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Carpenter fills this jaunty little lament over the status of modern men with witticisms you’ll need a few listens to fully catch — in the second verse, for instance, she very quickly writes off a guy for not knowing the difference between “there,” “their” and “they are,” heartbreak caused by a homophone. The album’s closest brush with country-pop, “Slim Pickins” is not positioned as a centerpiece on Short n’ Sweet but charms nonetheless.

Capping off the album with a bitter slow jam that flips the idiom “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened” on its head, “Don’t Smile” finds Carpenter mumbling “I want you to miss me” and asking one of her friends to help her lose her ex’s number. Sounding dumbfounded by a loss instead of ready to accept more wins, Carpenter shows off a different side of her psyche on “Don’t Smile,” helping to round out the album thematically before it concludes.

Near the end of an album that largely focuses on personal pains and pleasures, Carpenter zooms out to examine how women treat themselves in modern relationships — predisposed by society to foist blame upon themselves when they deserve none, or refuse to face reality when it is staring them in the face. “Lie To Girls” is startling in the best way, and the unassuming production lets Carpenter’s voice echo and her words to resonate.

For this thinly veiled threat against potential heartbreak, Carpenter promises that, if her dude does her dirty, she’ll “tell the world you finish your chores prematurely,” and also move on to dating his favorite athlete. “Good Graces” coats that post-breakup coldness in the buttery sounds of ‘90s R&B, with Carpenter channeling the rhythmic pop style that artists like Mariah Carey and TLC handled so masterfully and putting her tongue-in-cheek spin on its warm textures.

The heart of “Sharpest Tool,” a racing reminiscence of a failed romance, is the juxtaposition between Carpenter’s blurted-out verses scavenging the details of her heartbreak and the downcast conclusion of the chorus, “We never talk about it.” Antonoff’s fingerprints are all over this one — the picked guitar strings leading to the syncopated beat recalls some of the best moments of The 1975’s pop opus Being Funny in a Foreign Language — but Carpenter amplifies the sorrowful corners with unmasked anger and hurt, and elevates the arrangement as a whole.

An evisceration of a bro who’s into Leonard Cohen lyrics, mushrooms, meditation and refusing to grow up, “Dumb & Poetic” allows Carpenter to seethe, dressing down a pretender in a little over two minutes without hiding her frustration over his pathetic state. “Dumb & Poetic” simmers in a country-coded refrain — “Don’t think you understand / Just ’cause you talk like one doesn’t make you a man,” she sings over unadorned guitar — but excels most when the lyrical details really sting, as if her subject’s characteristics disgust her beyond comprehension.

Marvel at the degree of difficulty with which Carpenter sings the evolving chorus of “Coincidence,” her upper register gripping the words “And you’ve lost all your common sense / What a coincidence,” and rolling the syllables around in her mouth to try and understand her betrayed circumstances. “Coincidence” enters campfire sing-along territory thanks to its “na-na-na” post-chorus and brash guitar strums, but Carpenter imbues the snappy production with lasting feeling.

“Please Please Please” was Carpenter’s first No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart, the “Espresso” follow-up to continue her upward trajectory, and a music video meeting with her romantic partner Barry Keoghan — but ultimately, its legacy (and function on Short n’ Sweet) will likely consist of its cross-genre approach, as the sonic boundaries that the song erases hinted at an album that similarly hopscotches across styles. At face value, of course, “Please Please Please” remains a top-notch sing-along, especially when you and your friends are in a setting that allows you to belt out the “motherf–ker” line as loudly as possible.

Embrace the full Sabrina Carpenter Experience with “Bed Chem,” a dreamy flirtation full of pinpoint vocals, personal touches, sexual innuendos and melodies strong enough to be main hooks that then lead into even better melodies. As a phrase, “Bed Chem” is about to enter the cultural lexicon faster than you can say “me espresso”; as a showcase for what Carpenter does best, the song is both sensual, earnest and unafraid to make you laugh. Regardless of how “Bed Chem” performs on the charts, clock this one as a no-doubt fan favorite.

Following the smashes “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” album opener “Taste” has seemingly been positioned as Carpenter’s next focus track, complete with a Jenna Ortega-starring music video — and the song, a sexually charged and deliriously likable potpourri of pop styles, more than earns the spotlight. Carpenter fuses rock guitar, country-tinged vocals and disco melodies into a killer heads-up toward the other woman in a love triangle (“You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you,” she shrugs); “Taste” leaps out as an electrifying anthem and Carpenter treats it as such, complete with a handclaps-and-drums breakdown designed for the arena crowds she’s about to command.

The spark that lit the fuse for Carpenter’s huge year, “Espresso” sounds just as instantaneous and effervescent as it did multiple months and billions of streams ago — the mark of a pop smash that’s going to persist as a cultural touchstone. In the context of Short n’ Sweet, “Espresso” offers a jolt to kick off the album’s second half and keep the momentum high following “Bed Chem,” but the single continues to stand alone as a remarkable flash point in Carpenter’s overall catalog, and the type of breakthrough hit that’s even better than the hype suggests it is.

Carpenter doesn’t sing “You make me wanna fall in love” on the ‘80s-indebted workout “Juno”; she sings, “You make me wanna make you fall in love,” a mastermind-in-training post-Eras tour who’s considering letting her beau “make me Juno,” and engaging in sex so transcendent it results in a baby. The standout lines on “Juno” are primed for TikTok trends and quote-tweets, but once again, Carpenter enthralls in the details of her double entendres, like the way she breathlessly rhymes “high-fived” with “objectified,” or how the bridge builds and builds toward that one indelible declaration. “Juno” is the work of a pop pro, and Carpenter makes it sound effortless.