It’s been a delicious spring and summer for the pop girls. We’ve been gifted with albums from Taylor, Beyoncé, Kacey, Charli, Billie, Megan, Maggie—and now, we round out the bunch with Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet. It may be her sixth studio album, but it’s her first big release with mega-pop star status since “Espresso” launched her career into the stratosphere at the beginning of the summer. The girlies have been frothing at the mouth preparing for the release of Short n’ Sweet (not to mention the forthcoming tour). And now, at long last, the album is here.
Here at The Everygirl, we have a tradition of ranking every song on albums from a few specific artists—namely, Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo. Today, Sabrina joins the ranks of The Everygirl’s pop girl album rankings. Our team has been tirelessly listening to Short n’ Sweet on repeat since it dropped at midnight last night to provide you with a ranking of each song that will (hopefully) stand the test of time.
From the highly anticipated “Sharpest Tool” to, of course, “Espresso” itself, here is our official ranking of every song on Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet.
Meet Our Carpenters
EMMA GINSBERG
Associate Editor
Favorite Sabrina Song: “Bad for Business”
ISABELLA KICKLIGHTER
Editorial Assistant
Favorite Sabrina Song: “because i liked a boy”
MCKENNA PRINGLE
Branded Content Assistant
Favorite Sabrina Song: “Feather”
Our Official Short n’ Sweet Ranking
12. “Coincidence”
Emma: 2/5
A fab country pop take—I’m obsessed with the guitar! Compared to “Sharpest Tool” and “Good Graces,” which seem to be about the same situation, “Coincidence” just doesn’t leave much of an impression on me. The lyric “Your car drove itself from L.A. to her thighs” is weak compared to some of the other amazing one-liners Sabrina has on this album. Not my favorite, but a decent tune nonetheless!
Isabella: 1/5
I can see “Coincidence” gaining a permanent spot on a Spotify car ride playlist—but not mine personally. As much as this ranking hurt me as a Sabrina stan, this song was not memorable for me. At this point, I was getting a little worried about the trajectory of the rest of the album, but I have faith in my girl S.C.!
McKenna: 2/5
“The way you told me the truth minus seven percent” resonated with me in a way I can only compare to a spiritual awakening. Men LOVE to omit the truth and claim it’s not a lie and she called them on it–thank you for your service, Sabrina. To be honest, this might be my least favorite. The message? Real. The song and musicality itself? I’m yawning a bit.
11. “Dumb & Poetic”
Emma: 2/5
Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimized by a man like the one described in this song! “Dumb & Poetic” is a laugh-out-loud skewering of a very specific type of guy who is totally pretentious, thinks being intellectual makes him a better partner, and has a bookshelf lined with self-help books. We absolutely needed a song like this one on Short n’ Sweet, but unfortunately, I have to dock points for the line “You’re so empathetic, you’d make a great wife.” As a society, I think we’re a little past that.
Isabella: 3/5
“Dumb & Poetic” feels like a song that will age like fine wine. The vocals alone sell this song for me. While I’ve never dated a man like the one described in the lyrics, I’ve met the type, and seen my best friends victimized by them. Based on the last fact alone, rest assured, I will be learning every lyric to sing at the top of my lungs with my best friends at Sabrina’s concert in the fall. This song adds the perfect amount of in-your-feels to the album.
McKenna: 2/5
If your type is men who look like the personification of a cigarette that will mansplain the plot and cultural significance of Kill Bill to you against your will, this is it. Kind of like if The Tortured Poets Department was 20% more diva all around. I love that this is the only true ballad on the album but it’s still deeply unserious, with lyrics like ”Jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen” and “I promise the mushrooms aren’t changing your life.” If this music thing doesn’t work out, we need to put Sabrina Carpenter in the SNL writer’s room, because she’s nothing if not a comedian.
10. “Juno”
Emma: 1/5
I fear that my perception of this song is slightly distorted by the fact that I have literally never once experienced the emotion Sabrina is describing here. I respect the early 2000s blockbuster reference as much as the next girl, but I just…do not know what she’s talking about. It took me such an embarrassingly long time to understand that this song is about liking a guy so much, you want to have his babies. It’s definitely a bop, but my feelings towards this particular subject tend to lean more Charli XCX “i think about it all the time” than Sabrina Carpenter “Juno.”
