Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” is certainly not embarrassing her, motherfucker. (Or “little sucker” if you prefer the clean version, which in the grand tradition, feels infinitely dirtier than its explicit counterpart.) The Jack Antonoff-produced track just netted the pop star her first-ever number-one single, after debuting at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart last week.
Featuring lyrics like “Well, I have a fun idea, babe, maybe just stay inside/I know you’re cravin’ some fresh air, but the ceiling fan is so nice,” and a funny dig at Carpenter’s actor boyfriend, Barry Keoghan, “Please Please Please” is a fun plea to a partner to just keep it together for once. Keoghan also features in the music video, which sees the singer and Saltburn actor gallivanting around as a Bonnie And Clyde-style crime duo.
The success of “Please Please Please” is also causing problems for the Jack Antonoff haters camp. “I think he’s one of the most talented people I’ve ever met. When he’s in a room, he’s able to literally touch every instrument in the room and make it sound magical,” Carpenter said of her controversial collaborator in a recent Rolling Stone profile. Wherever you stand on Antonoff, it’s hard to argue with 50.9 million streams.
“Please Please Please” isn’t the only song Carpenter fans can’t get out of their heads right now. (The fact that it seems to autoplay after literally every single other song on Spotify also can’t hurt.) “Espresso” continues to wake people up in the number four spot, heading into its 10th week on the chart.
With this newfound success, the former Disney Channel star is starting to break records. Last week, it was announced that she was the second act in Hot 100 history to make her debut in the top three with two songs at once (via NPR), a statistic that, while esoteric, is significant for the fact that she shares it only with the Beatles. As for a slightly more concrete record, she’s also the youngest female artist to ever hold the top two spots on the U.K.’s official Billboard chart, with “Please Please Please” at number one and “Espresso” at number two this week. Ariana Grande previously held the record for “7 rings” and “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” when she was 25 years and seven months old. Carpenter is currently 25 years and one month old.
Both “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” will be included on Carpenter’s upcoming sixth studio album, Short N’ Sweet. She also announced a tour to support the album earlier this month, which kicks off September 23 in Columbus, Ohio.