With the holidays right around the corner and Sabrina Carpenter’s rising popularity, it feels fitting to revisit the holiday EP fruitcake which was released last holiday season. The EP starts with Carpenter’s most popular song “Nonsense” remixed to be a holiday song, also includes four new Christmas hits and one cover.
Featuring five songs in under 16 minutes, fruitcake is a very bite-sized but cheery holiday album. It follows an arc through joy and playfulness towards contemplation back into confidence. Though some of the songs risk being forgettable on their own, it’s a cohesive and dynamic EP. Overall, fruitcake is a promising extension of the artist who created emails i can’t send fwd: and Short and Sweet. It’s a delightful, bubbly addition to Sabrina Carpenter’s discography that shows off her playful personality and incredible vocals. While her lyricism isn’t as hard-hitting as a full-length project like emails i can’t send fwd:, Carpenter is just having some holiday fun.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The first track, “A Nonsense Christmas,” a remix of Carpenter’s arguably most popular song “Nonsense,” was first released on her emails i can’t send fwd: album. A Christmas-themed remix might seem like an odd choice, but “Nonsense” features a unique outro every time Carpenter performs it so “A Nonsense Christmas” is a perfect opportunity for her and her team to flex their songwriting, and they do not disappoint. Every line is rewritten with Christmas-themed allusions and euphemisms: “Think I only want you under my mistletoe / I might change your contact to ’Has a Huge North Pole.’” She makes it immediately clear that the song’s message of being ridiculous while you want someone has become a Christmas tune and hilarious lines like “I need that Charles Dickens” and “I’m out here trimmin’ the tree” bring her characteristic playfulness to the holiday season.
Production: 5/5 Lyrics: 5/5 Overall Score: 10/10
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Carpenter keeps the second song on the record light and bouncy, teasingly comparing her lover to Santa. “If you don’t wanna buy me presents/[…]/I know somebody who will,” she sings over smooth, airy production by John Ryan. There’s also a brilliant little sax solo before the final chorus. It’s bursting with Christmassy wordplay, as she likens her lover to Santa, “He’s a little bit older (Like, super old) / Got a bit of a dad bod…” with whimsical comparisons. It’s a lower tempo than “A Nonsense Christmas” featuring adlib vocals that make the sound full and treat the funny premise with sincerity.
Production: 4/5 Lyrics: 4/5 Overall Score: 8/10
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The tone shifts into an adorable love ballad, where Carpenter pleads for someone to spend the holidays with her. She chooses a spoken-word bridge “You’re gonna leave me all alone?/On Christmas?” While some may think this doesn’t fit perfectly with the song, Carpenter’s determination to not take herself too seriously makes the entire project feel more cohesive.
Where previous songs were overtly playful, this shift into longing and vulnerability is welcome, and the juxtaposition between the snare kicks and gentle production creates a sad song that’s confused about whether it wants to dance. The spoken word bridge, reminiscent of “skinny dipping,” calms the song for its final minute. All of these elements probably shouldn’t go together, but the unified Christmas themes, supplemented by the Christmas bells in the production, make this ambitious, pretty song surprisingly coherent.
Production: 3/5 Lyrics: 3/5 Overall Score: 10/10
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
A surprising stand-out on an otherwise lighthearted EP, “cindy lou who” is a sad ode to the woman her ex has fallen for. The title references a key character in The Grinch, a little girl mostly characterized by her sweetness and innocence. If it weren’t for a few references to Christmas time “There’s red and green everywhere/ but I’m so blue,” this bittersweet song could easily have a place on one of her full-length albums. The gentle piano and soft synths alongside Carpenter’s airy vocalizing make the song about muted acceptance and melancholy feel like it’s ready to float away. The movement of the production elements complements the singer’s unresolved questioning throughout.
Production: 4/5 Lyrics: 5/5 Overall Score: 9/10
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Carpenter and her producer John Ryan lighten up again with the fifth track, a much bouncier song where she longs for the end of the pervasive holiday season and a new beginning. She even references the title of her EP, “Fruitcake just makes me sick,” at the end of a list of general grievances about spending the holidays single “Couples all around me, damn, it hurts.” The spoken word chorus is up-tempo as Carpenter is over her heartbreak, wanting to literally and temporally move on. The accenting bells are bright, and the audio panning throughout is a dose of fun that the song describes as being needed.
Production: 5/5 Lyrics: 3/5 Overall Score: 8/10
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
fruitcake closes with “white xmas,” a mixed bag of references to famous Christmas lyrics. Carpenter’s vocal talent shines as always, but it feels like a showy, highly-skippable outro more than a fully developed song. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,” she begins, with minimal production and old-school singing. It picks up with repeated vocalizing of “Da-da-da-dum.” The song ends with another curveball, shifting into some “jingle bells, the jingle bells, jingle all the way” to close out the album. The covers perhaps cement fruitcake as a Christmas album, but her devotion to clever wordplay and well-chosen subjects were already enough.
Production: 2/5 Lyrics: 1/5 Overall Score: 3/10
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
