Every Single Album - 'Emails I Can't Send' | Every Single Album: Sabrina Carpenter

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

After having the two songs of the summer in "Espresso" and "Please Please Please," Sabrina Carpenter is gearing up to release 'Short n' Sweet.' So first, Nora and Nathan go back to her album 'Emails I Can't Send.' They talk about her transition from a "lowercase pop girl" to an "uppercase pop girl" (1:00), her drama with Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett that led to songs like "Skin" and "Because I Liked a Boy" (29:54), and what they anticipate from her with this next album (41:53). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the fall of 2014, a group of hackers pulled off the biggest Hollywood heist of all time. They broke into computer servers belonging to Sony Pictures and released hundreds of thousands of top secret documents. The attack would cause an international incident, upbent thousands of lives, and changed the movie industry forever. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Brian Raftering, and this is the Hollywood Hack. Listen on the big picture feed, starting August 19th. Welcome to Every Single Alphabet. I'm Nora Pinciotti. And as always, I am joined by Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, how are you doing on this August 6th afternoon amid the summer of Sabrina? The summer of Sabrina it is. And she has the song of the

summer and she's got an album coming soon. So I'm excited that we're diving in to some of her stuff today. Yeah, we're talking Sabrina today. So here's the deal. Short and sweet, the new Sabrina Carpenter album. that's going to come out in a couple of weeks at this point. August 23rd, I believe, is the release date. We will certainly be covering that as we've covered the singles espresso and please, please, please, so much already this summer. It would be worth going back in time a little bit and spending a little bit of time on how we got here, best stuff from the Sabrina existing discography. And what we landed on was that the best version of that that we could do would just to be to dive into her last full album, which is emails I can't send from 2022, which I think is going to be a super interesting album for us to talk about from the perspective, both just of what she was doing on that record, which I think has a lot of really good stuff.

but also just as an inflection point that led us to where we are, where Sabrina is at this point, going into this latest record. Emails was her fifth album, but it was her first under what is her current management. She'd switched management teams going into making that album. And I'm curious, Nathan, if you have just sort of like a perspective on where in the Sabrina career arc emails came. Well, I think if you ask her, she would say it was really the start of her music solo career that I think probably in the early stages of the albums that she released, that she felt like those were sort of put together and made for her, whereas I think she feels like she really was the writer of emails,

I can't send. And that she started with a new label in Ireland. she, as you said, new management and a new focus on making this the center point of her sort of multi-hyphenate existence as a creator. Well, and you focusing on her as a writer in that, I think, is interesting because one of the things that I'm excited to talk about and one of the things that comes through to me, going back and spending more time with this album within the context of where she is now, is kind of the push-pull of,

Sabrina as uppercase pop girly versus more confessional lowercase pop girlie. The title of this album, emails I can't send. It's all in lowercase. It kind of telegraphs that like I'm in my bedroom scribbling into my diary and I'm going to unload that and unleash that on all of you in this album, which is a very, you know, folklore era tailor. It's kind of, it's a little. It's a little bit of the Gracie Abrams vibe that we've talked about. There's some Olivia Rodriguez in that too, and that's become a pretty crowded lane. And what I find so interesting in retrospect looking at this album is the tension between or maybe the transition between those aesthetics and that vibe into the fact that, you know, short and sweet, particularly with please, please,

as an espresso is, seems to be doing a slightly different thing. And then also when we jump into the biggest hits from emails, I would say that the stuff that ended up breaking through tended to be the more big tent. I will say uppercase sort of as thematically, but in a lot of cases also literally the songs that are actually written entitled with uppercase letters tended actually to be the ones

that people grabbed onto. So do you want to start us with the biggest hit from emails? Yeah, I think it's nonsense. I'll be honest, looking at you got me thinking nonsense. But I'm not sure that it becomes the biggest hit

without her going out live and playing the opening slot with Taylor in Latin American and Asia. And when you got your arms around me, you'll always feel so good. It really, she found a way to tuck herself into the slip stream of the Taylor streamers who were showing up every night for the surprise songs and gave them a reason to tune in early by improvising the outro on nonsense. And that is why this song is now her second most streamed song.

It is still on a daily basis. the most stream song from this album. And it's going to tip... It's got nearly a billion streams on the... Yeah, it's going to tip to a billion streams before, probably before the end of the year. I wonder how... I mean, obviously in the recorded version,

there's already a great outro and she's having fun with it, and there's a little spoken word part about, like, that's not making it in, none of this is making it in, and it's so cheeky and it's so fun. That one's not going to make it. Most of these aren't going to make... I didn't do this in prep for this episode, Maybe I should have. Maybe I still will.

