Review
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Play Cash Cobain was originally supposed to be an EP, Cash Cobain told me when we named him April’s Rookie of the Month. “Nah, that’s for my Play Cash Cobain EP that should be coming out soon,” he said. “‘Dunk Contest‘ is going to be on there too, along with some other songs like ‘Candle’ […]
For a year that has featured a mind-boggling number of major album releases, from Taylor Swift to Beyoncé to Billie Eilish to Ariana Grande, pop music in 2024 has, surprisingly enough, been more clearly defined by smaller artists rising to meet their respective moments. We’ve seen it play out with Charli xcx over the course of Brat Summer, Chappell Roan as her audiences have ballooned to watch her seize festival stages, and Tinashe while “match my freak” has become common parlance.
And now, after Sabrina Carpenter joined pop’s A-list thanks to the back-to-back explosions of “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” new album Short n’ Sweet is a moment that’s perfectly timed, highly anticipated, and entrusted with lofty expectations.
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Plenty of signs existed that Carpenter, a Disney Channel veteran who released four studio albums on Disney-owned Hollywood Records, was a special talent prior to “Espresso” becoming her first top 10 hit in April. Her 2022 album Emails I Can’t Send demonstrated a natural understanding of pop songwriting and vocal nuance, and was one of that year’s strongest pop projects. Yet Short n’ Sweet comfortably surpasses its predecessor by simultaneously expanding Carpenter’s sound and drilling down on the qualities that make her such a singular top 40 talent.
Carpenter tosses out shimmery hooks that stick in your brain and cheeky phrases that you’ll want to share with your friends — get ready for “bed chem” and “Juno” to turn into slang — but as her sexuality has become a bigger part of her musical identity, her romantic subjects have also become more fleshed-out, and her self-examinations more poignant. Meanwhile, the bubblegum riffs on Emails have deepened into explorations of country, rock, folk and R&B in ways that speak to an inherent curiosity yet never stray too far away from what Carpenter does best.
She has more radio-ready darts to throw, with the dazzling “Taste” appearing to be next up — but the finger-picked woe of “Slim Pickins” and the rhythmic bounce of “Good Graces” push Carpenter into bold new territory, and make for a more comprehensive full-length. Working with studio vets like Jack Antonoff, Amy Allen, Julia Michaels and Julian Bunetta, Carpenter has assembled a team of confidantes that know how to navigate an unfamiliar shade and maximize a refrain — and at 12 songs, Short n’ Sweet breezes by, a well-oiled machine without a uneven track in the bunch.
We shall see how many more hits Carpenter scores off of Short n’ Sweet, after already collecting two off of its track list. Regardless of which songs go viral or cross over to radio, though, the singer has unveiled one of the most accomplished pop albums of the year, making good on years of potential with a definitive statement. Consider the moment met.
We’re still digging into the Short n’ Sweet track list, but here is a breakdown and preliminary ranking of all 12 songs on Sabrina Carpenter’s latest:
“Slim Pickins”
Playing a second show in the same city is usually a guarantee for special moments from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
And that was certainly the case on Sunday night as the New Jersey rock icon and his heart-stoppin’, house-rockin’, booty-shakin’ – you know the drill – ensemble played the second night of its latest North American tour leg at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
Following up on its Thursday (Aug. 15) performance, Springsteen and company, 18 members strong, played with its usual earth-quaking exuberance, delivering 29 songs over the course of three hours and 10 minutes, making some significant changes to the set, tossing in a warm memorial to a fallen colleague and welcoming a guest to the proceedings.
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The group was nicely rested after a nearly three-week break following its spring/summer European trek but still sharp and hot from being on the road since February of 2023 – with, of course, one notable break.
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The Pittsburgh shows kicked off a kind of make-up leg for the E Streeters, coming back for shows that were postponed in the spring and fall of 2023 due to illnesses, including a peptic ulcer that Springsteen described as “a mother***er” at the opening show.
On Sunday, before closing with the solo acoustic “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” he told the capacity PPG crowd, “I hope we didn’t inconvenience with you too much with our postponements. It’s just great to be back here. You’re just a fabulous audience for us. Thank you so much.”
The Pittsburgh stand was a rare two-nighter in North American arenas for Springsteen on this tour, though he’ll do the same in Philadelphia on Aug. 21 and 23 and Toronto on Nov. 3 and 6.
This leg wraps up Nov. 22 in Vancouver, while some European make-up dates are slated for next May, June and July – with enough space between them to fuel anticipation for more shows to be added. And E Streeter Steven Van Zandt only stoked those hopes when he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette before the shows that,” Just between you and me….I don’t see any end in sight. We’re better than ever; you’re gonna see what I mean this week. These five-year farewell tours people are doing are really hilarious. We’re not gonna start our first farewell tour for another 10 years.”
