The “Espresso” singer is ready to soundtrack our summer—here’s everything we know.
BY JOEL CALFEE
Sabrina Carpenter woke up and dream came true’d it for us when she revealed that her sixth studio album, Short n’ Sweet, will be out before the summer’s end.
“Short n’ Sweet MY NEW ALBUM IS COMING OUT AUGUST 23rd!!!!💋 this project is quite special to me and i hope it’ll be something special to you too,” she wrote on Instagram. “You can preorder it now!”
Not only that, but the pop star teased that fans could expect a surprise much sooner than the August 23 release date. (It turned out to be the album’s second single, “Please Please Please.”) “I also have a surprise coming for you on thursday night so keep an eye out!!” the Disney alum wrote.
Carpenter has already been dominating the internet and airwaves with her bouncy earworm “Espresso,” so we’re betting that Short n’ Sweet will be full of bops.
Here’s everything we know about the new album.
Short n’ Sweet arrives on August 23.
Fans knew something was up on June 2, the day before Carpenter announced the new album, when the singer posted a super-mysterious video on Instagram. In the clip, Carpenter rocked a body-hugging sky-blue bodysuit as she walked up to the camera and planted a cherry-colored kiss on the screen.
The clip, it turns out, was a nod to the Short n’ Sweet album cover, which features the singer posing in front of a blue backdrop, peering over her shoulder, with a stark kissy mark on her back.
Carpenter revealed the album cover and release date in her excited post on June 3, in which she wrote, “MY NEW ALBUM IS COMING OUT AUGUST 23rd!!!!💋 this project is quite special to me and i hope it’ll be something special to you too.”
“Espresso” will be on the album and is the first single.
When Carpenter released her world-dominating hit “Espresso” in April, she casually tried to pass it off as a bonus treat for fans. “Just wanted to put out a little song before Coachella,” she wrote on Instagram.
But the highly quotable track is actually the first single from the album. Its inclusion on Short n’ Sweet is confirmed on Carpenter’s website, where preorder info describes it as “the debut single from the forthcoming album.”
The second single is called “Please Please Please.”
With the announcement of her new LP, Carpenter seemed to be hinting at a second single when she wrote: “I also have a surprise coming for you on thursday night so keep an eye out!!”
Two days later, on June 5, she confirmed those suspicions when she announced that her second single, “Please Please Please,” would premiere on June 6 at 8:00 p.m. ET.
A coinciding video will also drop at that time, which Carpenter teased in her Instagram post. Based on the clip, it seems the visual will involve stacks of cash, bar fights, and even the singer behind bars.
This album will mark a shift in Carpenter’s sound.
While “Espresso” is the only taste of Short n’ Sweet that fans have gotten so far, it seems fair to assume the new album will mark something of a shift in style for the singer.
In fact, when she sat for an interview with Cosmopolitan in March, the Girl Meets World alum talked about the process behind making her new album. In reference to her fifth studio album, 2022’s Emails I Can’t Send, she said, “Well, I feel so grateful that I’ve been able to tour an album that I really care about for almost two years and that my fans have given it a life longer than I ever could have asked for. I put two and a half years into making this album, and it’s a shitty feeling when you put so much time into something and people want something new in two months. So I’m trying to really take this experience in before moving on to the next thing.”
However, she then added: “But I’ve been working on the next thing for a minute. I’m starting to feel like I’ve outgrown the songs I’m singing, which is always an exciting feeling, because I think that means the next chapter is right around the corner.”
Meanwhile, on her website, the new release is being teased with a description that reads: “Short n’ Sweet showcases the scintillating spirit of Sabrina Carpenter, the pocket-sized pop star with a larger-than-life artistic presence. With a gold album and multiple platinum singles under her belt, it’s no wonder that ‘Espresso,’ the debut single from the forthcoming album, has it all: lyrics that make you giggle and blush and songwriting that makes you wish you’d thought of it first.”
Yes, the title is partly a reference to her height.
Carpenter, who stands four foot eleven, has never tried to hide the fact that she’s not tall. In fact, in her Cosmo interview, she talked about her stint as an opener on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, saying, “And it’s been a very tall order being on a stage that big because—and this is not even to sound like a pick-me, like when girls are like, ‘I’m so small, I can’t reach the top shelf’—I’m literally five feet tall. So sometimes when I’m on that stage, it feels so huge that I just have to be larger than life in some capacity.”
Furthermore, as part of the promotion for the new LP, Carpenter had billboards put up across the country that featured humorous tweets about her height, like one that read, “When I say I hate short people, Sabrina Carpenter is NEVER included.”
Will there be a coinciding tour?
Although nothing has been confirmed yet, Carpenter seemed eager to hit the road again when she talked about opening for the Swift. “I feel so lucky that I get to watch Taylor perform every time,” she told Cosmopolitan. “It makes me want to tour the world again, which is a good feeling.” Hmm, seems to us like she might be hinting at something. But we’ll still be keeping an eye out for an official announcement.
As of June 20, Carpenter has released her ‘Short n’ Sweet’ tour dates in North America this year.
This article was first published on harpersbazaar.com
