FEATURE:
Saluting the Queens
Sabrina Carpenter
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THIS is another…
Saluting the Queens where I turn the spotlight on an artist rather than someone else in the industry. Recognising women throughout the industry is important, although there is an amazing artist that I wanted to salute. Sabrina Carpenter might not be known to some. She is one of the most important and distinct Pop around. Her latest studio album, 2022’s Emails I Can't Send, was acclaimed and a chart success. It is announced that her next album, Short n’ Sweet, is out on 23rd August. She is someone I genuinely believe is going to get bigger and more acclaimed. Someone who will do huge headline slots and command the biggest stages in the world. In a busy and crowded Pop market, Carpenter is an artist that everyone needs to look out for. Even though she has released five studio albums, her best days and biggest successes are still ahead. There are a load of great interview with Sabrina Carpenter you can check out through YouTube. Some wonderful print interviews too. There are a few interviews from late last year/this year that are more up to date. Giving us an insight into an incredible artist. I want to start out by sourcing a GRAMMY interview from December of last year:
“When Sabrina Carpenter was 9 years old, she posted her first video to YouTube: a cover of Taylor Swift's "Picture To Burn." Fifteen years later, Carpenter isn't just a pop force to be reckoned with in her own right — she's sharing the stage with Swift.
While Carpenter certainly hasn't been a stranger to the spotlight before this year — she launched her singing career in 2014, the same year she gained recognition for her leading role in Disney Channel's "Girl Meets World" — her Eras Tour slot is indicative of the monster year she's had. Since her fifth studio album, emails i can't send, arrived in July 2022, Carpenter has continued to reach new career heights, from garnering billions of streams, to being named Variety's Rising Star of 2023, to headlining her biggest sold-out tour yet.
"In such a weird way, I guess I've tried to do my best and be enjoying what I'm doing without being too aware of what's going on," Carpenter admits to GRAMMY.com. "The love of what I do is in the actual making of things, so I've been making so much music and writing so much over the last year. Seeing this cool, organic reaction to it is great. But in the moment, it's hard to grasp it."
In between the Argentina and Brazil Eras Tour stops in November, Carpenter topped off her banner year with another bucket list item: a Christmas project. The six-track EP fruitcake nods to one of her biggest hits to date, "Nonsense," with a revamped version aptly dubbed "A Nonsense Christmas."
Shortly after wrapping her 2023 Eras Tour run, Carpenter took GRAMMY.com on a rollicking journey through her biggest milestones of the past 12 months.
Opening For Taylor Swift On The Eras Tour
When I first found out, it was through a text and there were a lot of emojis and exclamation points. That was really how it happened; it wasn't through managers or anything. When Taylor texted me and asked if I wanted to come on tour with her, I threw my phone across the room.
It's a really surreal thing. I covered one of her songs when I was 9 years old and definitely, throughout my life, she was an artist and a songwriter and businesswoman who I've always admired. So to call her a friend and be a part of something as iconic as this tour, I still can't process it.
I'm still on the tour into next year and have been learning as much as I can along the way. I actually feel bad about how many shows I've been to because so many people want to see this show, so I feel lucky and privileged to have seen it as many times as I have!
Creating Her Latest Billboard Hot 100 Hit, "Feather"
I was actually on the phone with my producer, John Ryan, and we were laughing about it because honestly, when we made it, we were just having fun. We wanted to make this song about all the s—ty events happening in my life, because it's so much more fun to turn it into a positive than to sit in the sadness.
When we wrote it, it was me, John and one of my closest friends, the songwriter Amy Allen. We were just literally dancing around when John was playing a chord progression and a cool, feathery thing on the piano. We wrote it in two hours and the fact that it fit so perfectly on the deluxe [version of emails i can't send] was a very kismet situation.
Getting Honored With Variety's Rising Star Of 2023
Just to be recognized by them was also surreal, because then I'm in a room with a bunch of people whose music I listen to, songs I study, and producers I love. I was just sitting there talking to them — and it's not, like, imposter syndrome, because it did feel like such an honor. It's cool to be able to do the thing I love the most, and when those things happen it's just icing on the cake. I'm very grateful for them.
Solidifying Her Status As A Songwriter
I wrote my first song when I was 10 years old and it was very bad. But it was always something that I loved doing.
When I got a little older and to a place where I got people's opinions, I was always made to feel like it wasn't my place; like I should just listen to them, be sent songs and be happy with them. But something really tricky for me is that I would actually have a real weird internal reaction singing lyrics that didn't feel honest to me, or didn't feel something I would say. I just always had a specific point of view — and I'm a Tarus, so I'm a little stubborn.