Isabella: 3/5
This song was meant to be sung into a hairbrush while jumping on the bed with a messy bun and oversized t-shirt. It’s impossible not to start dancing to this song and that riff in the middle… excuse me as I pick my jaw off the floor. Although I don’t relate to the song on a deeper level, I can’t ignore a good beat.
McKenna: 4/5
Juno is one of my all-time favorite movies, so I legitimately yelped when it hit me why she called it this. I just wanna jump up and down on my bed in a matching PJ set while singing into a hairbrush while this plays. It’s the perfect anthem for what having a new crush in your twenties feels like: silly, giddy, and girly, but deeply hormonally charged. There’s a new wave of explicitly horny pop girl music and Sabrina is the messiah of it—obsessed.
9. “Don’t Smile”
Emma: 2/5
Call me pop girl crazy, but you can’t tell me the lyric “I think I need a shower, my friends are takin’ shots” isn’t an intentional mirror to “Sometimes I feel like I don’t wanna be where I am, getting drunk at a club with my fair weather friends” on GUTS. Yes, I am delulu, but I have to believe! In all seriousness, this is such a chill bop. I can already hear it being added to breakup playlists across the country.
Isabella: 4/5
Straight away, I’m a sucker for a piano intro, “Don’t Smile” caught my attention in the first few seconds. After fully listening, I can confidently say Sabrina knew exactly what she was doing by ending the album with this song. I mean “Don’t smile because it happened, cry because it’s over,” hit me straight to my core and I will repeat those lyrics for days to come. In my opinion, this song was the perfect way to end the album, it left me satisfied and ready to re-listen to the album a million times over.
McKenna: 3/5
Opening the album with “Taste” and closing it with this are such clever bookends. All in all, even the most confident and secure of us have our vulnerable moments of feeling sad about a failed relationship. We can scream “Taste” and “Good Graces” and “Please, Please, Please” with our whole chests at 8 PM, then be on “Don’t Smile” by 11 PM–and they’re both equally important in honestly experiencing dating and relationships in today’s world. Baddies have feelings, too. No notes!
8. “Good Graces”
Emma: 3/5
When I tell you I need “Good Graces” featuring Arianna Grande immediately, I am so serious. This song immediately makes me feel like I’m reliving peak 2014 pop music, and I am not mad about it in the slightest. I think one of the things that sets Sabrina apart in the pop landscape these days is the fact that her music is just so groovy, and “Good Graces” totally captures that. Plus, the “I won’t give a fuck about you” post-chorus is going to be so fun to dance to alone in my bedroom.
Isabella: 3/5
It’s been less than 24 hours and I am not even a little surprised to see “Good Graces” all over my FYP. When I listen to this song I imagine a mid-2010s music video oozing with cool girl energy. I love that this song shows us a different side of the same sentiment that’s in “Please, Please, Please,” but with a more personal twist. Every girl knows how easy it can be to get the ick just because a guy does one thing off, and that’s what “Good Graces” is all about.
McKenna: 4/5
No one can convince me that this song wasn’t originally written for Ariana Grande (non-derogatory). “Break my heart and I swear I’m movin’ on with your favorite athlete” is a top contender for most elite lyric on this whole album. Like yes girl, threaten him! This will be blasting in my headphones the next time a man leaves me on delivered for 3 hours. My friends and I like to use “diva” as an adjective to describe literally everything and I can confirm this is an insanely diva song.
Emma: 3/5
Am I the only one who expected “Sharpest Tool” to be a little more scathing based on the interviews Sabrina was giving leading up to the album? I had to dock a point or two because I was prepared for this song to be harsher, but with that said, situationship breakup songs rise! This is like a straight version of “Casual” by Chappell Roan, I love it! I also am obsessed with the country pop vibes that this tune has—this is going to be great driving song.
Isabella: 2/5
The first listen didn’t make a significant impression on me but I can see this song growing on me. After a few listens, this song is not my favorite on the album but it’s definitely not skip-worthy. I can appreciate a good call your ex out song but this one didn’t hit the mark for me.