I would love to do sort of like a forensic analysis of when the nonsense outro became so positively filthy. You know, it might have been Dublin. But she found this lane of hers. I mean, we should talk about this song because it has a lot of Ariana Grande in it. And there are parts of this album. that have a lot of Ariana on them. Who I would say is the other, the other,

at the risk of overusing uppercase girl, lowercase girl. Yes. Ariana is the other pop star who plays with both of those because she is in a lot of ways what I would think of as like an uppercase girlie

where it's very, it's Madonna, it's glitter, it's big costumes, it's big, super, big tent, hooky, Max Martin songs, but so much of the Ariana, like, real breakthrough, the seven rings,

the thank you next, she adopted that lowercase thing to be like, no, there's going to be a little bit more underneath the hood of these songs than you think there's going to be. So it's, I like that comparison a lot. There's a shock value that is in both songs or both artists work. But I would say, the Sabrina stuff, well, it has some shades. of Ariana, like, it's lyrically sharp, it feels honest. She definitely serves the C word, but it's not cruel. Like, she has enough insecurity and humility that it feels like we're all under the tent and on the inside of an inside joke.

Like, she breaks the fourth wall a lot. A lot. And that's almost her, like, go-to move. And it's why the nonsense outro is sort of fun, because, yes, she, she's making it a little dirty, but also the point is that we all know she's sort of playing the role. It's sort of how silly can she be as opposed to some of the seriousness that I think Ariana wants us to take with some of her sort of late 2010's work. Yeah, I think that's true. I think there's a little bit more of a sense of irony with Sabrina. But that's still, I mean, again,

it's such an internet era dynamic, even the idea of like, you know, do you tweet in in all lowercase letters or not? And that confers a sort of like, oh, don't mind me. Don't, you know, I'm just, I'm just being silly over here on the internet. And I think Sabrina encapsulates some of that. I mean, as a song, before we get to the outro of it, what do you think of nonsense?

I think it has a lot of the characteristics that we're going to hear an espresso in that there's a hook, it's repeated. I think there's a little bit more R&B in this song, but this generally speaking is not an artist who's borrowing very much from R&B in the way that Ariana was. I mean, like... That's true relative to the Ariana comp, certainly. But I will say one thing that this revisiting this album reinforces for me is like

Sabrina is always two ticks funkier and groovier than I think she's going to be. Yeah, sort of, but some of it, is it funkier and grievous? I think it's rhythmically interesting music. But I also think a lot of it could be played by like an old-timey World War II band in a cabaret or something. Like it's pretty white. You know, there's not. But you know what it is? In some ways, it's like, it is like that, that Y2K Max Martin version of like, okay, we're taking this white Swedish guy's idea of what music that comes from R&B is and filtering it through that.

So yes, I agree with you. It's not, it's sort of a facsimile. But there's more John Ryan and. Julian Bonetta on this album than Max Martin. I mean, those guys obviously are part of the tree. But like... Yeah.

I do feel like this... This album you listen to, and to me, it incorporates a lot of the pop girls into the music. I hear Dua. I hear Ariana. I hear Megan Trainor.

I hear Christina Illiera. I hear Miley Cyrus. It's like a swirl of flavors from the frozen yogurt shop or something. And they're all coming together. And what's unique about it, I think, is the sharpness of her lyrics and the way that she tells her story through these songs.

I have a question. I have a question. Yeah. Is it, do you, where you hear the duo, is it on fast times? Oh, fast times is a possible duo song for sure. Yeah, that's why I fucking love that song. I thought fast times was a little more Megan trainer than do it. To be honest.

That could have been seriously, I thought feather could have been a duo song for sure. And Feather is probably the second biggest song, it is, the second biggest song from this album, even though it came in the extended version. That one, I think, if you put Dea's voice on it

and put it on Dea's most recent record, it probably does better than freaking Houdini. Houdini's good. It's fine. That's interesting. I hear, I, see, Feather is an example of something that's not, it's not actually funky. Like, that's not, that's not a real credible R&B song in really any way.

But there's something that's a little bit more funky than I get from Dua Lipa. Like, I hear more of an opening for Dua to jump in on a song like Fast Times where it's very like, Dda, da, duh, da, da, da. I know, but there's like a lot of handclaps on the two and four and some of these things that's like just guiding the white people to stay on beat. Please don't get off you. It's just whatever. It's fine.

But I wouldn't characterize Sabrina Carpenter as funky. I do think that there are some interesting rhythmic elements to this album. Lonesome feels like a country song. You can't spell Lonesome without me Even opposite, I think, is pretty interesting Can't really tell should I be Trying to take it as a compliment

Rhythmically, I like that song a lot There's some stuff that's sort of scattered across That already over is that way So whatever They're just, this album feels in hindsight, like exactly what we thought it would be. Like, she found a voice lyrically and stylistically. It's a lane that matters. There's something about her fourth wall sharpness, seaward serving, that works. And I don't know that there's any song on first blush when you run through this whole

album where you're like, oh my God, I'm so in love with it. But the whole thing is fun. And it feels like the sheer will of her personality live is what pushed nonsense over the top by just using her improv and her sort of kind of fun sense of humor to get there. And then she uses this voice that she found here on this album coupled with some genuine hits in espresso and please, please, please to launch herself into orbit. Oh, see, that's interesting because I think I feel a little bit differently in the sense that for me going back, I'm kind of, I end up feeling like this is a pretty strong collection that might not have hit in its moment and might have taken a little while, not actually because the quality of the content isn't there, but just because it's hard to place.

