Sabrina Carpenter is an American singer and actress who gained fame through her leading role on Disney Channel’s “Girl Meets World” as Maya Hart. Winning numerous awards for her musical releases, Carpenter released a new Christmas EP called “Fruitcake” on Nov. 17.
Overall, the album is excellent. The style of the strong piano and strings throughout the EP makes the whole production quite cohesive and reminds me of the holidays. A contemporary twist amplifies the holiday tone through muted and distorted strings, Carpenter talking throughout some of the songs and crackles throughout the pieces.
The first song, “A Nonsense Christmas,” is a holiday rendition of her hit song, “Nonsense.” The song initially came out as a single for the holidays at the end of 2022 and made a comeback this year. The song’s catchy vocals and clever wordplay changed slightly, enhancing the already fun and whimsical aesthetic.
The second song, “buy me presents,” is the EP’s only explicit song. This song features jingle bells, prominent background vocals and ad-libs. Many lyrics include Christmas-related puns urging the listener to treat her right. This feel-good song got stuck in my head due to the bass guitar in the background.
The third song, “santa doesn’t know you like i do,” features electric synthesizers and a strong drumline, almost reminiscent of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears through the use of the synths. The song references Carpenter knowing someone better than Santa and hoping they notice her.
The fourth song, “cindy lou who,” is a solemn song that uncovers Carpenter’s jealousy and melancholy about a failed relationship with someone. This person found their way to someone else, who is nicknamed Cindy Lou throughout the song. The song features a musical break with dissonant strings in the middle. While I like this song’s concept, I felt this track felt a bit short and incomplete due to the length of the music break. That could possibly be due to the song being the quickest on the EP, at two minutes and one second. Although, I still like the song due to its lyricism.
The fifth track, “is it new years yet?” features a more jazzy upbeat bassline reminiscent of the 80s. Carpenter sings about wishing Christmas away due to the judgments and loneliness that the holidays bring for some people and getting excited for New Year’s Eve and the upcoming year. This song is my favorite on the album due to how danceable it is and the themes of loneliness.
The sixth and final song on the EP, “white xmas,” is a rendition of popular Christmas songs, like “Jingle Bells” and “White Christmas.” The callbacks to these iconic songs are pretty fitting and bring a warm tone to the EP. Carpenter focuses more on the quality of her vocals in this song, but that doesn’t mean the production suffers. She brings a contemporary version of Christmas Classics through her vocal delivery, which refreshes me and leaves me in the holiday spirit.
While this EP isn’t perfect, I thoroughly enjoyed the vocals, lyricism and production. This EP will definitely be making it to my Christmas playlist this year.
4/5 Stars
dwalton@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of @sabrinacarpenter, Instagram
