Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover

[TERFlawnBOY]

I don’t want to post the photo as it is risqué…

For those who don’t know, Sabrina Carpenter is a sexy young pop singer. Her new album cover was shared this week and it depicts her being held down at a man’s crotch by her hair.

To be honest, the image did shock me. Sabrina’s music is poppy and fun, so to go with such an aggressive image seems off-brand. Moreover, her fans are mostly young girls…

What do others think?

Can I pick up on people saying "don't let your kid listen to it then". I think if someone is already a successful pop singer and kids like them, and then they do something more risqué, it is tricky for parents.

My DD is 10 and likes Sabrina Carpenter because she's popular and her friends like her. If I suddenly said "you can't listen to Sabrina Carpenter anymore" she'd be pretty annoyed, and of course she'd want to know why. If I said "it's too adult" she'd be more intrigued and probably go looking into it more.

It would be like trying to ensure a kid never saw or heard Madonna in the 80s.

It's not like pop stars should have to be nuns, and I'm not that bothered about the odd swear word or sexy outfit, but I do think there's a bit of a line you shouldn't cross if you're a mainstream artist who already has loads of young fans.

Not aiming this at Sabrina specifically - there seem to be lots of young artists who suddenly decide they need to do something edgy!

Is it though? Or do we just think that because of Disney origins, which were a really long time ago.

I work in a large secondary schools and often talk to the kids about music. Not a single girl has ever mentioned SC to me. We have a fair few Swifties and generally speaking the younger ones are into K-Pop and the older ones like indie/rock/metal.

I appreciate that's a small sample and I'm a bit in the fence about her image (my daughter and I used to watch her in Girl Meets Worls) but I enjoy her music and think her lyrics are very clever.

All the 'stupid girl' remarks are massively patronising also imo.

I really like this response, your questions about what is unique about her, what is she proud of. I do agree - human beings are so intrinsically interesting, there is so much to discuss and learn about another person. I love when you find out something about somebody that you might not expect.

I do believe she has a lot of young girl fans. 12 year olds. Maybe the girls at your school are too old for her! Someone further up the thread took her 13 year old niece to a Sabrina Carpenter concert and I think that's her audience. They call Sarah Cox on a Friday and request her songs.

11 to 16 years old and Co-ed. I've never heard a student mention her, but 1600 kids is a small sample and she obviously has a lot of fans.

It's tricky because her sound is very 'poppy' but her lyrics definitely aren't, which is why I'd question whether youngsters are her target audience, which in turn makes a difference as the interpretation of her image.

If she is so talented why on earth would you reduce yourself to this? I think it’s pathetic

There’s no denying that Sabrina is targeting young kids with her music and image

She sings about sex and crappy men
She performs in lingerie
Her imagery is a sexualised/pin up type of aesthetic

Which part of this is targeting young kids?

I don't think it's SC as an individual targeting teen girls, it's the way the music industry has developed - there's more and more engagement with fans on social media, streaming, etc., and management will ID what demographic is most likely to interacting with their act, and will target that group.

It's pretty obvious from the publicity, merchandising etc that it's teen girls who are most likely to be devoted fans of the olivia rodrigo/sabrina carpenter/ariana grande school of pop.

So they can sing and play and perform and dress however they like, I don't think anyone wants to control their artistic freedom or anything, the issue is this:
She sings about sex and crappy men
She performs in lingerie
Her imagery is a sexualised/pin up type of aesthetic
and many of us wonder if that's age-appropriate for their fanbase.

I agree there are conversations to be had with young girls about pop idols and what they’re portraying.

We’ve name-checked Madonna a few times now, but the recent documentary about her turned up vox pops with quite a few very young girls dressed up to emulate her in her “boy toy” phase. (A few people here remember Madonna’s later, more defiant self-expression phase, when she alienated a lot of people - like David Letterman - and have said she was very different to Carpenter. Not in her early “breakthrough star” days, she wasn’t!)

I remember a similar teen following for Brittney Spears, another Disney star suddenly signalling her adult market value with blatant sexuality. I was shocked by Spears’ “Hit Me Baby One More Time” video when it came out, probably because I’d been steeped in the “angry girl bands” of the 90s and later-career Madonna, and thought we were past pandering to dicks. (Ha - we’d not even started on the grotesque porn & prostitution-as-sex-positivity thing yet, how naive I was!)

And going even further back, there’s the extreme phenomenon of the “baby groupies” who followed 70s rock bands.