But over time, writing became a necessity for me; if I didn't write a song, I wouldn't be able to make it through these situations in life. I'm very lucky that I now get to do it all the time, but also that the people I work with who I love so much all believe in me so much”.
I think that Sabrina Carpenter is a phenomenal artist that has not been embraced by the mainstream as much as she should have been. Maybe the dominance of artists like Taylor Swift overshadows someone like Sabrina Carpenter. It is a shame. Her music is among the strongest out there. I would urge everyone to check it out. Even though it is not strictly a conventional interview, I like this chat between Sabrina Carpenter and (fellow actor and artist) Maya Hawke from earlier in the year. Published through Interview Magazine, there are a few sections I want to highlight:
“After getting her big break in 2014 on the tween sitcom Girl Meets World, Sabrina Carpenter has finally escaped the prefab pressures of Disney-kid stardom by snatching back her artistic identity. She followed up her first four albums with 2022’s Emails I Can’t Send, a more dangerous departure that saw the 24-year-old performer finding vulnerability in pop star problems like public breakups and internet hate. Taylor Swift took notice (she asked her fellow Pennsylvania native to help kick off the international leg of her Eras tour), as did the Catholic Church, which beefed with Sabrina over the video for her single “Feathers” (YouTube it). Someone else who’s been paying attention is the actor and singer Maya Hawke, who called Sabrina up to unpack the complexities of pop stardom.
CARPENTER: I genuinely feel the same way about you and your songwriting. Every time I see you perform you have such a genuine, raw portrayal of emotion.
HAWKE: Thank you. But part of why I look up to you is that the visual aspect is really hard for me. I love to paint and I love to act and sing, but connecting the dots between the three is a really big challenge. I’m curious, did it come all at once or have you been piecing it together slowly?
CARPENTER: I like to keep my eyes and ears open for things that resonate with me because that’s what brings my world to life. But most of the time I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. The more I keep creating, the more ideas just come out of the woodwork.
HAWKE: It’s like collage.
CARPENTER: Absolutely. It just has to be true to you, as clichéd as that sounds, because there’s no formula, as much as people like to think that you sit in an office and people tell you what you should wear and how you should act onstage.
HAWKE: Yeah. It’s more like you sit alone in your room and people call you and go, “What are you wearing? What’s the plan?” And you’re like, “I don’t know. Maybe this?”
PHOTO CREDIT: Conor Cunningham
CARPENTER: And then you end up finding what makes you feel comfortable. For me, clothing has had a huge part in that. It’s been a process of finding out what actually makes me feel comfortable. And oh my god, I’m not going to be comfortable in what I’m wearing right now in three to four years. But I have to follow what I feel at that moment.
HAWKE: That’s such a zen way to think about it. Sometimes I look back at things I did early on, like, “I wish I’d known what I now know about myself,” so that I could’ve been more consistent. But if I hadn’t experimented in all the ways that I did, I don’t think I would be myself now.
CARPENTER: The mistakes lead you to knowing yourself the most. If I didn’t wear the hideous things I wore when I was 13, whatever fedora I had, I don’t think I would’ve been the same person I am today. Also, what a humbling experience to look back and be like, “I’ve changed.” That’s a really good sign that you’ve lived life the way you should.
HAWKE: I think so, too. I wanted to ask you about the organic growth of “Nonsense.” That song wasn’t a single, right? A fan found it and then it exploded, as far as I could tell.
CARPENTER: Yeah. Sometimes I get insecure about pop music and the fact that it can’t always resonate with people. So it was really special for me to experience that song having its own life, maybe because it felt like the closest to my true personality, as silly as that sounds.
HAWKE: That makes total sense.
CARPENTER: I was at a really, really low point in my life about two years ago, so I was writing very few optimistic love songs. That one always stuck out, but I felt like it might discredit some of the songs on the album that were about more sensitive subjects, so it almost didn’t make it in. People in the past had told me my music didn’t have symmetry, that I didn’t have every song sounding the same, and that got in my head. So I’m grateful because the fans decided on their own that it meant something to them.
PHOTO CREDIT: Conor Cunningham
HAWKE: You talked about being insecure about pop music, and I was curious, did you consciously select a genre or did the style of songs you were writing just lend themselves to pop?
