Sabrina Carpenter's Short 'N Sweet wins the proxy battle, debuts atop album charts

As predicted by Taylor Swift—and The A.V. Club, when we saw the writing on the wall about “Espresso”—it has indeed been the Summer of Sabrina, “and may it continue forever,” in Swift’s opinion. Sabrina Carpenter did everything right: from her Eras Tour appearances to a buzzy lead single, the fruitful festival circuit, and star-studded music videos, she perfectly parlayed her explosive summer into a number one album (Short ‘N Sweet) on the Billboard Hot 200. It’s the 25-year-old’s sixth album (you can thank Disney for giving her a solid head start), and her first-ever number one record. 

Short ‘N Sweet nearly missed the mark: according to Luminate, Carpenter’s pop album sold 362,000 equivalent album units in the U.S., while the 10th-anniversary release of Travis Scott’s rap mixtape Days Before Rodeo sold “a little over 361,000,” per Billboard. It was a close competition, but Carpenter managed to eke out a win by the skin of her teeth. Oddly, it became a bit of a proxy battle for their pop culture predecessors, as Swift posted on her Instagram to encourage fans to buy Short ‘N Sweet while her nemesis Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) similarly posted about Scott’s mixtape. 

Speaking of Swift, Billboard notes that both Carpenter and Scott were bolstered by the sale of numerous variants. It’s a tactic used by many artists, but none so infamously as Swift; the reigning dictator of pop has been accused of blocking other possible number ones by releasing yet more variants of The Tortured Poets Department throughout the summer. 

So long as Billboard’s standards are the way they are, though, variants are fair game, and both of these artists played it well. Carpenter and Scott’s projects are the third and fourth best-selling albums of the year, respectively. According to the outlet, it’s the “first time that two albums have earned at least 360,000 units in the same week in over eight years.” Scott’s mixtape is also technically a debut (he released Days Before Rodeo on SoundCloud in 2014), so it’s also the first time two debut albums earned that many units since 2015.