My take away is that a lot of young girls are looking up to these stars because they look like they’re winning at a particular type of hyper glossy womanhood, but they’re not reading the sexual subtext because they have absolutely no clue about it. It’s the adults around these kids I’m side-eying. They can read the subtext. Some have popped along here to gloat about it, even.

I guess it is supposed to be 'liberated' to play around with such imagery these days...and suggesting that this really that makes the woman somehow empowered and in control - and not simply playing into pornified cultural tropes.

I'n not buying it myself. So many female singers are trussed up like porn stars. I don't see how this is challenging anything - and the messgae it sends to young women and girls is not positive; in fact, quite upsetting.

To my mind this kind of supposed femisim really took off in the 1980's.......when everything became marketised and packaged up for sale. Rather than burning your bra as a rejection of unattainable standards of beauty or desirability...you were supposed to embrace playing with them.

@Shortshriftandlethal Before the 80s that was just Playing The Game. Good looking people have always had a certain power (lots of research on how attractive people fare better in the world), and with women there’s always been a tightrope to walk with it. Be attractive enough to get the attractiveness dividend and the accompanying social approval, because ugly women are also targets for scorn, but don’t be TOO sexy - or else.

I am actually quite sympathetic to where the 80s attempt to “reclaim” sexiness as power instead of an instant source of shame came from, because “too sexy/now I can do what I like to you because you’re asking for it” could be so subjective.

That’s where the adults in the room need to be talking to kids about what Sabrina Carpenter is doing. And I think it’s worth holding up Britney Spears as a lesson in what selling yourself as a sex object when you’re very young can do to a woman’s mental health over time. She was always looking like a car crash waiting to happen, even as she and her management insisted it was all “her choice.”

OP is expressing concern about the album cover.

She doesn't operate in a vacuum. She was a Disney star and she has a singing career precisely because of the name recognition and connections. She went out with Barry Keoghan, part of a media darling couple, and attracted lots of publicity. She sings in a teen friendly little girl voice. She cant suddenly pivot to raunchy without being criticised for it.

Haven’t seen it and don’t particularly want to.It sounds just crass as the LYNX lower body spray advert.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ILS41bB5Gg

“She sings in a teen friendly little girl voice.”

What the fuck?? Her voice is her voice! She’s not doing a Minnie Mouse impression FFS

Like I said, she doesn't operate in a vacuum. There are thousands of women who have great voices but dont have a career because they dont have the image, the connections, the back story. She is using what she's got, fair enough. And part of that is the teen-friendly voice. If she sounded like Annie Lennox or Grace Jones she would be aiming at a very different target audience.

Good piece from Jenny Lindsay on this.

www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/sabrina-carpenters-album-cover-is-not-liberation-its-glamorous-despair-5180835

I love her music - the tunes are uplifting and the lyrics are clever, feminist and funny. But I winced and felt sad about this album cover. I think it’s not cool and people won’t get it if it’s meant to be ironic.

There’s no such thing as a “teen friendly voice” or indeed a teen unfriendly voice. When I was a teenage girl I listened to The Deftones and System of a Down… she can’t help how her voice is.

OK, she has the unthreatening voice that is in vogue at the moment with teenage girls. Arianna Grande, Olivia Rodriguez..... it's a popular genre. Of course there is always room for a more indie sound but that doesn't alter the fact that SB courts teenage fans, IS popular with little girls because of her image and voice, and IS using porn-related imagery.

I am so old i remember Adam Ant. He started out as a punk - i actually saw him in concert back then. But the image took him in a much more mainstream direction and kids loved him. He toned the punk stuff down. You might call that selling out and maybe it was. But he didnt use his platform to push an anti establishment message onto little kids. I do think you have a degree of responsibility when your target audience is 12 year olds, even if that's not what you wanted.

How on earth can you say that she courts teenage fans, and her target audience is 12 year olds, whilst also stating that she is “using porn-related imagery”. Those two things are mutually exclusive. Someone who sings about sex and used porn related imagery is definitely NOT targeting teenagers or children. Unless you’re suggesting Sabrina Carpenter is a pervert?

No im not. I think the fan base she has and the fan base she wishes she has are two completely different things though.

I would say that we live in such a porn soaked world that the ability to see what’s inappropriate has been lost to a great many people.

Sex sells.

I put on YouTube current pop hits today, and two of the young, female singers were dancing around half naked, suggestively.

I suppose they will tell you they are liberated and can do what they want. Though I always question why is that what you want in these situations.