CARPENTER: Honestly, I don’t love the idea that a pop star is someone who makes catchy songs with easy-to-grasp concepts. It resonates with part of me, but I grew up with Stevie Nicks and Dolly Parton and Carole King and Patsy Cline, and that music didn’t necessarily feel like pop to me.
HAWKE: Right.
CARPENTER: I feel a lot freer and more excited about what I’m making now because I’ve realized that genre isn’t necessarily the most important thing. It’s about honesty and authenticity and whatever you gravitate towards. There were a lot of genres in my last album, and I like to think I’ll continue that throughout writing music.
HAWKE: That’s so smart. Your voice has so much capacity and clarity, and that lends it so well to how you’re producing because you can really jump the octave, for lack of a better term. I thought there was going to be a question here, but it’s really just a compliment. Your voice is incredible.
CARPENTER: [Laughs] Thank you so much. I don’t know how to take a compliment. How are you with that?
HAWKE: I deflect when I don’t agree with the compliment. I also deflect if I actually think the thing someone is complimenting me on is an insult. If they’re like, “You’re so quirky,” I’m like, “Thanks.” If I like the compliment, internally I’m a mess, but I’m just, like, “Thank you. That means so much to me.”
CARPENTER: I think being quirky is a compliment.
HAWKE: Anything can be a compliment or an insult. It’s all about what you were made fun of as a kid. I was bullied for being too quirky and weird, and now those things make me sensitive, but only because of my little child self that’s living inside my grown-up body. How did people react to you as a kid?
PHOTO CREDIT: Conor Cunningham
CARPENTER: Ironically, I was bullied for singing. I had really big dreams as a child, and it worked out for me. [Laughs] I did well in school, but I’ll be honest, I started homeschooling really young. This sounds so dramatic, but I felt safer learning the way that I did. I was in an online school, and then I started working at a pretty young age, so I got out of those little toxic circles that you sometimes don’t even realize you’re in because you’re so young. So I was grateful for that. Were you homeschooled?
HAWKE: I think because both of my parents were child actors, it was really important to them to not take me out of school. During my teen years I used to scream and cry at my parents, asking them to let me work, but they wouldn’t. I graduated high school and then I did a year at drama school and then I started working at 19. But I was always jealous of the people who got a head start.
CARPENTER: When I was younger a lot of people assumed it was my parents’ dream that they were trying to fulfill through me, and I always had to tell people it really had nothing to do with anyone but my 11-year-old self. But 19 is an amazing age to start having full control of what you’re doing. I started writing my debut album as a child and I would’ve never, ever put that out if I had started a little bit older.
HAWKE: I put my debut album out at 20 and I wouldn’t have put it out this year. [Laughs] But every time you change you look back and say,“I would have done it differently.” It’s all just organic growth. And it’s great you put out your debut album when you did. It started the train, and now you have Emails I Can’t Send and it’s extraordinary.
PHOTO CREDIT: Conor Cunningham
CARPENTER: Thank you. I definitely think timing plays a huge role in all of this.
HAWKE: It’s one of my favorite albums of the year. The whole thing makes you feel good, but the lyrics fill you with powerful thoughts about your own life and relationships. It doesn’t seem like you cut out any pieces of yourself to make this record.
CARPENTER: Thank you. I get chills when it’s received that way because I think one of the trickiest things for an artist is accepting being misunderstood. It comes with making art in any capacity.
HAWKE: Totally.
CARPENTER: I wrote most of the songs on Emails I Can’t Send not intending to ever put them out in the world, because I don’t think I would’ve written those songs if I thought about other people hearing them.
HAWKE: I actually feel that in the record. I started listening with “Skin” and then did a deep dive of your other stuff, but this record feels like you plunge 1,000 feet deeper into your own gut, and I’m so grateful you did.
CARPENTER: Thank you. Unfortunately, you have to allow yourself to get to that point where you’re even able to do that, and until I made this album, I wasn’t at that place where I felt I could. The other day, this guy was like, “Life is so long. You just have to follow the things that make you feel something, whether that’s good or bad.” And I was like, “Wow, I always hear life is short.” But it made me really excited about the fact that I’m going to find my way through.
HAWKE: That’s a very, very important thing to remember. It’s both things. An hour can feel like an eternity and a day can go by in the blink of an eye. Time seems to be what you make of it and if you treat your life like it’s long, it will be”.