And if Springsteen and crew can keep delivering magic moments like this, who would want to see them stop any time through…
Shakin’ It UpAfter some fans criticized the first leg of the tour for its unusually similar set lists, Springsteen has loosened things up – particularly during the European dates.
That spirit was reflected during night two in Pittsburgh, which featured nine different selections, including seven of the night’s first nine songs. The night opened with a pair of Darkness on the Edge of Town songs. – “Candy’s Room” and “Adam Raised a Cain,” and later the title song.
Particularly welcome, meanwhile, were a riotous, revival-flavored “Spirit in the Night,” with Springsteen and saxophonist Jake Clemons mugging at the front of the stage, and “If I Was a Priest,” in only its sixth performance of the tour. “Death to My Hometown,” meanwhile, was an astute nod to the Steel City’s rust belt history and renaissance. “I’m on Fire” was another surprise late-show inclusion, but seemingly came at the expense of “Rosalita,” which has been a staple of the encores.
Speaking Of Which…Springsteen and the band did not walk off after “Thunder Road,” choosing instead to go straight into the usual encore lineup of “Born to Run,” “Glory Days” (note the high school baseball layer friend now throws a “spitball” rather than a “speedball”), “Dancing in the Dark” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” before…
A Special GuestPittsburgh rocker and longtime Springsteen friend Joe Grushecky was in the house on Sunday with his family and then on the stage with the E Street Band during an encore rendition of the Isley Brothers’ “Twist & Shout,” playing acoustic guitar and singing backing vocals into the same microphone as Van Zandt and bassist Garry Tallent.
During part of the song’s schtick Springsteen told the crowd it looked “a little bushed” and ready to go home.
He asked Grushecky, “Is this the way a Pittsburgh crowd looks when they’re wiped out, or when they’re ready to rock their asses off all night?,” to which the Iron City’s own houserocker replied, “I don’t think they’re ready to go home yet. I think they’re ready to rock!”
Among their many collaborations Springsteen produced Grushecky and his band the Houserocker’s 1995 album American Babylon and made a guest appearance on Grushecky’s 2006 solo album, A Good Life.
A Moving TributeAfter posting a social media message addressing the Aug. 9 passing of journalist and author Charles Cross – co-founder of the Backstreets fan magazine, Springsteen dedicated that song to him, telling the crowd that, “This is for a friend of ours, Charles Cross, the founder of Backstreets magazine and his great writing and his influence and his help in communicating between our band and our fans will be sorely missed. This is for Charles.”
Springsteen held his guitar high above his head, towards the heavens, in salute.
Party FavorsSpringsteen was in a giving mood, materially as well as musically, on Sunday. He played his closing harmonica solo during “The Promised Land” directly to a young fan sitting on her father’s shoulders near the front of the stage, then gave her the harp.
He handed two other harmonicas to fans after “She’s the One” and “Thunder Road” and distributed a selection of guitar picks towards the end of “Darlington County.”
E Street Guitar ArmySpringsteen, per usual, handled most of the guitar solos during the show, but also tossed the ball to the able axemen who flanked him on stage. Van Zandt scorched some earth at the end of “If I Was the Priest,” while Nils Lofgren tore it up with epic six-string excursions during “Youngstown” and “Because the Night.”
Out in the SeatsSpringsteen made one sojourn into the crowd on Sunday, walking to a platform near the middle of the house during “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”, where he pressed flesh and accepted a drink while performing the song.
It also served as a tribute to departed E Street members Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici, with footage of both shown on the video screens.
We Are But MortalSpringsteen has been doing it since the beginning of the tour, but his speech before “Last Man Standing” – about the death of his longtime friend and ’60s bandmate George Theiss and being, literally, the last surviving member still alive from the Castiles – was still moving and inspiring, even tear-jerking: “As you get older, death brings with it a certain sort of clarity. Its lasting gift to us is an expanded vision of living this life, every day…And the grief, the grief that we feel when our loved ones leave us, it’s just the price that we pay for having loved well. “
By the NumbersFor those counting, the Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town albums were the most represented with five songs each, followed by Born in the U.S.A. and Letter to You with four each.
In all Springsteen played songs from 11 of his 21 albums, including his cover of the Commodores’ “Nightshift” from the most recent, 2022’s Only the Strong Survive.
Two years after Avril Lavigne released her game-changing debut album Let Go, another pop-punk princess arrived on the scene and made quite a splash. Unlike her sister Jessica, who had emerged as a more traditional pop artist, Ashlee Simpson came with an edge: jet black hair, grunge style, and an affinity for rock music. In […]
The Detroit rapper and Kansas City producer make the midwest proud with this project.
