Photo courtesy of Sabrina Carpenter

With Sabrina Carpenter, a pop star is properly born in the way that nature intended it: a performer who can and will release bulletproof singles fueled by a machine of publicity, and expect to give you nothing more beyond the hits. Her music is a great reminder that pop should be fun and wink to our inner hedonisms without necessarily needing to also pander to poptimistic credibility. This is a polite way of saying that her newly launched album, Short ‘n Sweet, has its very sweet spots of annual listmaking contenders as far as mainstream submissions goes, but is it an 8.0? Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here — there’s enough from the Jack Antonoff pile of distilled Swiftian songwriting and production in those deep cuts to cool that number down to something respectfully in-between. When Carpenter is in her best pocket, however, her “Taste” wears modern trends on point in their flair for artsy cunnilingual innuendo that turns the lite disco burn of the “Seven Wonders” and a neon-glossed guitar shimmer into her own sweet revenge party. The co-writing pens of the consistently underrated Julia Michaels and Amy Allen (Olivia Rodrigo’s “Pretty Isn’t Pretty”, Carpenter’s “Espresso” and “Please Please Please”) knew exactly what fashion suits Carpenter’s style of ego-breaking pop to a tee, and it goes down so well.

Directed by: Dave Meyers

Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n Sweet is available now on Island Records.