Sabrina Carpenter has the raunchiest, wittiest pop album

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The Disney machine has churned out pop stars like this year’s models since before Sabrina Carpenter was born. After spending her formative years in the House of Mouse, the 25-year-old talent has finally approached the Britney-Christina-Miley-Selena echelon – first after opening on Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour, then when a shot of “Espresso” jolted her to the top of the charts this summer. “Short n’ Sweet,” Carpenter’s sixth album but only her second “big girl” effort, delivers on the flirty, flippant fun of “Espresso” and its follow-up, the country-fried yacht rocker “Please Please Please,” with another 10 pop confections containing her sweet n’ silky voice and refreshingly raunchy lyrics.

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Carpenter’s first post-Disney album, 2022’s breakup-themed “Emails I Can’t Send,” was promising and versatile, surveying an array of pop styles while making the search for a sonic identity pretty fun. There was some Ariana Grande and Olivia Rodrigo – even some Lana Del Rey – in her sound, paired with mischievous witticisms like “skinny dip in water under the bridge.”

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This latest album is also concerned with the geometry of breakups, makeups and make-outs, but Carpenter has perfected a formula: not just “Short n’ Sweet,” but also “Freek’n You.”

Carpenter teased her endearingly gutter-minded agenda by dropping a few F-bombs on “Espresso” and “Please Please Please.” But by and large, her lyrics – including ones that nod to a well-endowed lover – are vivid without being vulgar: A guy “makes paintings with his tongue” and his car “drove itself from L.A. to her thighs.”

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Meanwhile, Carpenter’s best lines are a little bit country, with lyrical turns like “we were goin’ right, then you took a left” and flipped aphorisms like “don’t smile because it happened, cry because it’s over.” She’s clever; the lovers she depicts are not. “This boy doesn’t even know the difference between ‘there,’ ‘their’ and ‘they’re’,” she sings on the Nashville-ready “Slim Pickins.”

Carpenter’s liner notes are packed with Billboard heat-seekers like Amy Allen, Julia Michael, John Ryan and Jack Antonoff, the pop superproducer who’s left fingerprints on albums by Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and Lorde. While he’s credited on a third of the songs, Antonoff’s nostalgic pitter-patter production isn’t the dominant mode. Instead, “Short n’ Sweet” is a pop-rock-country dance party. “Bed Chem” boogies like “Espresso,” “Taste” and “Juno” hit in all the right spots, and even softer-quieter songs “Sharpest Tool,” “Lie to Girls” and “Don’t Smile” reveal slinky grooves. Most shockingly, Carpenter might have revived Miami bass and So So Def-style jams with “Good Graces.”

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On “Good Graces,” Carpenter lays out the stakes to a paramour: Don’t mess up or she’ll switch it up, boasting that “no one’s more amazin’ at turnin’ lovin’ into hatred.” You could take it as a nod to Carpenter’s other gig as a frequent gossip object, involving a rumored love triangle or two and a relationship with one of the buzziest young actors in Hollywood. Some fans will take “Short n’ Sweet” as a rich text, decoding lyrics and looking for real-world references. Better yet, don’t try to play DeuxMoi and instead appreciate the many, many inventive ways Carpenter has found to say “do me.”

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