In late 2022, Sabrina Carpenter was a journeyman Disney Channel worker fresh from the pop culture ignominy of being cast as the bad guy's “blonde girl” in Olivia Rodrigo's instant hit of a heartbreaking ballad of Generation Z, “Driver's License.”
Two years later, Carpenter arrived at the Crypto.com Arena on Friday night with one of the biggest albums of 2024 (the best-selling “Short n' Sweet”), two of his biggest singles (the upbeat “Espresso,” and the quirky “Why Please Please”) and a half-dozen new Grammy nominations, including nominations for album, record and song of the year, as well as best new artist.
If you were tempted to say that Carpenter was on top of the world, you needn't have bothered: located in an imaginary mid-century bachelor pad high above a city (a 69th-floor penthouse, he told us with a wink), Friday fun. and a playful concert proved it themselves.
As with this year's other pop revelations, Chappell Roan and Charli long period defined by the darkest. likes of Lorde and Billie Eilish. “Short n' Sweet” is full of hooks, jokes and vocal exaggerations; This show, the first of three sold-out dates in Los Angeles to conclude Carpenter's North American tour, left virtually no surface undazzled.
There were costume changes, each outfit brighter than the last, and there was a group of male and female dancers performing athletic choreography. About halfway through the 90-minute concert, Christina Aguilera, one of several previous icons in pop's explosive blonde lineage, appeared on stage unannounced for extravagant performances of her late '90s and early '00s hits, ” “Ain’t No Other Man.” ” and “What a Girl Wants.”
“So that just happened,” Carpenter said in mock (or perhaps genuine) disbelief after Aguilera's exit. “And somehow the show goes on.”
Yet for all the glitz and retro glamor of Carpenter's presentation, there's a modern edge to his music—an emotional honesty and unabashed interest in sex—that helps explain his success in an era of over-sharing. on social networks.
As a songwriter, she loves to say the quiet part out loud, as in “Lie to Girls” (seedy men shouldn't bother, she sings, because “if they like you, they'll just lie to themselves”) and “Juno.” , an extended bedroom fantasy that culminates with what might be the year's most heartfelt lyrics: “I'm so fucking horny!”
At Crypto, that phrase sounded like a battle cry among a crowd full of girls and young women: a nightmare, no doubt, for some of the parents in the house, but certainly not for the fans who value the rawness of the confessions of Carpenter. In fact, one of his skills is subverting the hubbub upon which his show is based: for “Sharpest Tool,” a finely detailed acoustic number about a failed relationship, he rushed into the attic bathroom (like someone might during a party). . regretted having come to) and sang while sitting on a toilet, of all things; she sang her next song, “Opposite,” while staring at a prop mirror that showed an uncomfortably intimate close-up of the giant video screens flanking the stage.
Towards the end of the show, she performed “Why Please Please,” which is about a celebrity begging her boyfriend not to embarrass her in public, before closing with “Espresso,” which is about how embarrassing it is to be desired in the first place. place. place.
“I can't relate to despair,” he sang; a lie, of course, but a perfect rhyme for “My presents are on vacation.”
