by Dua Lipa) so brilliantly as she paves her own path to A-list stardom. Perhaps this album, however, is more reminiscent of the weakening of these two rigid camps of pop music in 2024, with the relevance of pop stars like Chappell Roan (whose music draws from the queer legacy and ’80s eccentricity of Cindi Lauper, Madonna, and Cher) and Charli xcx (whose legacy and sound has been influenced so significantly by PC Music’s AG Cook and the late SOPHIE, both of whose experimentation with hyperpop erected a new sector in pop music).

While we are certainly in an era where up-and-coming artists like Sabrina Carpenter or Tate McRae or Benson Boone have amassed commercial success in a musical landscape of rigid pop oligarchs, I believe that the success and mysticism of Short n’ Sweet has more to do with Carpenter’s embodiment of the ideals of third-wave feminism, which, in opposition to stereotypical, classic female ideals, emphasizes the powerful, assertive, and rebellious nature of womanhood in reclaiming the sexual and romantic power that has been exploited by and for men. More specifically, themes of playful sexual liberation and individual female empowerment all assist Carpenter in creating a musical and lyrical style that differentiates her from pop predecessors, and while feminist themes can be seen in the 2024 pop landscape with songs such as “the boy is mine” by Ariana Grande and “LUNCH” by Billie Eilish, Carpenter plots this aesthetic so subtly and masterfully that it permeates the album as a whole and deepens her image of a playful yet powerful female who is not fearful of sexual power or romantic uncertainty. This theme is most emphasized in “Juno.”

“I showed my friends, then we high-fived/Sorry if you feel objеctified,” she sings, continuing the overall sexual power she tries to navigate in her various male relationships throughout the song. “All the douchebags in my phone/Play ‘em like a slot machine.”

She also juxtaposes her image as a modern, feminist woman with the role of domesticity in songs like “Juno,” which imagines her relationship in relation to the hypothetical of pregnancy or the fear of not finding true love.

“Oh, it’s slim pickings/If I can’t have the one I love/I guess it’s you that I’ll be kissin’/Just to get my fixings,” Carpenter sings.

In Short n’ Sweet, Carpenter traces an unexplored pop legacy with her unique musical impulses, self-deprecating humor, and playful honesty. While the production is effortless (with a who’s-who collaboration list of pop masterminds such as John Ryan, Jack Antonoff, Julia Michaels, and many more), Carpenter has masterfully crafted new pop aesthetics in an evolving age of commercial music. Throughout her 10-year career in music, her first four albums (under contract with Disney) had a little momentum, and although her 2022 album emails I can’t send had hints of her later developed artistic uniqueness, Short n’ Sweet is the perfect recipe of musical mastery, sonic creativity, and artistic individuality to propel her into pop superstardom.

Carter Appleyard can be reached at cappleyard@wesleyan.edu.