Feature
Feature
Everything you need to know about Sabrina Carpenter
Your guide to the pop star supporting Taylor Swift and BLACKPINK on tour
You might have missed it, but Taylor Swift has now announced her UK and Europe Eras tour. And whilst we don’t yet have word on who’ll be supporting her on those dates, none other than fellow US pop act Sabrina Carpenter will be joining her as she tours Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Not clued up on Carpenter yet? Allow us to introduce you.
Disney channel beginnings
Carpenter began acting in 2011, but it wasn’t until 2014 that she landed her breakout role as Maya Hart on Disney Channel’s Girl Meets World. She remained on the show for three seasons, becoming one of the network’s major stars and collaborating with them on a range of other projects.
Early recording career
Just like other ex-Disney acts like Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato and Olivia Rodrigo, Carpenter launched a successful music career in conjunction with her work on the channel. She was quicker on the draw then most though, with her debut EP Can’t Blame A Girl For Trying being released just a few months before the first episode of Girl Meets World even aired. Carpenter released her debut album in 2015, a confessional pop record entitled Eyes Wide Open. She was just fifteen years old at the time, and she would go on to release a second album, EVOLution, the following year.
Although these early releases helped to establish Carpenter’s audience and allowed her to hone her songwriting skills, they remain a very separate chapter from her later work. Sonically, her first two albums are fairly diverse – they see the young musician experimenting with power pop, pop rock, jazz, folk, and even a little reggae. But it wouldn’t be until 2018 that the singer would really begin to find her voice in pop – which is why you’re unlikely to hear anything from her early records when Carpenter opens for Taylor Swift on the Eras tour.
Singular
In November 2018, Sabrina released Singular: Act I. Her most mature work to date, the first half of her double album featured a number of successful singles, including ‘Sue Me’, ‘Paris’ and ‘Looking At Me’, all of which the singer has continued to perform live (and may well add to her Eras tour setlist). The second half of the album, Singular: Act II arrived in July 2019. It was followed by the single ‘Honeymoon Fades’, which she has also continued to perform live.
emails i can’t send
In 2021, Carpenter joined Island Records and released her debut single with the label, ‘Skin’. It became her first entry onto the Billboard Hot 100. Later that same year, she released ‘Skinny Dipping’, her official lead single for her upcoming fifth studio album. Both songs demonstrated how much Carpenter had evolved from a Disney star into a pop act to be excited about, with ‘Skinny Dipping’ especially praised for its creative songwriting.
emails i can’t send, Carpenter’s fifth studio album, arrived in July 2022. Her move to Island Records and the three years of growing she’d done since her last full-length release resulted in an album roundly acknowledged to be her best work to date. Occasionally funny, occasionally tragic and consistently vulnerable, the record was packed with excellent pop that managed to be commercial and relatable without ever sounding generic. A standout was the album’s fourth single, ‘because I liked a boy’, released with a music video alongside the album. It saw Carpenter addressing the speculation that she had been the ‘other woman’ referenced in fellow pop star Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘driver’s license’, and described the toll that the resulting backlash had taken on her with eloquence, grace and great feeling.
The record was followed by a huge international tour that saw Carpenter play her first ever headline shows in a number of countries, including the UK. The Emails I Can’t Send tour has so far spawned plenty of viral TikTok content, particularly thanks to Carpenter’s idea to write new lyrics for her song ‘Nonsense’ relating to each city she visited – fans will be eager to hear what she thinks up for the Eras tour.
Carpenter will still be on the Emails I Can’t Send tour for another couple of months, with her upcoming dates including an appearance at BST Hyde Park this July supporting BLACKPINK.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is coming to the UK in 2024. Find tickets for Taylor Swift here.
