Just two days after winning her first two Grammy awards (Best Pop Vocal Album for Short n’ Sweet and Best Pop Solo Performance for “Espresso”), Sabrina Carpenter announced a deluxe version of her award-winning album, including 4 new songs and a new version of the Grammy-nominated hit “Please Please Please,” featuring none other than music icon Dolly Parton.
If you’ve known me for a long time, you would probably be shocked that this is now my most anticipated release of 2025 so far. I used to not really like Sabrina Carpenter at all. I thought she was gorgeous and had a fabulous sense of style, but found her music boring and cringed at all of her acting projects. However, Short n’ Sweet surprised me in the best way possible. I loved the album; I thought it was cohesive, brilliantly written, and well thought-out. Carpenter truly refined her aesthetic both sonically and through the visuals of the album. I was ecstatic to learn that we’d be getting more songs from this project. Additionally, I think Dolly Parton is the perfect feature for this album! When listening to Sabrina tracks like “Slim Pickins,” Dolly was the first artist who came to my mind. Their girly, old Hollywood aesthetics align so clearly, and I felt a country twang inspiration in much of the album. While I was skeptical of why she would be featured on “Please Please Please,” I still looked forward to the track. Upon listening, here were my thoughts:
Starting with the high points, my favorite of the new songs was “Busy Woman”. There have been snippets of this song going around for awhile now, but I thoroughly enjoyed the full version and can see it entering regular rotation in my car over the next week. “Bad Reviews” was cute, and fairly relatable; I also see myself reaching for this one in the future (I just need my situationship to disappoint me so it’s extra relatable, duh…). “15 Minutes” was fine. It used a lot of her signature raunchy lyricism, but it lacked the depth that I enjoy as a self-proclaimed lyrics girl. “Please Please Please” with Miss Dolly Parton was also much better than I expected based on the leaks, and the music video was so cute!
The only true “low point” of the new releases for me was the song “Couldn’t Make It Any Harder”. Aside from sounding really similar to Olivia Newton John’s “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” I overall just felt like this piece was very flat. I was bored while listening to it and couldn’t really connect with the story.
Overall, I think Short n’ Sweet was just find as a standalone album, and these bonus tracks did nothing to improve the album in my eyes. However, I still think it was a cute and fun surprise to recognize Sabrina Carpenter’s first Grammy wins and know that as I break down the music further it will grow on me, as all albums do. Plus, I bet her next release will be even sweeter than this one. ;)