It's hard to, like, I agree with you that she ends up finding her lane because of this album and coming out of it. But the album itself, to me, sounds like we're not totally sure what the lane is. So let's try a bunch of different lanes. Yeah, maybe there's some spaghetti. throwing on the wall. I don't think you're wrong about that because there are a bunch of different kinds of songs. It just doesn't feel like stylistically, it doesn't feel like she's working with 100 different producers to me. I also think that like it took Midwest Princess a while to break out Chaparone, but the, like, you can fall in love with songs on that album. I don't know that

I fall in love with songs on the album, but I think you're exactly right. Like I had a hard time talking about what, what I would cut. Because I think it all holds together, well and I enjoy it and there's nothing on here where you're like, oh, we've got two of the same songs. Okay, let's just cut one of them. Like each one feels a little bit different from the opening track all the way to the end. Well, and I would say, I agree with you musically that there's not, you know, there just literally are not that many different producers working on this and stylistically it's pretty cohesive. I think to me, some of the head faking of what's the lane is the aesthetics around the music because again, just the title coming within a time that I think has started

to fade away a little bit in the last couple of years. But when this comes out, we're still so thoroughly in a chunk of years where it felt like everybody was trying to do kind of that more bedroomy style. And if you look at a lot of the photos that they see. How do you define that? Like, what's bedroom-y stuff? I define that as like I'm doing sort of quiet, confessional, not spectacle-focused pop music. And a lot of that, again, was, I think, the long tale of post-folklore Taylor and some of it just the pandemic generally. But when they sent photos, for instance, to magazines that wrote about Sabrina and wrote about this album during this time,

it's always, and again, there was a pandemic. This is what people were doing. She's inside. She's not really made up. You know, her hair is not done. She's wearing jeans and sneakers. Maybe she's wearing glasses. Some of the things that they created have that sort of handwritten type, you know, whether it's a typeface or whether it's actually a handwritten note. Like it's the liner notes. aesthetic. It's just all telegraphing, this is an intimate confession. Mm-hmm. And... Well, she leads with an intimate confession on this album. Yeah, certainly. Emails I can't send is a pretty direct message to her father, isn't it?

And thanks to you, I can't love right. I get my skies and villainize them. Yeah, and an intense note to start on and a specificity and an intensity that, you know, sure, nonsense could be an email that she, you know, could have some themes and some lines that she drafted and would have wanted to say to a person. But that's not a song that that is sort of specific and intimate in the same way.

Yeah, it doesn't feel in serious. Yeah, is the same. I would say, read your mind is, it's a sentiment, but it's not an intimately detailed story told in vignettes. Right. Which I actually think is part of what can be really charming about her. And what especially two years ago was a little bit more distinct. But I think some of the, this is going to be super confessional and we are doing the little, you know, the little vignettes of, oh, what

would happen if I meet my ex at a coffee shop. And there's a fair amount of that on this album. That, I think, put her in a really, really, really crowded group. And so I wonder if that has something to do with why it took a little bit of time to sort out what the thing that she wanted to do was and what people were gravitating to on this. Because to me, it's actually, it's almost a better album than I think it is when I go back to it, just because I, come at it with this top line, like, oh, this wasn't quite the one that hit. And then you start

listening and go, a little good songs on here. Super solid all the way through. Yeah. Yeah. But I also, I also think that there aren't the anthems that espresso and please, please, please, already are. I mean, nonsense and feather or close. But emails I can't send teaches me about her. Tornado warnings, lying to her therapist. I deserve an hour and all my thoughts Not so obsessed with yours I can't hear myself speak

I appreciate how sort of stripped back it is I get to know her better in that song Yeah because I liked a boy Wow Okay that is the second side of a story Okay that is the second side of a story That we had come to know Sabrina Carpenter's name

Was probably more popular Because of that story than anything else right? Yeah, and we should talk about how that influenced her at this point and how people saw her at this point. How many things, I think, is a song like that. Skinny Dipping is a song like that,

even though it's an Ani DeFranco song, Untouchable Face. But there's lots through it that I think, yeah, it sort of bounces from the intimacy to, yeah, this could be a duo of vacation song. This could be a do-a-vacation song that goes through the album. But so if we agree on biggest song, do we agree on best song? What is it for you? So I'll tell you that my favorite song of this album is Fast Times. I just think that's a song, like it's funny that we talked about duo with that a little bit, although you think it's more

a feather. I just think that song sounds great. It's probably not the one that I really want to say is the best just because I think nonsense and to some degree feather are better vehicles for the things that I think she's best at. Like, fast times is not cheeky in the way that I think Sabrina is so good at being cheeky. And I suppose I feel like I have to award truly the best to something that captures that. But I have to say, that's a song that I just, like, that's the song that I want to listen to, just a lot. You do not sound enthused.

