Take a Heteronormative Beat w/ Sabrina Carpenter's Lore-Deepening Short n' Sweet
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This weekend I hosted one of my very dearest friends in New York City, and not a day went by that Jordan and I didn’t talk about Sabrina Carpenter’s new album, Short n’ Sweet, whether just among us or with some other girls and gays (mostly gays).
We also talked about how Cars (2006) is really just a Hallmark movie from Pixar. Such is the importance of gabbing with your girls.
Take an Album-Length Beat
Short n’ Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter and Deepening Your Lore with Confident Singlehood
Sabrina Carpenter is DATING. This is not to say that our latest bombshell to crash onto the pop girlie scene is or is not exclusive with Barry Keoghan — this isn’t TMZ; I do not know their relationship status — it is just to say that according to her latest album Short n’ Sweet, my girl Sabrina is out here DATING BOYS.
She’s dating dumb boys, she’s dating embarrassing boys, she’s dating sexy boys. She’s dating boys endowed well and boys endowed not-so-well. She’s dating boys she wants to lock down, she’s dating boys she wants to leave in the dust. She’s dating boys who are obsessed with her, boys who don’t see how lucky they have it, boys who have her daydreaming, boys who have her nightmaring.
SHE’S DATING BOYS.
And on Short n’ Sweet she’s blessing us with the silly, amusing tales that come along with that activity.
She regales us from a lavish, pink rocking chair, lamenting boys’ shortcomings using Dolly-indebted country on “Please Please Please”, which opens with dreamy, delusional synths and twanging guitar before Sabrina bemoans an unpredictable boyfriend. Have you ever thought twice, maybe three or four times before bringing a new lover to hang out with your friends? I sure have, and that’s why one problematic man never did get introduced, because as Sabrina says, “Heartbreak is one thing / My ego’s another”.
Boys’ shortcomings are literalized on “Slim Pickins”, another sunny, pop-infused porch moment, where she casually lampoons a man in the most heteronormatively cruel way possible: “God knows he isn’t living large”. While that poor boy and many others goes home in tears after Sabrina excoriates them for their flaws, it’s Sabrina’s sensibilities that are most deeply offended — I mean, “Jesus what’s a girl to do”!
A couple specific boys are unfortunate enough to get entire songs devoted to their failings. Sabrina dips into chamber pop to do so on “Sharpest Tool”, outlining all the things that make this man downright DUMB over delicate Sufjan Stevens strings and twangy Haim guitar breaks. She continues the easy listening/hard truths combo on “Dumb & Poetic”, where she serves us some of the greatest heteronormative insults ever committed to song:
“Every self-help book / You’ve already read it”
“Jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen”
“You’re so empathetic / You’d make a great wife”
It seems the saddest things happening to Sabrina in her dating life are not broken hearts nor hurt feelings, but rather the goofy shit she has to put up with. And in that case, why not make mournful ballads out of cheeky takedowns and make light of the whole nonsense? Lord knows it’s just not serious enough to cry without laughing!
And if ever Sabrina let a dumb boy spend more time in her presence than he deserved, she either knowingly let him do so or quickly smartened up after he left, maintaining her rightful place on the high horse she rides away on.
Sometimes this high horse takes Sabrina to the club, where she luxuriates in the power she has over these simpletons. The richest luxuries are found on the nu-disco hit “Espresso”, filled with deliciously cocky gibberish, swingy ‘70s Nile Rodgers guitar, and smug drum machine loops. Speaking of cocky, Miss Carpenter decides she can use Miami bass to soundtrack the tightrope that her suitors have to walk to stay in her “Good Graces”. THEN this 25-year old ex-Disney songstress has the nerve to make a ‘90s R&B sex jam à la Mariah Carey about the power of “Bed Chem”!!
AND SHE PULLS THEM BOTH OFF TOO!
Across the remainder of Short n’ Sweet Sabrina continues to bend genre just as dynamically and unpredictably as the boys bending her (and vice versa), touching on stomp n’ holler folk pop (“Coincidence”), ‘70s pop rock (“Taste”, “Juno”), and contemporary R&B (“Don’t Smile”), winking and blowing kisses at the boys in the rear view mirror of each of her artistic successes.
By my count, Sabrina Carpenter laughs in 4 of Short n’ Sweet’s 12 songs, including on the cynical (and, again, hilariously heteronormative) “Lie to Girls”. It is her tireless sense of humor that allows her to turn her dating experiences into delightful lore, both personal to her and of the broader female-seeking-male experience. And as demonstrated by the wildly entertaining and keenly observed Short n’ Sweet, this killer combo of confidence and a sense of humor can seemingly turn the trials and tribulations of dating into a continual source of empowerment, enrichment, and entertainment.
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Bring confidence and a sense of humor to the trials and tribulations of dating to start creating your own personal lore.
And while Sabrina’s experience is exclusively (and extremely) heteronormative, I am myself in the midst of the throes of singlehood, creating my own male-seeking-male lore, if you will. So the next time that I’m ghosted for reasons unknown, or that I receive a confounding message on Grindr, or that I go on one-too-many dates with some silly boy, I’ll just turn it into a tragicomic tale and move onto the next enriching escapade.