McKenna: 5/5
Okay, so I’m crying. This song, dare I say, perfectly lays out the intricacies of having something unlabeled or casual with someone in today’s dating culture. Society loves to let straight men lean on the excuse of being “dumb” or “aloof” when it comes to their inability to be a decent, communicative person while dating. Hearing her bluntly say “We had sex, I met your best friends” is so heartbreaking and real—I love the no beating around the bush with it. It’s like if “Casual” by Chappell Roan had a little sister.
6. “Lie to Girls”
Emma: 3/5
“Lie to Girls” feels like it was written specifically for a slightly hungover morning with your best friends sitting in silence on your porch, sipping iced coffee in the sun and processing last night’s events. None of you want to say to each other that the other one’s boyfriend was acting weird, so you all just vibe in silence and denial. Sabrina’s airy vocals shine on this song, making it the perfect second-to-last song on the album. It’s not quite as catchy as some of the other tunes on Short n’ Sweet, but I’m still a fan.
Isabella: 4/5
“Lie to Girls” has a kind of emotion engraved into it that deserves your full attention and separates it from other songs on the album, in a good way. Sabrina’s mention of her mother and sisters in the song made it hit home for me. This song represents the inner workings of the female mind all too well. Plus, call me biased, but I will forever hold on to the fact that Sabrina is also the baby sister of four girls, like yours truly.
McKenna: 3/5
“You don’t have to lie to girls, if they like you they’ll just lie to themselves”…oh she clocked every single one of us. I love that a song like this is coexisting on the same album as so many songs essentially about putting men in their place–knowing in your gut that someone isn’t treating you well and you deserve better, but deciding to stay regardless is a cannon event in everyone’s romantic lives. I take comfort in knowing someone who’s as bad of a bitch as Sabrina falls victim to this, too.
5. “Taste”
Emma: 4/5
Iconic first track, truly. I love that this is the only song on the album that’s presumably addressed to the “other woman” instead of to a romantic partner. The lyrics are giving “Bitter” by Fletcher and the music itself is giving old-school Katy Perry, which is to say that this song is basically perfect. I only have to dock a point for one too many ad-libs, which I understand the die-hard Sabrina stans love, but I can only hear so many times before I start to cringe a little.
Isabella: 3/5
This song jumps in with no hesitation and I’m here for it. The classic guitar intro immediately takes me back to the old Disney popstar days, which gives it an extra espresso point for me. “Taste” feels like Sabrina’s version of “Deja vu” based on the lyrics alone. She addresses the impact she left on her last relationship for the next girl to discover and I think it’s iconic. Honestly, “Taste” is a great start to the album. I can see this song performing extremely well at her live concerts.
McKenna: 4/5
First of all, having the opening line of your album be “I leave quite an impression, 5 feet to be exact” is so fierce. Overall it’s exactly how I thought the album would start: a teeny-bop-esque banger meant to be sung with the girls two vodka sodas deep at the pregame. It’s kind of reminiscent of “Deja Vu” by Olivia Rodrigo to me, and I know comparing those two is basically a cardinal sin but that’s my truth.
4. “Please, Please, Please”
Emma: 4/5
Let it be known that Sabrina did not fumble her second single. “Please, Please, Please” is for every girl who has had to justify the questionable actions of her significant other to her skeptical friends, which is to say…probably every girl! If there’s one thing Sabrina is gonna do, it’s say what other people are too chicken to admit out loud. In this case, it’s that heartbreak is one thing, but having your reputation tainted by some random guy? That’s almost worse.
Isabella: 4/5
I will admit, when Sabrina first released this single, I was skeptical. Clearly, I had a lapse in judgment that day. Now, I can’t keep myself from blasting this song in the car and singing it to my fiancé. I may be happily engaged, but this song is just too good not to scream from the rooftops and he knows it’s all in good fun. This song perfectly emulates the rose-colored glasses feeling when you enter a relationship your loved ones don’t approve of. Plus, I can’t help but giggle at the “little sucker” lyric.
McKenna: 3/5
It came out two months ago but is already an American classic. Blasting this after telling my friends about my new man when the man in question is someone I’ve been talking to for 2 weeks from Hinge. While I do love, I will say after just two listen-throughs it falls more toward the middle of my overall ranking. The way she says “motherfucker” will always scratch my brain in a special way, though, and for that I thank her. I would give it 2.5 espressos but I’m throwing on another .5 for the masterpiece that was the music video.
