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° Сcomplete with one of the most brilliantly nonsensical choruses in pop history – “It’s Me Espresso” – Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso is the most streamed song in the world this week, down Taylor Swift as the UK No.1 single yesterday and is shaping up to be the critics’ pick for the song you can’t escape from this summer.
Since its release in mid-April, this irresistible nu-disco blast has steadily climbed the charts to become one of the few tracks to manage the tidal wave of songs from Taylor Swift’s double disc The Tortured Poets Department. Carpenter was recently released from Swift’s Eras tour after supporting the superstar on her dates in Latin America, Australia and Singapore. Anointed by Swift as a “sweet angelic princess,” she’s now rising through the ranks to become pop royalty in her own right.
Espresso woke up the airwaves, with casual listeners, pop geeks and even the hard-to-please music press all agreeing on its addiction. “Pop’s disco revival is winding down a bit, but if you can do it with this much gusto … it might only last another summer,” writes Pitchfork’s Jeremy D Larson.
Less brittle than Dua Lipa’s New Rules, more stylish than Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe, Espresso nevertheless ranks among them as a pop song you can’t play just once. The perfectly weighted lyrics are charismatically poignant — “I can’t relate to the despair / My dames-a-fucks are on vacation” is the opening verse — and Carpenter’s matter-of-fact explanation that she’s “working late ’cause I’ ma singer” instantly became a meme.
According to Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding, co-hosts of the Switched on Pop podcast, the song is successful because of its offbeat phrasing, holding off even TikTok’s notoriously edgy attention. “Espresso plays with the tongue in a way that takes your brain a moment to process,” they say. “‘I walked in and the dream came true for you’ is not proper English … it keeps listeners on their toes.”
Musically, Espresso evokes vintage funk and disco, but with the sheen of digital production and Carpenter Vogue said that she also wanted to mix old and new in the stylish sun-kissed video directed by Dave Myers. Shot in black and white and in 1960s tones, it shows Carpenter’s waterfront in retro fashion and flanked by stallions carrying surfboards.
Espresso is now set to be the breakout hit of Carpenter’s career – which is already a decade long, even though she only turns 25 next week. The youngest of four Pennsylvania-educated sisters (and the niece of Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson), Carpenter signed a five-album record deal when she was 12 with Disney-owned Hollywood Records. From 2014 to 2017, she also participated in disney channel comedy Girl Meets World while constantly playing music.
But like her Gen Z pop peer Olivia Rodrigo and Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears before them, Carpenter struggled to convey a different persona within the confines of Disney, and her success during that time was limited to the dance charts.
After opening for Ariana Grande and the Vamps on their 2017 tours and a stint as the lead in Mean Girls on Broadway (interrupted by the pandemic), Carpenter signed with Universal Music Group’s Island Records in 2021. Since then, she’s been a rising presence in pop the music – aided by the gossip columns surrounding rumors of her love triangle with Rodrigo and Disney co-star Joshua Bassett.
It has been widely speculated that Carpenter is the older “blonde girl” who Rodrigo admits to being “insecure” about in her mega-destructive 2021 driver’s license. Neither party has ever confirmed the reference, though the emotional single Carpenter’s 2021 Skin was taken as confirmation, with its lyrics: “Maybe you didn’t want this / Maybe blonde was the only rhyme … Don’t go crazy.”
Since late last year, Carpenter has been dating Saltburn actor Barry Keoghan, who was seen at her Coachella show last month and is name-checked on the freestyle outro of the song Nonsense. Emulating the work ethic and attention to detail of her mentor Swift, Carpenter has become known for tailoring the shenanigans to every performance – prompting the BBC to pull her Radio 1 Live Lounge performance from YouTube due to sexually suggestive adverts.
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It generates further controversy with her video for Feather filmed in a Catholic church in Brooklyn. A priest was suspended from administrative duties for agreeing to be photographed, to which Carpenter replied, “Jesus was a carpenter.”
Since her 2022 confessional album Emails I Can’t Send, however, Carpenter has been best known for her music, with Skin, Feather and Nonsense charting in the US and UK. On stage, she’s intimate yet exuberant, shaking off her banter between songs at each show, gathering stories from the audience and dishing out dating advice. “She has such a good balance between performing and being herself,” says Los Angeles-based singer Annika Bennett, who supported Carpenter on her UK and European tours last year. “Every night feels special, but just as big as a show.”
Carpenter’s playful public presence extends behind the scenes, Bennett adds. “She is so nice and such a fun person to be around. I think that translates to: people can tell she’s a really cool person.
After first contacting Bennett about joining her on tour via Instagram DM, Carpenter then visited her in her dressing room “every night,” Bennett says. “It’s never a headliner guarantee,” adds the singer, who is weeks away from her own UK and European tour. “As a headliner, you’ve got your own show and you’re under the most pressure – but Sabrina has completely extended the friendship.”
Now, having completed the months-long ‘Taybrina’ run of the Eras tour at the end of March, Carpenter is firmly on Swift’s team, pledging allegiance on Instagram: “There really is no one like you and there never will be.” Although Espresso beat Swift’s Fortnight this week, there’s room for two at the top. And amid the ubiquity of The Tortured Poets Department – a verbose, brooding album about the mixed (but mostly bad) blessings of superstardom – the energizing Espresso goes down particularly easy.
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