“This might not sound right, but it’s alright, it’s real/ I’m findin’ my way on the highway this year.” The chorus of “Concrete Kisses,” delivered in a peaceful lilt and surrounded by homespun guitars, gets at the heart of Room Under the Stairs, Zayn’s fourth solo studio album and what is clearly a transitional project […]
One of the constants of Taylor Swift’s storied career has been the chances she’s taken at the precise moment when taking a chance wasn’t necessary. She was a country superstar who didn’t need to go pop; she was less than a year removed from a major pop album and didn’t need to take an indie-folk detour; she was in the middle of a blockbuster run of new albums and didn’t need to re-record her old ones.
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Time and again, Swift has identified artistic opportunities that other stars would have blanched at (or at the very least, set aside for a different time, so as to not muck up any professional momentum), and she has leapt into them fearlessly, always coming out on top.
So right now — in the middle of a mega-selling stadium tour, after a record-breaking fourth album of the year Grammy win, in a high-profile new romance and at the commercial zenith of an already all-time career — is, naturally, the time Swift has chosen to release a knowingly messy, wildly unguarded breakup album.
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She didn’t have to do this! But then again, making an album like The Tortured Poets Department is exactly what separates Swift from her more careful peers. Challenging herself to shape-shift, to accomplish something new at the moment anyone else would rest on their laurels, is what makes her so fascinating.
Swift has written plenty of songs that revel in post-breakup hurt across her catalog, but The Tortured Poets Department is both more mature — the teen slings and arrows naturally evolving into adult entanglements and emotional affairs — and more pissed-off, with unbridled emotion and unkempt drama often taking center stage. There will be a lot of guessing about who each song is about, considering that the album was created in the wake of her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn ending, a brief romance with The 1975’s Matty Healy, and the start of her relationship with football star Travis Kelce. But the male subjects are besides the point: Swift is a hurricane across the album, blowing the doors off of the agonizing details of her recent reality.
Furious rhetorical questions and errors in judgment dot the Tortured Poets Department lyrics, as Swift aims at a target beyond vulnerability, that allows her wide listenership to understand her heart and mind. In a career defined by her songwriting, Swift has never placed so much emphasis on her words — the production, courtesy of Swift and close collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, seems to evaporate at points, the music almost incidental compared to the lyrics. The warm synth-pop of Midnights serves as the closest reference point, but that album was cleanly orchestrated, while The Tortured Poets Department wants to get in the mud with soft-loud dissonance and tracklist sprawl. Really, the album is in conversation with her entire catalog — a country-pop chorus here, a Folklore folk tale there — while still making time to explore the unknown.
The Tortured Poets Department is extreme in its emotions and uninterested in traditional hits; not everyone will love it, but the ones who get it will adore it fiercely. As Swift continues this current astonishing run of superstardom, she has once again pushed herself to strike a new pose. It’s what makes her special — and what turns The Tortured Poets Department into yet another triumph.
On Thursday night (April 11), the Barclays Center in New York City was electrified by the presence of Bad Bunny. The arena, filled to its 19,000-person capacity, buzzed with anticipation as the Puerto Rican superstar kicked off the first show of his three-night stint in the city.
“New York has been very important in my career, where dreams come true,” Benito told his fans in his native Spanish during the performance. “Being on the tour feels really amazing, going to each place and seeing it, all the cities, but New York, it’s something else. It feels more amazing than usual. Seeing all those PR and DR flags makes it even more special. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here, it means a lot to me.”
Bad Bunny — who wore Prada sunglasses, a velour suit, and a gold cross necklace — delivered a dynamic performance that was an amalgamation of music and spectacle. It included a grand orchestra, an equestrian entrance, a surprise appearance by Bryant Myers to perform “Seda,” a jigsaw-like stage that transformed into the Brooklyn Bridge, and, of course, a repertoire of his biggest hits. (Here’s the complete setlist of the tour, which slightly changed to add “Amorfoda” and “Tití Me Preguntó.”)
This was part of his Most Wanted Tour — in support of his Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana album — which kicked off on Feb. 21 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Live Nation-promoted tour is halfway through its schedule, with forthcoming performances in cities including Austin, Texas (Apr. 26-27), Atlanta, Ga. (May 14-15), and Miami, Fla. (May 24-26). See the full dates here.
According to Billboard Boxscore, the tour has already been a commercial success, grossing $84.2M and selling 282K tickets over its first 18 shows. It has consistently sold out venues, demonstrating Bad Bunny’s continued widespread appeal.
Here are five standout moments from the first night of Bad Bunny’s Most Wanted Tour at the Barclays Center:
The Grandeur of an Orchestra
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