3. “Slim Pickins”
Emma: 5/5
Close enough, welcome back Same Trailer Different Park era Kacey Musgraves! I really love the slightly country turn Sabrina has taken on this album, and “Slim Pickins” might just be my favorite song on Short n’ Sweet. It captures the dull pain of settling for less than you deserve better than any pop girl song I’ve heard in quite a while. “Slim Pickins” faces the reality that sometimes “true love” isn’t all sunshine and rainbows—sometimes it’s just finding “good enough.” I am dying for this one to be released as a single with a feature.
Isabella: 3/5
I’ll admit, I was skeptical of this song when she first previewed it in a live performance. Not even skeptical, I simply didn’t like it. But it grew on me after listening to it a few times, it’s now engraved into my mind and I love the unseriousness that has become her signature. The “There, their, and they are” lyrics get me every time. I don’t know what it is, but I find that little jab to be gorgeously witty.
McKenna: 4/5
This is literally playing in my head every time I resentfully open Hinge and see someone use the wrong “there” in a prompt. The softer tone embodies that feeling of just giving up and accepting the fact that dating can be so unavoidably shitty. Physically I’m at my desk listening to this on my laptop, but on every other level I’m sitting around a campfire with all my friends who deal with flop men laughing as someone plays this on a banjo. Plus, “Since the lord forgot my gay awakening” is a top contender for my favorite lyric on this whole thing.
2. “Espresso”
Emma: 5/5
If you think I’m giving “Espresso” anything less than a 5/5, you’re delusional. This is the song of the summer—possibly the song of the entire year—and I won’t be hearing any slander. Months after the release, it still hits every time I hear it: at the bar, in an Uber, in a literal coffee shop, or on my own time. There is undeniably something special about this tune, and I think the lyric “That’s that me espresso” is going to go down in pop history. No notes.
Isabella: 5/5
I LOVE “Espresso,” maybe even too much if that’s possible. This song will always have a front-row seat in my car and I’ll be jamming to “Espresso” for as long as I can physically stand it. Like its namesake, this song is addictively catchy and embodies the pop-girl energy that has taken over 2024. There’s a reason this song took over the internet.
McKenna: 4/5
There are definitely a couple of new songs on here I like a bit more, but it’s a bop regardless. For the cultural phenomenon of “that’s that me espresso” alone, it deserves its flowers. That lyric truly makes no sense (camp) and I would give my firstborn to know its genesis. This album wouldn’t be getting the attention that it very much deserves if it wasn’t for “Espresso,” so for that, I will always be grateful.
1. “Bed Chem”
Emma: 5/5
I cannot BELIEVE that she was hiding this one from us. Not only is this song a bop, it’s also hilarious, and perfectly sums up everything about Sabrina’s new persona that we’ve all come to love. The innuendos in this song aren’t even innuendos, they’re just straight-up dirty talk, and it’s unbelievably entertaining. It has the same groove-ability of “Espresso” but with verses where Sabrina is…lowkey rapping? I’m sold.
Isabella: 5/5
“Bad Chem” gracefully continues the early 2000s pop vibe of this album. And is it just me or is there a little R&B undertone to this song? Either way, consider me influenced, this song was an immediate save. It’s always refreshing to hear Sabrina’s signature witty humor in the lyrics. “Come ride on me, I mean camaraderie,” totally gives “Nonsense” outro humor.
McKenna: 5/5
Look, I love to describe something as cunty…but I’ve never meant it so genuinely in my life the way I do with this song. I know she sent Jack Antonoff a text to get his ass in the studio the second she left the theater after seeing Saltburn and this song was the result. I also know that Barry Keoghan is somewhere in Ireland right now giggling and kicking his feet regardless of the breakup. This was the first song that got an audible “YESSSS” out of my mouth, so that sums it up pretty well I think. I cannot explain why but I need a red heel.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Emma Ginsberg, Associate Editor
Emma is a writer, editor, and podcast producer who has been creating at The Everygirl since 2021. She writes for all sections on the site and edits the Entertainment and Community sections. She s especially passionate about evaluating the impact pop culture and internet culture have on the day-to-day lives of real women.
