Sabrina Carpenter says she “was completely alone in wanting to release ‘Espresso’”
Sabrina Carpenter has revealed that she was “alone” in wanting to release ‘Espresso’ as the lead single from her upcoming sixth album, ‘Short N’ Sweet’.
‘Espresso’ released on April 11, has fast become one of Carpenter’s signature songs, reaching Number Three on the Billboard Hot 100 and topping the charts in the UK and 15 other countries. Today (August 6) it reached one billion streams, becoming the third fastest song on the platform to reach that figure. Even Adele described it as “my jam” – high praise indeed.
However, she told Variety that not everyone thought releasing it was a good idea. “I was completely alone in wanting to release ‘Espresso,’” she said. “Not so much from my immediate team. But when it came to ‘the powers above,’” she air-quoted, “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.”
Island Records co-CEO Imran Majid also weighed in, saying, “It’s no accident that everything is falling into place the way she always wanted. Sabrina’s instincts and creative vision are incredible. She’s always thinking 10 steps ahead of the market.”
It’s probably fair to say that ‘Espresso’ has been the song of the summer. It spent a full month at Number One in the UK earlier this year, while the Official Charts Company revealed a month ago that it was the fourth-biggest song of the year in the country at that point.
Such was the ubiquity of the song that people started noticing Spotify playing it after they’d been listening to songs by everyone from Fontaines D.C. to Kendrick Lamar. NME said at the time: “While Spotify and artists and their teams can pump everything into a track going viral and make it the holding music to those moments when you don’t have your own song queued, they also need people to then choose to engage with it for the momentum to keep going. Something that is happening for Sabrina Carpenter.
“Perhaps it’s the eternal lure of hitting the repeat button to marvel at lyrics like “Walked in and dream came trued it for ya” and find ways to add “Mountain Dew it for ya” into our everyday lexicon.”
Meanwhile, Carpenter recently added more UK and Europe shows to her ‘Short N’ Sweet’ tour, in promotion of the album, out August 23. The tour is set to begin next spring, kicking off in Dublin on March 3 before shows in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and Amsterdam – including an extra date at London’s The O2. You can find tickets here.
Before her Europe shows, however, there’s the North American leg of the tour first. It’ll begin in Columbus, Ohio, on September 23, and wrap up almost two months later on November 15 in Los Angeles. Purchase tickets here.
And, she’s just debuted a new track, ‘Slim Pickins’, with Jack Antonoff.
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Adam England
NME
