Album Review: Sabrina Carpenter’s ’emails i can’t send’ Is a Pop Revelation
“emails I can’t send” is the first Sabrina Carpenter album I listened to from front to back. When I started listening out of curiosity, I wasn’t expecting much from the album. However, since the moment the titular track graced my ears, I am completely convinced she is a pop force to be reckoned with.
Here’s why I fell deeply into “emails I can’t send”
The main overarching theme of her album is how to love, both in its positive and negative forms. She provides a new perspective on the age-old question of how and why the way we love affects our relationships with others. It should feel overused, but it doesn’t. It feels like we opened her diary and read some of her most personal thoughts laid out over some really good beats. Genuinely. she woke up one morning and wrote some pop hits. (I had to put in that Nonsense reference. It’s her best track!)
The album also talks about figuring out romantic relationships while being under the spotlight. To be honest, I can’t imagine having the public be so involved in my personal and private life as they did with hers. I won’t get into the grisly details of her turbulent recent years but based on the overwhelming references, I believe these events have inspired the album’s inception. It’s difficult to condense and package a specific experience to be relatable to a wide audience. However, due to her unique experience, she was in an ideal position to create a body of art that is quietly intimate and earnest, and she ran with it.
Sabrina Carpenter is no popstar novice
It is amazing to me that the entire album is only 39 minutes and 20 seconds. Sabrina Carpenter creates an entire experience within a short time frame. Her 13 tracks are individually different but sonically and thematically make sense when you play them in order. The album itself doesn’t deviate from the regular pop song formula (verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus). However, every track is a refreshing twist and introduces a new vibe that is distinct and recognizable from other tracks.
Another thing I have to note that took me by surprise is how funny her lyrics are. I checked the writing credits in all her songs in the album and she had a hand in making all of them. This album is clearly made by an artist who knows her voice. For example, her song “how many things” is both incredibly funny and poignant about the end of a relationship. Her singles, “because i liked a boy” and “skinny dipping”, are not only earworm-worthy but lyrically smart. Her introspective, ironic, and quick-witted lyrics differentiate her from other artists in a distinct style that you can only pinpoint as Sabrina Carpenter.
“emails i can’t send” stole my life and it’s showin’
Her most recent work convinced me to put her at the top of my list of favorite pop singers. Thankfully, we don’t have to leave her album now that it’s already over. Since its release, she has performed live some of her songs such as Vicious for Samsung’s Summer of Galaxy. She also appeared in late-night American shows such as the Late Late Show with James Corden. In an age where pop songs come and go, Sabrina Carpenter’s newest album is wonderfully repeatable and remains as good as the first time I listened to them.