I like fast times. To do a for you. It's actually too Megan Trainer for me. I like fast times. I think you need you to stop saying that that's personally offensive to me. But she's worked with Megan Trainer before.

Like, no big deal. It's all good. I'm sure there are influences in there. Megan's got that sort of like start, stop, like could be World War II old-timey bandy thing. going on. I don't know. She wants to Marvin Gay and get it on. Right. I think you know who to blame for that.

Megan Trainor. Don't drag Charlie Puth into this. Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist. He may not because of that song. If Charlie Puth had not Marvin Gade and got it on, we would be in a different world right now. I agree. That's what's so ridiculous about the Taylor line that we think he should be a bigger artists. You have to hold him accountable for Marvin Gay and get it on. Okay, why don't you hold Megan Traynor accountable? Oh. Join me in blaming women, Nathan. You want me to start blaming her? I hold her accountable. I just don't think of her as being on the same level. I just think she has a sort of unique corner of footstomp, like,

I don't know. Like, like, and for some reason, I think Megan Traynor and I think her live performance goes perfectly on the Ellen show. Like, that's where that live performance should go. That's where it lives. That's what it's all about is, like, let me write a song that can be performed live on the Ellen show. And Ellen can do her little solace dance to, and nobody, you know, thinks of it ever again. I think that Megan Trainor's fine. She's just not as big of an artist, so I don't play. This is a horrifying vision of our culture. Yeah. Anyway, well, it is. That's her corner, the Ellen Show, Megan Trainor. Ellen Show Island.

Okay, so just to read, we've landed on you like fast times, but it's not that important to you. Yeah, it would have been in the handful of songs that if you forced me to cut, I would have considered. It's not one that I think I chose. But it's there because I think

read your mind, nonsense, feather, those are big songs, emails I can't send matters. My favorite song, I just think because I like the boy is pretty cool. I really do. I think it's a very interesting counter narrative. You know I like the insightful stuff.

I think it's well written. I don't know. I enjoyed it more. What do you think is the best song? So, I guess I would say that I think it's nonsense. Okay. But I do think that it's really hard to pick between the ones that you mentioned,

nonsense, read your mind feather. And maybe, you know, maybe I would argue that it's actually less that none of those songs get to the level, not quite of a please, please, please, or an espresso. Clearly those songs are breaking through

in a different way. But it's almost a little bit more that like three of them were actually kind of sticky in a similar way. So it becomes hard to really pick one out and get excited about it. There's no doubt that those songs

would have been single. Like, it's not a debate on, like, when I say what I think is the best song, it's never like what I would have gone with a single, right? I think those are clearly the singles. I just think because I like a boy, because I liked a boy, is like, that's a really hard song to write. Well. Well.

The only thing, though, being that those were not actually, those were not the singles. The singles were skinny dipping and then fast times and then vicious. Oh, you're so visceral. And then eventually nonsense. Yeah. They positioned her a little bit differently. Which again, I think sort of speaks to the like a little bit of confusion or figuring out exactly what the, what the direction to go in is.

Yeah. Because skinny dipping to me is much more of a song that fits into everybody maybe maybe over learning lessons from Taylor Swift. Right. You'll say, well, this was really nice. Maybe we should do this on purpose sometime. It'll be long enough. Whereas the songs that we're talking about are actually the ones that maybe they stumbled

upon it, but like she can, she can be her own person. She's really got something. And I just always think those are interesting stories. I liked skinny dipping. I mean, I also like the Aoni DeFranco. song, but I like skinny dipping a lot. And we get introduced to the so nice phrase that shows up again and please, please, please. Like, it's a good song. I just isn't like one that's going to grab you and make you fall in love

with this artist if you aren't into the broader cinematic universe. And one of the things that I think she does really well. And because I like the boy, is pull in that part of the Olivia Love Triangle's cinematic universe into her world. She sort of establishes her counterpoint there, and she's tucked herself between Taylor and Olivia in a really smart way, and that song's a part of it. Well, let's talk about that and let's talk about because I liked it boy,

because I do think a major question about the rollout of this album and just where Sabrina was at this point is what happens, if skin does not exist and because I liked a boy was the song she released when she released skin. Well, what do you think? I mean, do you want to set the table

for what was going on in this relationship? I mean, what's the lore? You tell me. The lore is that Olivia and Joshua Bassett... I'm just, I'm trying to imagine the Venn diagram of every single album listeners

who don't know that Olivia Rodriguez was with Joshua Bassett, her co-star on High School Musical and Musical Series either just before or potentially depending on who you believe

to some degree during a time when Joshua Bassett and Sabrina Carpenter were together. And Olivia Rodriguez wrote Trader. It took you two weeks to cast you didn't cheap Well, she wrote traitor, but she also wrote... Us sensibly about the...

