Sabrina Carpenter is pop's Mae West
On new album 'Short n' Sweet,' the singer arrives as the funniest horndog in music
An apology is in order. World-famous pop star Sabrina Carpenter, I am sorry that I previously referred to you as “that short lady who pissed off Olivia Rodrigo.” I wasn’t aware that Mae West chose to reincarnate herself as a 5-foot-tall Disney Channel refugee. That’s on me.
In this case, I love to be wrong. “Espresso” wasn’t just a juggernaut summer single that catapulted its singer into public consciousness. It was a software update for that her, espresso. The smash hit deleted the contents of my brain’s Sabrina Carpenter folder, which previously held files marked “She Was on ‘Girl Meets World,’ Which You Watched Once” and “She Made the Catholic Church Angry Over a Song You Didn’t Like.”
With one spin of “Espresso,” the new era had me hooked. Still, I wondered: Besides a coffee-themed earworm and the fact that she dresses like Bugs Bunny trying to fool Elmer Fudd, what turned things around in my brain?
The answer runs through her sixth album, “Short ’n Sweet,” released Aug. 23. The deceptively titled record hides a layer of delicious salt. Carpenter, it turns out, is the poet laureate of romantic comedy.
Pop stars are usually sexy, but they’re not always this funny. Madonna and Janet brought bravado and brains to their desire. Lady Gaga is always camp, and Beyoncé has her jokey moments, but neither one is winning the Mark Twain Prize. And name me one male pop singer with genuine jokes. The Weeknd? Justin Bieber? Be for real.
Ariana Grande, purveyor of such sly, filthy bops as “34+35” and “Side to Side,” comes closest to Carpenter’s lane, but I fear we’ve lost her to SpongeBob. In fact, Carpenter vocally channels Grande’s hatred of enunciation in the track “Bed Chem,” the first exhibit in my case.
The addictive quality of the song, an ode to the carnal potential of noted weird little guy Barry Keoghan, almost punches in the same weight class as “Espresso.” The frank, filthy lyrics roll through explicit zingers with the density of a “30 Rock” episode. Carpenter coos:
“Come right on me, I mean camaraderie/ Said you're not in my time zone, but you wanna be/ Where art thou? Why not uponeth me?/ See it in my mind, let's fulfill the prophecy”
William Shakespeare … welcome back. The blonde curtain bangs suit you.
The outrageous lyrics land because Carpenter fires them off with blasé, smirking confidence, like a 1930s screwball dame. On the pop-rock taunt “Taste,” she even says that her ex is only funny now because he stole all her jokes. She tells the goon’s newest flame:
“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”
After settling for a boy “who’s nice that breathes” on the aptly titled “Slim Pickins,” she bemoans that “the Lord forgot my gay awakenin’.” And to take the rom-com thing to its most literal point, there’s a song named after the Jason Reitman film “Juno,” wherein Carpenter sings about being so aroused that her mind turns to reproduction. “One of me is cute, but two though?” she offers.
Even when the singer’s self-effacing, like in the airy “Sharpest Tool,” there’s a rejoinder right around the corner. Carpenter unsheathes her tongue like a katana on “Dumb & Poetic” and engages in Alanis-grade evisceration. “Save all your breath for your floor meditation,” she tells a guy who “jack[s] off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen.” Scathing imagery that would make any English teacher proud.
Across 12 tracks, Carpenter works her canny way with our sonic lexicon into the act. “Dumb & Poetic” sounds every bit like a downbeat ballad (honestly, it reminds me of Conan Gray’s “Heather”). The notes prime the listener for a weepy pity party. Instead, Carpenter blasts the offender out of the air with those tactical strike missiles.
“Bed Chem” does the opposite. Instead of creating contrast between music and lyrics, Carpenter employs hallmarks of steamy R&B — opening chords right out of a Marvin Gaye song, a chirpy woodblock keeping time, jacuzzi-jet synths — as an auditory wink.
Vulgarity gets a bad rap. Just ask Tipper Gore. Usually, there’s puritanism afoot, but I also think that audiences can sniff out a fraud. Most flops have something in common — they’re witless. Now, there’s nothing wrong with dumb, sexy music. This country was built on dumb, sexy music. To overestimate your own cleverness, though, is a sin. Why do you think Katy Perry and “Bon Appétit” have gone to that big Orange Theory class in the sky?
Carpenter might lack height, but she’s not short on wit. With the forthright, flirty “Short n’ Sweet,” she shows that sometimes the funniest entendre is a single one.
One rad thing
As a kid with a library card, I gravitated toward compendiums of pop culture flotsam — the lost, the maligned, the disastrous. There’s something cool about art presented to a world that rejects it into obscurity. I remember reading in one of those books about “Caligula,” a 1980 film so misguided that history buried it alive.
So, my friend Maggie and I jumped at the chance to see “Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” when it hit theaters last month. This new edit hews closer to screenwriter Gore Vidal’s story, removes the pornography inexplicably spliced into the original cut (but keeps the regular ol’ plot-driven pornography), and incorporates lots of footage previously lost to the cutting room floor.
For connoiseurs of weird movies, it’s a must. This thing is bonkers. Hard to stomach in parts. Helen Mirren does burlesque for a horse. The sets look like Derek Jarman broke into an MGM lot. I wish I’d taken an edible.
Outbound messages
Fall looms. So does fall television. My favorite old issues of TV Guide, besides the ones with Tom Welling on them, previewed all new series hitting those schedule grids right as the weather cooled down.
I recently wrote a story for Backstage about five familiar TV faces who are back with new star vehicles: Kathy Bates, Natasha Rothwell, Kaitlin Olson, Sophie Turner, and, to my extreme delight, Reba McEntire. I love actresses more than I love myself.
Now, from the “tabs I’ve had open on my phone for weeks” file: a story examining the enduring power of 1984 Bronski Beat song “Smalltown Boy.” Forty years on, its shimmery yearning is auditory shorthand for ’80s nightlife, and more specifically, queer liberation. Orville Peck and Kele Okereke both covered it (and so did José González, inexplicably).
In an Observer article, writer Paul Flynn calls “Smalltown Boy” the “British national anthem of gay.” He quotes musician Ian Wade:
“Suddenly, there’s this whole younger generation up there, really living it, going for it. I suppose it’s a folk song in a way, how it gets passed through the years. It’s endured. However free, however seen you might feel [in 2024], there are still some kids who are terrified in their own homes. For the teenager wondering whether they’ll get fucked or stabbed by the person they chose to look at across the classroom, Smalltown Boy still means something.”
You can read the whole thing here.