The Singles Jukebox

It’s the Fourth of July, so today we turn our attention to guess who? American women!

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[6.17]

TA Inskeep: The way Sabrina Carpenter drops in “don’t embarrass me, motherfucker” on the chorus of this country-tinged lament is so smart; she clearly understands pop music. This isn’t another “Espresso,” not even close, but that’s smart, too, showing another angle of her. A real, new pop star: how refreshing.
[7]

Brad Shoup: As a critic, it’s almost too easy. The warmed-over chillwave disco with the line “I can’t relate to desperation”? Or the Vangelic pop-country that opens with “I know I have good judgment/I know I have good taste”? (Plus we installed a ceiling fan last weekend.) Her plaintive “Hopelessly Devoted to You” killed in her Melbourne Eras Tour slot, but “Please Please Please” is the truest tribute to Olivia Newton-John: flippant and funny, casually virtuosic. Plus it’s a little bit country. Carpenter’s wryness is approaching Deana Carter or Kacey Musgraves levels, but when she hits those shimmering pleases it’s like watching her peel herself open. It’s not quite the same feeling as being a parent, but it’s close. In terms of the emotional switches she’s flipping and the prettiness of the track— how everything locks so crisply without feeling like a metatextual pop puzzle box— I think this is magical: nearly perfect but for ending on the bridge.
[9]

Will Rivitz: As an avowed and long-term Sabrina Carpenter hater (a Sabrinah?), my least favorite aspect of her career so far is not that every song she releases sounds like a C-tier rip-off of some other, better pop star; it’s that she can’t even be consistent with which other, better pop star to rip off. I’ve already gone on record saying “Thumbs” sounds like a sanitized, focus-grouped Alessia Cara impression, and since then Carpenter’s continued to spin the wheel: “Nonsense” is a worse Ariana Grande song, “Espresso” is a worse “Say So,” “Feather” is a worse “Circles.” (Carpenter recently announced Jack Antonoff has worked with her on “about half” of her upcoming debut album, meaning that not only is she aping a full third of today’s pop elite, she’s aping a set of artists completely distinct from those she’s gotten her impressionistic hands on in the past. Pick a lane and stay there, please!) Thankfully, “Please Please Please,” at long last, doesn’t sound quite so concretely like any particular musician active on the charts at the moment. Unfortunately, it does sound like royalty-free music piped into a tropical Disney cruise’s breakfast buffet at low volume, monkey’s-paw evidence that she’s better served cheaply mimeographing those who came before than forging her own way. I’ve seen a couple comments online that the success of “Please Please Please” is “justice” for Espresso not hitting number one; if so, it’s the kind of application of criminal justice that in its flagrant disregard for human dignity should inspire mass activism against the carceral state.
[2]

Jonathan Bradley: Sabrina Carpenter’s first actual chart-topper is a curious thing, so tonally all over the place that its incoherence starts to look like a puzzle to be solved. She switches from wry wordplay (“you’re an actor, so act like a stand-up guy”) to diva sass (“heartbreak is one thing; my ego’s another”) to hopeful coaxing (“it’s so nice, right?“) to curses and threats (“don’t embarrass me, motherfucker”) at such a rapid clip that I start to have concerns for her own reliability as a narrator; you have good judgment, Sabrina? Really? The overarching picture, oddly, is of a prim mother furious with an offspring acting out in public, and desperately hoping not to show it. “If you wanna go and be stupid,” she scolds. “Don’t do it in front of me.” (This interpretation makes no sense considering the song is aimed at a romantic partner whose best side she still believes exists, which is entirely the problem.) A sluggish disco beat, so awkward that it’s antithetical to the concept of groove, languid blooms of synthesizer, and a vocal tone that sways and wavers like a limp plant in a light breeze all suggest the solution to these parenting problems lies in a refilled prescription and another martini. Maybe this boy will go play on the road.
[7]

Katherine St. Asaph: It’s not as huge as “Lovefool,” as most things aren’t, but “Please Please Please” recreates everything great about the Cardigans classic at a smaller scale: Nina Persson’s folkie emoting and coquettish spoken-word coos, the impatience to get to the big chorus it knows it’s got, the self-aware self loathing that’s bound to result in endless quips and listicles 15 years from now about how whoa, no one realized how fucked-up this song is (assuming there is a media industry remaining 15 years from now).
[7]