Driver's License. Yeah. She's so much older than me. She's everything I'm insecure about. It took you two weeks to go out and date her. But she also wrote, You're probably with that blonde girl. Mm-hmm.

And you're probably with that blonde girl who always made me doubt. Blonde girl very quickly. internet does its thing comes to believe that the blonde girl is Sabrina Carpenter which I think is

is correct in the sense that that's who she was writing about Sabrina fairly quickly after this puts out the song Skin in which

she says I think the line is maybe blonde was the only rhyme maybe you didn't mean it maybe blonde was the only rhyme and kind of calls Olivia out for a little bit of narrative craft. They were both involved with this person. It seems pretty obvious, but clearly there's some discussion of the timeline and maybe

some hurt feelings over who's sort of using what material to their own professional and artistic ends. Unfortunately, and actually like from, you know, I don't, I have not gone totally Zapruder on this stuff. My understanding is that Sabrina's timeline seems to be pretty well backed up. The problem, to be really blunt, is that driver's license is awesome and skin is kind of a dud.

Yeah. It's just not a great song. So is Joshua Bassett's music career. Yeah. Well, Joshua Bassett seems... I'm actually not even... I was going to say Joshua Bassett seems like kind of a dud, but actually even saying, that relies on my having some understanding

of what Joshua Bassett is like, which I don't. The thing I can't get over is that Olivia does not even actually use blonde as a rhyme. You're probably with that blonde. There's no rhyme scheme. So it's not even correct. And it's just not a great song.

Because I liked a boy is a great song. Yeah, it is. And I just wonder, I mean, you know, hindsight being what it is, this is just sort of a counterfactual, but this would have been an interesting entry into how much that narrative and that story shaped the way that people responded to both of their music

at this point. Well, it dug her out of the fandom cancel hole, didn't it? I mean, I think there was a while where, clearly, as she documents on this song, she's getting death threats and she's painted out to be the home wrecker, as she says. And that was at the peak of Olivia's driver's license trader stardom. And so she was the bad person that somehow sort of turned it around. It's not a frequent occurrence where when you lose the opening salvo in a PR war,

that you're able through time to come. I mean, certainly over time, these things changed. But this quickly, over the course of a couple years, I mean, this album came out July of 22, I think. So Olivia sort of broke out a few years earlier. But it's a very interesting counterpoint. And she got, she was rehabilitated fairly quickly. Not necessarily all because of this song, but.

It's the reversing the sort of PR narrative and the things that fans latch on to. But I think even a. folks are paying attention who aren't, you know, not going to be inclined to comment on everything she posts and say, you know, you're a homewrecker, you're a slut, as she says in lyrics. But who are kind of interested in picking a winning horse, there was just such a clear vibe that Olivia had it. And I wonder if people overlooked this album a little bit, because it felt like it felt like the bell had been wrong, kind of. And that's totally unfair framing and toxic and girl so confusing coded.

But I do think that there's a reality to that dynamic. And then just because she's talented, because Sabrina also actually has something sort of different to offer than Olivia, she picked it up and just kept going and people eventually figured it out. I just, my, my contention is that that incident had a pretty long shadow. Maybe less so in terms of like getting the fans off her back and stuff, but in terms of people being ready to see her as her own person. But if you listen to this song pretty carefully, I do, like, it's, it's one, a very effective, like, I think the line where she says, where she says, where she says, that she was stealing from the young

is really, really, really funny because there was a little bit of the sort of framing of the Joshua Bassett situation where it was like, Olivia was this like young, young ingenue and Sabrina was this like middle-aged home

wrecker, which is just totally ridiculous. And it is a skill of hers to be funny and to be cheeky in these in songs like espresso that are silly, but also in a song like this, that is in some ways very, very serious.

Do we think they're friends now? No. All right, well, because, I mean, look, there's one part that you can't sort of deny here, which is that there also was some Taylor-Olivia drama. And by siding with Taylor, Sabrina definitely kind of picked a side that helped to rehabilitate her.

Yes. Yeah. No, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, true. And also because the nonsense outro's on her own tour definitely were going viral, definitely we're picking up steam. But the ones on the ERA's tour, I think, really sent it to a new place. Yeah, no, that's absolutely what did it. And it's, it's that breaking of the fourth wall, understanding what you, the listener, are thinking and pulling you in to her sense of humor that feels like her superpower. And so it was the perfect way to, to help launch herself, because she's just got that finger on the pulse of internet culture,

having been a part of it, probably having read a lot about herself in the context of it, that when given this window, knowing that there were people tuning in every night looking for the variety in the show, she gave them a reason to tune in early. And it really is brilliant. And she had the music that connected in a way that backed it up. But certainly, not as high-powered a set of singles as she's released this summer. I hate to do what I'm about to do. What is it? Whose tickets are hotter right now, Olivia's or Sabrina's?

