Sabrina Carpenter’s label apparently had doubts about “Espresso”

Sabrina Carpenter is one of the undisputed biggest stars of the summer with the back-to-back hits of “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” ahead of her August 23 album Short N’ Sweet. But Sabrina Summer could have looked very different if she hadn’t fought for her own vision. “I was completely alone in wanting to release ‘Espresso.’ Not so much from my immediate team. But when it came to ‘the powers above,’”—she air-quotes in a new profile for Variety—“there was a lot of questioning behind whether it made sense. But they trusted me in the end, and I was happy that I believed in myself at that moment.” 

No doubt everyone, especially whoever at the label was doubting the indomitable earworm that is “Espresso,” is pretty happy with how the situation worked out. Island Records co-CEO Imran Majid praises Carpenter’s instincts in the profile, saying “She’s always thinking 10 steps ahead of the market.” Co-CEO Justin Eshak goes so far as to call her “one of this generation’s most important artists.” It may feel a little early in Carpenter’s ascendancy to give her that label, but the singer has actually been toiling away for many years. She released four albums under Disney’s Hollywood Records while also working as a child actor for the Disney Channel. She ultimately left Hollywood (the label) after releasing her final album there in 2019, and signed with Island in 2021. 

“For the people who love those early records and listen to them, I love you for that. But I personally feel a sense of separation from them, largely due to the shift in who I am as a person and as an artist, pre-pandemic and post-pandemic,” she tells Variety. She feels similarly about her career as an actor: “I’m 900 inappropriate jokes away from being a Disney actor, but people still see me that way. I’m always extremely flattered to be grouped in with the other women and girls who I’ve idolized and looked up to who came from that, but I feel very distant from it.”

Carpenter didn’t need to go full “Can’t Be Tamed” to break away from the Disney image, but she has shed some of the child star baggage by embracing a playful naughtiness. (Carpenter’s live shows have become renowned for her “Nonsense” outros, which usually include sexual innuendo about whatever city she’s in.) She sees Short N’ Sweet as her “second ‘big girl’ album; it’s a companion but it’s not the same” as her first Island release, Emails I Can’t Send. She shares, “When it comes to having full creative control and being a full-fledged adult, I would consider this a sophomore album.”