Editor-in-Chief, Music

“Short and Sweet” may be Sabrina Carpenter’s sixth album, but even she says it feels more like her second. Following the creative breakthrough that was 2022’s “Emails I Can’t Send” — which we’ll call her “Disney emancipation” after nearly a decade as a child star — “S n’ S” is the powerful next step in her evolution as an artist, a person, and a persona.

You already know the persona from the album's two lead singles, "Espresso" and "Please Please Please," and their videos: a woman who's beautiful but tough, funny, sassy, confident, sexually outspoken, and with a fiery mean streak, but who's not without her insecurities and heartbreak. The songs here are almost exclusively about love, all kinds of love: true love, dumb love, infatuations, I-should-have-known-better love that's really lust, revenge, both sides of infidelity, and, especially on the last two songs, heartbreak. But most of all, along with the fiery hooks that the album's lead singles have led fans to expect, there's even more of the "Did she just said what I thought she said?" style of lyrics, which are packed with F-bombs, sexual innuendos, and hilarious insults that are made all the more devastating because she sings almost all of them so sweetly.

Like what? "Try to come across as soft and eloquent/ Jerk off to Leonard Cohen lyrics" ("Dumb and Poetic"); "Last week you had no doubts/ This week you're holding room for her tongue in your mouth" ("Coincidence"); "I showed my friends, then we high-fived/ Sorry if you're obsessed" ("Juno"); "Where you at? Why not with me?" ("Bed Chem"); "I heard you guys got back together and if that's true/ You just gotta taste me when he kisses you" ("Taste"); "Heartbreak is one thing, my ego's another/ I'm begging you, don't make fun of me, motherfucker" ("Please Please Please"); and, uh, "I'm so fucking horny" ("Juno"). Subtext: We can have some fun, just don't mess with me.