It's a really good question. Let's talk about that over the course of the next couple of weeks, and I'll go check out some data. I mean, I think Olivia out of the gate, certainly. Sabrina, just to be candid, like when the tour went on sale, I think probably everybody was thinking conservatively, Sabrina does not really care about money. Like she's not driven. I mean, she of course, likes to, I'm sure, get paid for her art. But she's not like, hey, let me maximize ticket prices and take as much money out of the market as I possibly can right now. So I think that coupled with just a general

conservatism, like wondering, could all of this streaming success, and sort of pop culture interest, was it going to actually drive ticket sales? You know, I think they did arenas, but it's not, they could have done a lot more. Let's put it that way. Could have done a lot, a lot more. So I think as these shows,

I mean, if this album resonates the way that we think it will, as these shows start to come up in the fall, I think there's going to be a lot of secondary market activity because that they were not priced particularly high, which probably means that, you know, some brokers were able to jump in in and take some risk, on and on and on. I would have told you that I think the Olivia tickets were thought to be bigger.

But I think there's a surprising demand for this tour. So it's a high bar. And I want to go to both of these people's shows and do that for many years and many tours to come. I do think it's an interesting, I think it's an interesting question just purely because I really did. It really did feel like bangs gavel. Like it just felt like, okay, these two people. for reasons good or bad have sort of been, if not actively pitted against each other, coupled with each other.

And Olivia Rodriguez is an absolute sensation phenomenon. And I just think a lot, like, those labels and those narratives are really hard to, to come back from. And the fact that the other girl in driver's license is the person having the summer that Sabrina's having is, is interesting. And it's kind of refreshing to me, I think, because it says that maybe those things actually aren't quite as ironclad and quite as heavy weight. So sometimes they seem like they are. Yeah. Well, look, they won't really be going head to head because she's going to basically be off

tour after August. So they won't be competing. She's, Olivia is. She's going to go, she'll take a break between August and October and October. She goes to like Singapore. But other than that, they won't be quite, you know, we'll take a look and see what the secondary data looks like and report back. And I love from because I liked a boy is the line dating boys with exes. No, I wouldn't recommend it.

I just think that's so clever and such a good way of saying they were broken up. So what would you cut? I mean, really, what would you cut? To me, it was like fast times, but like I don't... I can't believe... No, I love fast times. Don't cut fast times.

Fast times is good. Doesn't fast times make you want and just like dance a little bit? Fast times is good. I just don't know if it was, to your point about there being a little bit of spaghetti on the wall, do you need fast times to keep the album together? What would you cut?

So I would cut. There's a chunk of the middle of this thing. And really it's already over and it's how many things. I wonder how many things you think. think about before you get to me where perhaps in the throwing the spaghetti against the wall and trying some different things.

Also, she worked with Julia Michaels a lot songwriting for this album. There's a little bit of a tiptoeing into some sort of like lumineersy hand clappiness. And... In the already over. It's a little country songish. Again.

Yeah. Not unlike... And that's tough for me. I would say that that that's, I liked already. I mean, how many things I would have cut, except it has my favorite lyric on the album. Oh.

It doesn't move me as a song, but we can talk about that when we get there. Okay. Interesting. I agree with you, though. I don't think that's... How do you feel about Bet You Wanna? So again, again with the handclaps. So I like that song.

It is a little... I wish it were a little less, like, languid. But here's the thing. Yeah, it's like slowed down love fool by the cardigans. Yeah. By the end though, like I wonder if that's them trying on a little bit of a Billy thing, but she's just not as weird. Uh, so it doesn't quite get to the same place. I will say by the end of that song, I do think it gets going. I think it's cool once, you know, you've got the cowbell, you've got the strings in there. But it starts to build.

And then I wish the last chorus just kind of smacked it a little bit more, but it pulls back. So I find this song, I think there's something there, but it's a little bit too mellowed out. Yeah. Yeah, there aren't a lot of like moments

in a bunch of these songs. They're good songs. aren't like moments. Well, I'm like, I mean, what would you say are the moments in please, please, please, please, and espresso. Like, motherfucker is a moment.

Yeah, that's a moment. No, but it's a moment. And I think the bridge is, is a, you know, is a bit of a moment on please, please, please, please. Espresso, there's just something about

the repetitiveness of that hook that just, that does it. There isn't, a vocal moment. But it is, it's, it does manage to make, it does manage to incorporate. I mean, because I'm a singer, probably. Because I'm a singer.

