“Boy, it's not that complicated” that Sabrina Carpenter’s new album, “Short n’ Sweet,” is a hit, but it’s her live performances that make this era truly iconic.
In August 2024, Carpenter released her latest album “Short n’ Sweet.” The album features songs about dating and Carpenter’s past relationships. Since its release, "Short n’ Sweet” has quickly become one of Carpenter’s most popular albums, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 Albums chart.
Carpenter officially began her musical career in 2014 when she released her first ever single “Can’t Blame a Girl for Trying.” Around that same time, Carpenter started acting for Disney Channel, where she played the role of Maya Hart in the “Boy Meets World” spinoff “Girl Meets World,” which aired its first episode that same year. Carpenter also spent some time on Broadway, performing in the lead role of Cady Heron in the musical “Mean Girls” from March 10, 2020 to June 7, 2020.
Carpenter’s career has only grown since, skyrocketing her into massive popularity. “Short n’ Sweet” gained 233 million streams in its first week. With this growth, her music has evolved as well. The person behind the voice you hear on Carpenter’s first ever album, “Eyes Wide Open,” is much different than the iconic and provocative performer that fans see today. It’s this change in her musical style and stage presence that makes her so entertaining to watch.
When talking about Carpenter’s most captivating performances, fans most often mention any performance of her song “Nonsense,” specifically her (in)famous outros. On her “Emails I Can’t Send” tour, Carpenter would change the outro of her song “Nonsense” to rhyme with the city or event she was playing in. Usually, these outros included sexual innuendos and became so popular that fans even began to make a guessing game of what the outro could be before each show. Some of Carpenter's notable outros were during her Philadelphia show in October 2022, her performance in the BBC1 Radio Live Lounge in February 2023 and her Paris show in July 2023. With Carpenter beginning her “Short n’ Sweet” tour, the “Nonsense” outros have been retired from her setlist. Regardless, every iconic outro will stay in fans’ hearts forever.
More recently, Carpenter performed at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards with a medley of three songs from her latest album, “Please Please Please,” “Taste” and “Espresso.” The “Taste” section of this performance gained a lot of attention on social media apps such as TikTok, not just because of Carpenter’s performance, which featured a space-themed set with alien and astronaut backup dancers, but because of who was in the crowd.
“Taste,” which came out this year as part of her “Short n’ Sweet” album, is rumored to be about the love triangle between Carpenter’s fan-suspected 2023 fling Shawn Mendes, Mendes’ former girlfriend Camila Cabello and Carpenter herself. Fans believe the song to be in response to Cabello’s song “June Gloom,” which was released in June of this year and includes lyrics that hint toward Mendes and Carpenter’s relationship. All this added to the fans’ shock when Carpenter sang “Taste” at the 2024 VMAs, an event that had both Mendes and Cabello in attendance. It may have felt like a bold choice from Carpenter, but it was definitely one that made the show all the more iconic.
With her latest tour now just beginning — her first show kicked off in Columbus, Ohio, on Sept. 23 this year — fans have already begun obsessing over various attributes of Carpenter's concerts. How a performer opens and ends their show is typically a big part of the performance. One sets the tone for the rest of the night and the other, if good enough, will leave fans with that same excitement they came in with. Carpenter takes this idea to a whole other level, doing her best to make her concerts entertaining even when she isn’t on the stage.
For her Columbus show, Carpenter included a video at both the beginning and end of her act. Her opening video started with a cartoon version of herself walking with various cartoon birds and cats, then transitioned to a funny video of her getting ready and “interacting” with the crowd before the screen came up. The whole thing, especially the beginning, was reminiscent of a ‘50s sitcom with a bit of an edge, very similar to Carpenter's musical and performance style.
Though the “Nonsense” outro has been retired, Carpenter added a video outro to her new tour. The video consists of several different takes of Carpenter saying goodbye to her fans. Shot in a home movie style, the outro video is sarcastic, funny and a great way to close out a concert even after Carpenter has left the stage. It’s the concert equivalent of movie end credit scenes.
As Carpenter’s tour continues, there are sure to be many performances that both shock the crowds and take over the internet. And as a fan of Carpenter’s music and brand, I can’t wait to see what comes next.
