Sabrina Carpenter, “Short n’ Sweet.”

Since the mid-2010s, when the Disney Channel gave her airtime, Sabrina Carpenter has had difficulty establishing a distinct sound or persona as a pop star. With all five albums she’d made, she threw different sounds at the wall, and while some stuck, she lacked a style of her own.

But when “Nonsense” and “Feather” went viral in 2023, and concert audiences started going crazy for her risqué “Nonsense” outros, she began piecing together a unique identity: one that’s fun, flirtatious, suggestive, raunchy, and most of all, unserious.

“Espresso” cemented her spot. The song’s bubbly humor and vintage disco feel made it a worthy song of the summer and fueled social media excitement. Its production also showed that she planned to stick with the luxurious retro pop sound of hit “Feather.”

Then came “Please Please Please,” a fusion of shimmering synths, country-tinged guitar strums, tongue-in-cheek humor and wistful vocal arrangements. Somehow mixing Southern warmth into the radio pop of “Espresso,” it seemed to serve as a statement for the sound Sabrina Carpenter was going for.

Short n’ Sweet, titled perhaps because of the project’s 36-minute runtime or maybe because of Carpenter’s height—which she mentions in the album’s opening line, singing, “I leave quite an impression/ Five feet to be exact”—shapes up to almost all of its potential.

Carpenter consistently sticks to her cheeky and hilarious character and masters a good pop melody often. But the sonic theme—she should’ve stuck with vintage disco mixed with modern radio pop and country warmth—falters when other influences pop up.

Carpenter’s sweet melodies and unique jokes are normally enough to make her songs stand out from just any other song on the radio. That’s not exactly the case with opener “Taste,” a fun but unidentifiable pop tune. It’s an early indicator that the album might not follow the retro sounds of the early singles, though it does carry the same breezy summer feel.

“Good Graces” pulls multiple elements from Ariana Grande circa 2019: a trap beat, weightless vocals, bratty spoken-word verses, airy riffs and plenty of sass. It’s catchy, but also doesn’t fit the grand scheme of the album. Unlike “Taste,” however, it fits in a thematic sense; As with “Please Please Please,” she warns a boy to be careful of making mistakes or embarrassing her while they’re dating.

“You do somethin’ sus/ Kiss my cute ass bye,” she sings before diving into the brazen chorus.

She also pulls from ‘90s girl bands at certain points, bringing in a fun nostalgia that she suits well. There’s “Bed Chem,” which is this album’s “Nonsense” in terms of its unabashed racy and explicit humor. “Come right on me/ I mean camaraderie/ Where art thou?/ Why not uponeth me?” she quips. She also uses the end of the song for some silk riffs and runs, reminding listeners that while they may be focused on her one-liners, she’s also a great singer.

The wispy synths of finale “Don’t Smile” similarly emulate relaxed ‘90s hits—think TLC or Destiny’s Child—with Carpenter putting a dark twist on a common saying: “Don’t smile because it happened, baby/ Cry because it’s over.” It may not be the sweetest message to end an album called Short n’ Sweet on, but its relaxed dream-soul sound is plenty sweet.

On “Juno,” Carpenter’s playful and self-admittedly “horny” lyrics continue when she announces, “I might let you make me Juno,” referencing the 2007 film. The line is sung on top of bright guitar strums that make for one of the album’s most infectious and danceable tracks.

“Slim Pickins,” which Carpenter performed at Outside Lands, goes full country, with subdued falsetto that matches the woeful message about a lack of good options of men to date. Even with a more forlorn tone, Carpenter’s sense of humor doesn’t fade. “Jesus, what’s a girl to do?/ This boy doesn’t even know the difference between their, there and they are,” she sings in a seraphic falsetto tinged with just the right amount of Southern drawl and comically melodramatic despair. She floats over acoustic plucks and twang so well that she might want to consider going full country on her next record!

Carpenter also performed “Slim Pickins” at the Grammy Museum backed solely by acoustic guitar. That version of the track suits the lyrical content and melodies more than the version with percussion that made it onto the album. There are a lot of fun production elements on the album, but not using this track to spotlight Carpenter’s voice was a misstep.

Furthering the lack of cohesion, Carpenter uses two songs to tune into a recent wave of folk-inspired pop. “Sharpest Tool,” reminiscent of Taylor Swift’s evermore, sees surprisingly emotional storytelling over acoustic guitars with some Jack Antonoff snares and glitter to top it off. One post-chorus refrain includes a vocal filter that rapidly muffles and then unmuffles her voice, matching the confusion and poor communication of the relationship that she’s singing about.

The other folk-ish moment is on “Coincidence,” a campfire tune with sweet background vocals that would make for a great singalong. Sabrina Carpenter is a chameleon in her ability to make all different kinds of pop work for her, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try to stick to one of those styles for an album. “Coincidence” could have waited for the next one.

Even with an unnecessary multitude of styles, Short n’ Sweet sounds amazing. It’s well-produced pop, even as listeners will instead focus on Carpenter’s flirtatious personality and risqué humor. Her personality feels authentic and is hilarious, especially to a Gen Z audience that loves to laugh but has been fed muted bedroom pop hits for years. Carpenter is bringing fun back to pop.