I mean, that's probably what it is. That's true. Oh gosh. I was talking over the weekend to a friend who, um, lives in D.C. and interacts with people on, on Capitol Hill a fair bit. And she just said her entire feed is like bozos from Congress. making ill-advised TikToks being like,

I'm working late because I'm a senator and it made me want to jump off a bridge. It's a hugely memeable, tic-tacable song. It just is. Okay, so you're, are you really cutting fast times? I'm kind of mad. You can totally talk me out of it. You can talk me into, you can talk me into something else.

Because again, it's a very, it's like a loose opinion loosely held because there's nothing on here that I'm like had a real adverse reaction to. Like, I like it all the way through. But there's also nothing where I'm like, oh my God, if you cut that, I am out. Not because I don't think the songs are good. I just think it's all quality. There's nothing that I fell head over heels in love with. But there's also nothing where I was like, okay, it's enough already, which is... What do you think about bad for business? I think it's fun and fine. I like that song a lot. Yeah.

I'm kind of surprised we haven't talked about it yet. I think it's also the intro, especially, she is doing that kind of, I don't know if it's the Pennsylvania accent or something. But you can hear in how she's singing a little bit of, of the same voice that's saying, motherfucker. In that way.

And I think that's cool. Yeah, we get some previews of what's to come throughout this album. Any of that you made your next album appetizer? Well, I mean, the next album appetizer was nonsense. I thought because it's Julian Bonnetta and he ends up doing espresso. So that tells us what's coming and what the bridge is. Now, I get that Jack did, please, please, please. but that hooky repetitive hook bigger,

as I think you called it, bigger tent pop stuff, it turns out is what we're going to hear. Is he your most important collaborator? No. Her dad is. Interesting. Okay, talk to me. Well, I think she just said

that the whole sort of premise and impetus for the album was this situation with her father. And it freed her. up to, you know, as you say, it's not the stuff that resonated or at least they started pitching the intimacy and the, I guess you called it bedroom pop, maybe. Yeah, I think it's like that, you've never heard somebody say that before. It's the idea that like you're writing these songs in your bedroom. Yeah, I have. I guess I just thought there was like a sexual innuendo to that.

But I think that. No, that's not how I hear that. Although I hear what you're saying because I think sometimes it becomes a stand-in for sort of like breathy, almost like the lavender haze type Taylor songs. But I take that more as it's the blurring of the line between the pop star and the singer-songwriter. Yeah. Well, there's a vulnerability and directness and a sharpness and I'm opening my diary to you that leads this album that at least she said in, a couple of interviews was what unstuck the rest of this album. I mean, that's a good pick. And I think even if that was the first milestone on a path

to her sort of integrating her sense of humor and the sharpness of tongue, which is the kind of thing that we hear in Please, Please, Please. And it makes it more fun. There's nothing really fun about emails, emails I can't send. I mean, there's nothing fun about that song. Well, except the outro of it, right? Where she says, as they say in Chicago, he had it coming.

Yeah. I mean, as they say in Chicago, he had it coming. Fair enough, that is fun. But it's, it's ironically, the song that she follows it up with is vicious. It's pretty vicious, right? And there's this moment where she's like, please fucking fix this. If you're out, there's some. Somewhere listening, why you gotta be so vicious.

But there's a difference between, there's a difference between, and actually this is a good tie-in to, this is why I like your comparison point of Ariana so much, is there's a difference between saying, here's this horrible thing that happened, and here's how I feel about it, versus kind of languishing in it. And I think both approaches are valid

and can be interesting in their own ways. But I think even when she is cutting to the absolute most heartbreaking life moments that she's talking about, whether it's in emails, whether it's talking about getting semi-trucks full of death threats, like that's pretty intense.

I got death threats filling up my trucks Yeah She's never She's never languishing in it Which I don't think is inherently good or bad I just think it's a choice of hers

Yeah I mean she does say that it Deeply affects her personal relationships At this point And makes her permanently anxious and paranoid And probably standoffish in relationships Generally speaking anyway the weight of that doesn't carry forward in the songs

on the album on a go forward basis. So it does feel like this was an important song and that episode sort of taught her to speak her truth and freed her up to find this style that again is so honest that she's willing to break that fourth wall and bring you in on the joke. I think that's a very good pick.

It does seem like that was an essential jumping off point. I had put down Julian. Yeah. Because I do, I like Sabrina as the inheritor of, kind of a little bit of, of the one-direction way of putting on a bunch of different styles, but having these, having these songs that had different musical textures, but again, are super, super big, digestible, legible hits. Yeah. And that seems to be his influence. I will say someone else who could have been a contender here, I took out of the running in Julia Michaels

because it does not seem like she has stuck around. She did not work on espresso. She did not work on please, please, please. Right. She also got into like a stand fight or like a fight with a stand after emails came out, a while after emails came out and said that she wrote all the songs. and, like, also tweeted something weird about how her life would be easier if she were queer.

