After a summer of iconic music releases (looking at you, Charli xcx), Sabrina Carpenter has just gifted us the album to blast this fall. And, thank the pop-star gods, she also threw us a gay bone.
The “Nonsense” singer released her sixth studio album Short n’ Sweet Friday. The highly-anticipated album follows the release of her two singles “Please Please Please” and “Espresso,” both of which have become smash hits. “Espresso” has officially surpassed 1 billion streams on Spotify.
“Taste,” the first song on the album, definitely starts us off on a queer foot, so to speak. Although Carpenter reveals “the lord forgot [her] gay awakening” on her song “Slim Pickins,” it seems like she’s singing a pretty bi-curious tune on “Taste.” Or, at least, that’s how we’re choosing to interpret it.
Carpenter spins the well-known tale of “my ex-boyfriend is seeing another girl now, and I’m not sure if I want to be her…or do her.” The song includes homoerotic lyrics like, “Every time you close your eyes/ And feel his lips, you’re feelin’ mine,” and “You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you.”
In the song’s music video, also released Friday, the new girl is played by scream-queen Jenna Ortega. The two girls go off on a murderous rampage and repeatedly kill each other, seemingly over a very regular man (played by Rohan Campbell). In the end, however, the two share a little kiss and Ortega lays the final fatal blow onto the boyfriend. The video ends as Ortega touches Carpenter’s hair and stares into her eyes while they’re front row at his funeral.
In a recent interview on the Jimmy Fallon show, the pint-sized singer revealed the video is inspired by her favorite films. Fans have pointed out the video makes reference to “Psycho” and “Death Becomes Her.”
Short n’ Sweet dives right into relatable themes of heartbreak and plenty of sexual innuendos. From the charming country twang of “Slim Pickins” to the slight R&B influences present in “Good Graces,” the singer showcases her expansion into other genres- proving she has more to offer than a catchy radio hit. And let’s not forget “Juno,” a cheeky reference to the Elliot Page flick where Carpenter throws together some new slang: “I might let you make me Juno.”
“[Short n’ Sweet] does really feel like a self-titled album to me,” Carpenter told Fallon. “…Cause Short n’ Sweet is sort of like Sabrina in another language to me.”
