Sabrina Carpenter takes the world by storm with her new album, Short n’ Sweet. photo courtesy of Alerie Macon
How Sabrina Carpenter’s rise to fame took the world by storm.
Over the course of 2024, pop sensation Sabrina Carpenter has risen in the charts. From being a star on the Disney channel show Girl Meets World to creating music, Sabrina Carpenter was well known but was not seen as a pop star by most. More recently, however, she spiked in popularity. Now, many people of all ages, but especially teenagers, across the world are infatuated with her and her music.
Her first album, Eyes Wide Open, was released in 2015 and has had around 30,000 sales in the USA, while her newest album (as well as her most successful album to date), Short n’ Sweet, has had around 185,000 album sales in the USA. Clearly, her newest album has skyrocketed her career, making her now a very popular artist. She’s also recently gained six grammy nominations. So, the question is, how did Carpenter become so popular, and why did it happen so suddenly?
One factor contributing to Carpenter’s fast rise to fame could be her opening for the pop sensation Taylor Swift at her Eras Tour. Senior Audrey Trevino said that “…people really started to jump on the Sabrina Carpenter bandwagon when she opened for Taylor Swift.” After opening for such a big artist, Carpenter started to get noticed by a larger audience than before. Additionally, when Carpenter released her song “Espresso,” it went viral on social media. Her song was flooding the TikTok for you page, reaching people all over the world. People all over social media were talking about Carpenter, her new song, and her new album that was soon to be released.
After “Espresso” was released, Carpenter gained many new fans that may have not known about her or didn’t like her prior to the song’s release. In 2021, before her big rise in popularity, she was caught in a big controversy with fellow pop and Disney star Olivia Rodrigo. Many fans of Rodrigo chose to support her over Carpenter. Trevino noted, “I didn’t start listening to Sabrina’s music until her most recent album because I didn’t like her because of all the Olivia Rodrigo drama.” Due to this, many of Rodrigo’s fans chose not to listen to Carpenter out of respect for Rodrigo. Since it has been a couple years since the controversy, though, many of Rodrigo’s fans have now forgotten about their hate because they are enjoying Carpenter’s new music.
Carpenter has been through so much in terms of her journey to fame. She went from starring in a popular Disney show, to releasing music but not gaining a lot of attention, to having drama with another pop star. Now, she is seen as one of the top artists in pop. She is getting interviews on shows and is having parodies made out of her popular songs, and she’s even on a U.S. and European tour. Her recent music has started to change the pop music industry. “She brought back girly pop,” Trevino said. Now, Carpenter is more popular than ever, getting the fame that she worked so hard to achieve.
