My friends gave me a bit of grief for the headline of one of my recent articles: “The ‘Espresso’ Theory of Gender Relations.” The title, admittedly, was a bit heady for a story about a catchy song full of beverage-related puns. Was I overintellectualizing pop, which is supposed to be the dumbest music of all?
Nah. Sabrina Carpenter, who sings the smash “Espresso”—and its follow-up hit, “Please Please Please”—deserves to be taken seriously. She’s part of a crop of women who have made the past year or so one of the liveliest, and flat-out smartest, mainstream-music eras in recent memory. Her new album, Short n’ Sweet, is a salvo against the lunkheaded stereotype that women, blondes, and pop don’t have a lot to say. And her lyrical themes capture a lot about what’s going on between guys and girls in this country right now.
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