Taylor Alatorre: She mentions her ego in the chorus, so this is supposed to be a self-deprecating portrait of an unsympathetic character, right? But then she addresses her boyfriend as “motherfucker” in a threateningly low register, which is supposed to be an empowering feminist thing, right? Ambiguity is one thing, but squishiness is another, and “Please Please Please” doesn’t adopt a solid enough stance for its jabs to land with the desired amount of heft. Any replay value comes not from the citation-needed punchlines — is “actor” considered a culture now? — but from the Bleacher you love to hate, Mr. Antonoff. He’s managed to get some genuinely queasy and head-spinning synth textures to the top of the Hot 100, even if he had to ride the peak of yet another artist’s imperial wave in order to do it. 
[5]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Earlier in the week I wrote a scathing [3] point review about how awkward this sounds, and how the goodwill of “Espresso” had been wasted. It turns out that after sitting with this for a week, you come to see how the awkwardness is the draw. I’m not sure where Sabrina Carpenter’s ascent will take her, but may she write oddball, camp hooks in perpetuity. 
[7]

Alfred Soto: Despite my initial rave, “Espresso” has turned into a mild annoyance. I’d tolerate writing lyrics that sound like garbled putative Instagram memes if Sabrina Carpenter’s vocal choices weren’t stuck in “coo” mode. “Please, Please, Please” is more of the same but worse. Line by line, nothing scans, and the high fluting synth line complements her self-involvement. Which doesn’t mean I’ll change the station when it’s on.
[5]

Ian Mathers: It’s not that I underrated “Espresso” (which is fine!), it’s that “Espresso” is a high [6] and this is a pretty low one.
[6]

Mark Sinker: If “Espresso” was the moment where the sexy Species beast breaks containment, this is what comes after = if it’s on I won’t turn it off probably, but it’s mostly diminishing returns.   
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: Gossamer and jarring at once, this would barely register were it not so meandering. There are enough unfulfilled flutters of feather-light flair to give it the album track vote; green-lighting it as a single feels like over-commitment to their possibility, rather than their realisation.
[5]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Carpenter’s country-inflected vocal performance wields lyrics so sharp and realistic as to make the listener a little uncomfortable. (What is “I tell them it’s just your culture” supposed to mean?) Unfortunately, the chintzy synths and cloudy vocal production crowd her out with the aural equivalent of an aggressive “JUST KIDDING.” Huh. I wonder who was in charge of that.
[5]

Isabel Cole: As a Taylor-liker and forever Melodrama stan, I’ve often found myself in the position of Antonoff apologist as his shtick has grated on the pop lovers around me; he’d produced some songs I love, and at worst I found him uninspired but inoffensive. This is the first song I really feel has made me hear what the haters are hearing; it sounds like a track someone assembled as an Antonoff parody.
[4]

Hannah Jocelyn: Like the meme where Beyoncé traps Sia in her basement, Jack Antonoff has the iLok with all Serban Ghenea’s compressor plugins so he cannot make drums sound even a little bit punchy. This is is otherwise nearly perfect; I’m not yet tired of ABBA pastiches the way I’m tired of John Hughes pastiches and 2-step pastiches, and the sharp lyrics are mean spirited but amusingly tough love to her partner. It even has the head-turning moments that made “Espresso” so addictive; “don’t embarrass me, motherfuuucker,“ “the ceiling fan is so nice,” “don’t make me hate you prolifically” — I was sold on Carpenter the pop star, but I can now be convinced on Carpenter the songwriter. If she can pull off a line like “I tell them it’s just your culture” and make it not sound like the shittiest thing in the world, I’m even more sold on Carpenter the performer too.
[8]

Andrew Karpan: I’ve heard it said that the way she says something just a little weird is what makes these records the indelible bits of pop culture candy that they are. Just a sing-urr and, now, motherfuck–urr. Writing a song about being out of Barry Keoghan’s league only literalizes this kind of fetish for contained ugliness. A record that meets its moment, like a mirror that’s just a little chipped. 
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: Good for Barry Keoghan, it’s nice to see him get some very difficult roles that actually stretch him. He was wasted in Eternals.
[8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: A real Rorschach test of a single: is it a breathtaking coronation of a single, the culmination of a journey from fringe teen pop never-was to actual pop superstar, or is it a bit of a letdown, too staid and stagey after the three-part screwball pop triumph of “Nonsense”-“Feather”-“Espresso”? Mostly, I’m struck by how boring this sounds. Doing an Italo disco-styled take on a Dolly Parton song should be more compelling than this, but the fruits of working with Jack Antonoff are shiny and tedious. I get why people are fomenting ridiculous payola conspiracy theories about this playing on their Spotify accounts — even if there’s nothing actually shady happening, this just sounds like mandatory fun, an almost-successful exercise in forced charm that stretches Carpenter’s charisma about to its limits.
[5]

Julian Axelrod: It brings me no pleasure to report this is the best Kacey Musgraves song of 2024.
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