I do hope that people check out Sabrina Carpenter’s music. She is someone who always comes across so well in interviews. By that, I mean she seems incredible intelligent, charming, compelling and intensely likeable. I am going to finish with an interview from Cosmopolitan. Among other things, Carpenter talks about opening for Taylor Swift during her Eras Tour:
“Late last year, in your acceptance speech for the Variety Hitmakers Rising Artist Award, you mentioned how your mum would reference The Tortoise and The Hare story when you were a kid and how it helped you get comfortable with “the mindset of a slow rise.” At first I was like, 'Oh, I totally relate to that.' And then I thought, 'But wait. She’s only 24 [at the time]. She got her first acting job at 11. She had this major role at 15.' It made me think about the ways in which ambitious women continue to move the goalposts for ourselves.
I was really nervous when I gave that speech, to be super frank. That award was such an honour, but it was one of the first speeches I’ve ever given, in this room of all these people I admire.
I was a kid when I saw that Miley Cyrus was 16 and touring arenas. And so my mind went, 'At 16, you’re going to tour arenas.' And then when that didn’t happen, I was like, 'Oh.' I think if you really look at how long I’ve been singing and acting, it’s a long time compared to the instant gratification that some people have. I never had the instant thing, which now I feel very lucky about because I have a lot of experience. Even if I’m light-years ahead, I would rather feel that I’m behind and have the ambition to think, 'Oh, I can always work a little bit harder. I can always try something new.' There are things I haven’t done yet that I really want to do.
What kinds of things?
Well, I feel so grateful that I’ve been able to tour an album that I really care about for almost two years and that my fans have given it a life longer than I ever could have asked for. I put two and a half years into making this album, and it’s a shitty feeling when you put so much time into something and people want something new in two months. So I’m trying to really take this experience in before moving on to the next thing… but I’ve been working on the next thing for a minute. I’m starting to feel like I’ve outgrown the songs I’m singing, which is always an exciting feeling because I think that means the next chapter is right around the corner.
Does a next chapter look like more music or a return to acting or…?
I go to the movies and I get really jealous of the people in the movies. I’m like, 'Oh, I want to be in a movie.' And then I go to concerts and I get jealous of people onstage. I’m like, 'Oh, I want to be onstage.' I think that’s a good sign. The hardest thing for me to do sometimes is to stop and take a moment to recognise how much I grew in the last year. I didn’t think 24 was going to be special at all. When I turned 24, I was like, 'What is this year even made for?' Because 21 is always very pronounced, 25 is always very pronounced. But the middle ages, oof. Even with songs, there’s 'Nobody likes you when you’re 23.' But shit about 24.
So has 24 been different than you expected?
You still feel very youthful, you can still wear very short skirts, but you also feel more insightful and have a bit more knowledge and experience. You’re better able to know the people that you want to invite into your life, whereas before you are just nice to everybody and want to be everyone’s friend. I think that’s what’s happened to me in the last year and a half. Instead of being like, 'Do people like me?' it’s 'Oh, do I actually like you?' Not in a mean way, but in a sense of, do I want this energy around me all the time? Is this someone who adds to my life?
What are those things that you look for to determine whether somebody’s additive to your life?
People who stimulate me and don’t just agree with everything I say. And people who are funny. When I meet people that feel very genuine and pure, I hope to keep them in my life. Because that’s the only way that I’m going to stay close to the ground in any capacity. But also, part of learning is keeping the wrong people in your life for a period of time. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way a couple of times, for sure.
Tell me about the day-to-day of life on the road with Taylor Swift for The Eras Tour.
What’s been so fun about this tour is getting to perform in places I haven’t before. And I’m quite jet-lagged because we’re all over the world. So sleep is super important. The hardest thing is turning your brain off and getting everything to quiet down. But I’m grateful for my inability to turn my brain off at times because that’s when I come up with ideas. I feel creative. I feel excited. After a show, I think a lot about what I want to do differently the next time and what I want to do with my own show in two years.
I did two legs of the Emails I Can’t Send Tour, and that was amazing, but it was a much more rigorous schedule. I feel so genuinely lucky on The Eras Tour because I get to perform a set that I’m super comfortable with, and then I get to watch one of the greatest performers every night. My favourite thing to do has always been to watch people who look so comfortable in their bodies onstage, like Madonna and Britney and Prince. Sometimes when you don’t have a mirror in front of you and you can’t actually see how you look, a lot of the learning comes from watching a video back and thinking, 'Oh, I thought I was giving more than I was actually giving.' And it’s been a very tall order being on a stage that big because — and this is not even to sound like a pick-me, like when girls are like 'I’m so small, I can’t reach the top shelf' — I’m literally 5 feet tall. So sometimes when I’m on that stage, it feels so huge that I just have to be larger than life in some capacity.