So the vibes were just sort of off. So I don't know what the status is there, but it seems like she's not working on this one. I guess we'll have to check back when we have the full collaborator list for short and sweet. But it does seem like I haven't seen her mentioned anywhere yet. A lot of one-direction DNA on this album. Yeah, that's nice. I like it. I think that's great. We love One Direction.

Easter egg we talked about because I wanted to talk about the Olivia, Joshua Bassett. For sure. That has to be it. And I think Pink Sabrina was the nightly improvisation on nonsense. Do you have a favorite one? I think it's Dublin. I don't remember Dublin. Can you say it? No, it's sort of hard. We'll, Kyah will pull the clip. We'll put it in. We'll put it in. We'll pull the clip. Don't make me say it.

When I turn him on, I took his double. Okay. I do. The ones that I remember just laughing so much about, or the one where she, the one in Rio where she said come to Brazil. Boy, come over, this is not a drill. He said get on top.

I said I will. Then he made me come to Brazil. was very funny as a piece of innuendo, but also as a piece of like knowing an internet joke. And then everything in Australia, particularly, I think, because people were so plugged into that because Travis,

Travis was there, Travis and Taylor were hanging out, but Sabrina and Taylor were also hanging out. They went to the zoo. They were doing all of that stuff. And then she had really good ones in Sydney and in Melbourne. D I see K I am good at spelling.

Taste so good I need a second help you. Aren't you glad I know how to say Melville? So I feel like that's it. We'll play them. Kaya. I'm not going to try to do this. Darn it. What's the best lyric? The best lyric, you know, I do feel like I have to give it to the, because I liked a boy. And I wonder if, I don't know, I could, like, I'm a homewrecker, I'm a slut is just really funny. Yeah. But dating boys with X's no, I wouldn't recommend it. I just find that so clever.

I didn't think Home Wrecker and Slot was funny. I thought it was a little intense. I mean, emails, emails that were sent. No, I think the other, I don't, I'm a homewrecker, I'm a slut. I'm not saying that's the funny line. Yeah. I do think Dating Boys with X's, no, I wouldn't recommend it is funny. but I also think that the lyrics of that song

benefit from the fact that she delivers it with a little bit of a wink. Right. What's yours? Mine is from how many things and it's at the beginning where she says, you used a fork once,

it turns out forks are fucking everywhere. You use the fork one. It turns out forks are fucking everywhere. And it's so perfect of a line for how we take meaningless objects and we associate them with our obsessions. And so then we see those obsessions in everything. It's just like a way to just project your own,

you know, infatuation with someone onto everyday objects. It's like, oh, another Honda Civic. She drove a Civic. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Honda Civic is going to trigger you, right? That person who's just so deep in their feelings for somebody else that they turn these stupid objects into signs or symbols. They just see...

Not a plate of spaghetti! Right. They just see meaning in things that really don't matter. It's like, you've got some work to do still. It's that phase. And I love that line. It's so great. Oh, a fork.

Fuck! Like, you can't go anywhere. All that is is a way of not being able to move on because you're going... You're intentionally associating those feelings with everyday objects that you can't get away from. So it's not your fault that you haven't moved on. It's that there's forks in the world.

The goddamn forks fault. And it's just such a perfect encapsulation of not having done the work yet to move forward. So I think we've hit our categories. How did you grade this thing? So I gave it a B plus. I agree with you for once. This is a very good,

pop album that I think again in hindsight when you listen to it it sounds like you had the same experience which is first of all you're like oh this is good secondly wow there's some range across this album and I can

almost hear her finding herself she's found her voice on this album in a bunch of different ways sonically it sounds like she's trying on a lot of other artists clothes, but then weaving something that is her own out of it. It's just not exactly there yet until you get to nonsense and then you get a sense that, okay, she's found, her lane is going to be

combining these bigger hooky pop songs with the fourth wall breaking sense of humor and sort of seawordiness that she is able to serve in a way that isn't offensive and cruel and mean, but funny and interesting. And that's what's coming. And that is what we're going to get on short and sweet. It's what we got on espresso. It's what we got on please, please, please. I think you're going to be excited about the rest of the album. Good stuff. We're excited. Nothing else coming from Sabrina before the album comes out, right? No. That was so unconvincing. All right. Well, in Any case, we will cover it all. I'm so excited for her latest. And we'll get to that. A couple other things to cover in the meantime. We got to talk about the Billy Charlie stuff.

We got to talk about some Taylor things. We got to talk about there's new that Casey released a few more songs from her tracks. There's some interesting little tidbits in back and forth. We should. we should talk about before this Sabrina record comes out. There's stuff going on. All right. Well, we will cover it all. But for now, this has been every single album. I'm Nora Pryanti.

As always, he is Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to the fabulous time with Mullen for producing this episode. And we'll talk to you next week.