It almost feels like a Broadway show because everything is so synchronised but at the same time feels so in the moment. That’s an art. It’s really hard to teach. It’s really hard to learn. And I feel so lucky that I get to watch Taylor perform every time. It makes me want to tour the world again, which is a good feeling.
It sounds like you’re really energised and excited by what you’re doing — I can imagine that if you weren’t, you’d risk burning out.
Yeah. I’d be smoking a pipe a day. It would be rough. No, I’m still very much in love with it. I think that’s the whole goal, to keep falling in love with what you do all the time in new ways. With this industry, if you’re focused on the wrong things, it can be easy not to feel that way. If you’re focused on the things that excite you and the things that bring you that inspiration, that joy, it’s a more lighthearted experience.
What would be “wrong” things to focus on?
Anything that makes you question your own innate feelings and ideas and emotions. You read all of these interviews with artists in the past where the work that they were the most criticised for or the work that they were the most scared of was the thing that felt the most honest to them. And I always try to keep that in mind — to not take what other people say too heavily.
Considering that you’re in a much more constant feedback cycle than previous generations, you have to be particularly intentional about taking a step back and knowing what noise to drown out.
Correct. You have to be discerning, protect your energy, as they say. Because everyone has the ability to say whatever they want. And you’re like, do you have a degree in anything? People comment all the time, sounding like vocal instructors talking about technique, and then you go to their profile, and they’re literally working at GameStop [an American electronics company]. And by the way, no offence to anyone that works at GameStop because I love GameStop. But I just mean it in the sense that people will be doing something so different with their lives and have opinions on things that they aren’t an expert on
So I understand how you approach friendships and meeting new people. Can we talk about how you approach dating? As you put your hands over your face to hide!
A lot of it, for me, has been fate. I know that’s super broad, but I don’t actively look for it. The relationships that I actually want to put my energy into have to be so interesting or invigorating because they take me away from the other things I love. So yeah, it’s fun and it’s messy. I think I’m still just at this place where I’m really enjoying the newness of all of it.
Do you use apps?
No. I have one app, and I usually just never open it. But there would be times where I would just want to see that other people exist. I know that sounds weird. Because when you’re on tour for a very long time, you’re just like, oh my god, there’s no one around.
Just tens of thousands of screaming girls.
Yeah. It’s either screaming girls or it’s people you work with. So when I was a lot younger, I was like, 'Maybe I should get an app to see if there are human beings.' But I’ve never, ever, ever, ever gone on a date from an app. It’s always just been by fate and by chance, people I meet or people that I connect with through friends and things like that.
I’d imagine your experience is very different from the average 25-year-old.
I don’t know. What’s an average 25-year-old? What was your dating experience when you were 25?
I’m a terrible example. My husband and I started dating in college. I was 23 when we got engaged, which is wild to think about now in my thirties.
Oh my god, you’re one of those. My best friend just got married and she’s my age.
Do you like the guy [she's married]?4
Oh, I love him. He’s amazing. It just made me feel like I was so behind or something. And then I realised, no, no, no, she’s just ahead.
Everybody’s on their own timeline. I have friends who have gone through divorces in their twenties.
I love how we’ve normalised that. Because that makes me feel a lot less scared when it comes to dating in general. When I was younger, the one thing I always thought was, why would I date this person if I didn’t see myself marrying them? I just wouldn’t even put energy into it. But now I have a mentality that there are relationships that are meant to be in your life, even if it’s only for a couple of weeks.
Okay, so across your personal life and your professional accomplishments — of which there are many — what are some of the things you love most about yourself?
I love this question. I think the fact that I really, really do love to find the humour and joy in things, even if they feel really dark and heavy. That’s saved me a lot of the time. Ooh, answering this is tricky. Because you’re like, am I going to say my hair? I’ve always loved the way I care about my friends. When I love people, I just care about them so much and want them to feel loved and seen. And then third, I would say I like my ass. I will do squats till the day I die”.
A new single Espresso, was released in April. I hope that it leads to a new album. That song proves that Sabrina Carpenter is among the most distinct and consistently brilliant Pop artists of her generation. I am looking forward to seeing where she goes from here. Her new album, out in August, will tell us more. No doubt a queen primed for the mainstream, there is no doubt Carpenter is a future icon. This stunning artist is…
AMONG the very best.