This is my impression of a guy at a doctor’s office who’s convinced that if he stops talking for five minutes that he’s going explode and also *Espresso* is playing in the background
For a short period of time I misremembered the name of Karen Carpenter and thought that girly types online were getting really into easy listening. That everyone around me simultaneously decided having a three octave range and being in a band with your brother was really chic. I was devastated to learn that the Carpenter on the radio was not a beloved icon from the 70s, but an actress from Girl Meets World.
When Espresso came out it felt impossible to escape people singing its praises. I personally hit my limit when I saw the fighting game commentator Sajam, of all people, weigh in, calling it a banger. At that point I had to know. It had to be great. People were really feeling this thing. I listened to it and... I didn’t get the hype. I thought it was fine, it worked. I felt like I got the song, at least. The vocals on the chorus do flow well, and Sabrina is very charismatic across the whole track. She’s funny. When I brought up not liking it to a friend I even defended the ‘working late’ line.
So why didn’t I like it? My first theory was that it needed a bridge that went crazy. Changed the momentum. This is a stupid complaint. The pacing is great, it doesn’t build up to anything without a payoff. My second theory was misogyny. I simply hate women. Well, I like Paramore and… uh… though so surely that isn’t the case. My last grasp of articulating why this song is bad had me resorting to saying that I think the Nintendo and Mountain Dew lines kill the atmosphere by conjuring the wrong imagery. That’s nitpicking at best.
I was looking in the wrong places. The song might not be flawless, but it has merit. It’s at least good enough to piss me off, because otherwise I would know why it doesn’t click with me. So what does work in Espresso?
This song has so many great lines. The couplet the song is named after “Say you can’t sleep baby, I know / That’s that me espresso” is perfect. The fact that the song still has a line about literally making coffee for the guy is a great bit for people who misinterpreted the title or misheard the chorus. “My ‘give-a-fucks’ are on vacation” is exactly as airy and unbothered as it needs to be, and the obscenity manages to not come off as crude. “My twisted humor make him laugh so often” is amazing because it forces me to imagine this blonde Disney pop starlet making the same morbid jokes I do in my off time. The lyrics are good on a technical level, they’re catchy and all, but they’re also just fun.
New theory on why I don’t like the song then: It is too quip-y. Full of one liners and distracting lyrics that it doesn’t feel like a real song. -This is an opinion you can only have if you’ve never heard Espresso.
The melody is full of immaculate disco flourishes to punctuate every other line, but like a lot of dance music, it has a confusing quality where it almost sounds better played in the other room. That sounds like a dunk, some “my favorite part was the ending” style gag, but I’ve always liked how certain songs sound through a wall. If you haven’t been just outside of a space playing Espresso somehow, I highly suggest it. It’s very inviting.
Then obviously I dislike the song for being too put together. It feels too produced. High strung. There’s no room to breathe, it’s suffocating. This is made worse by it feeling so repetitive. There’s not enough going on because the music is so structured and oppressive. -This opinion feels much more forced than the song does. Maybe this could fly for the beat on its own but any amount of Sabrina vocals disprove this.
The song’s appeal is ultimately that of a power fantasy. This is more clear than ever in the beach themed video, which is about being attractive to men, but is designed to be enjoyed by women. You watch that music video with Sabrina doing a dumb dance on a surfboard in a one piece and you are meant to be left wanting to be Sabrina Carpenter. This brings attention to what I think is maybe the smartest part of the song: the call and response in the chorus where she just says “(yes)'' three times. It kills. More importantly though it’s the part of the song where she’s not being playful and downplaying how great it feels to be herself, or understating anything. There is no humor and no irony, she sounds as earnest as a kid on Christmas. She’s cheering herself on. If Espresso is an immersive movie about how amazing it is to be hot then that call and response is her breaking the fourth wall.
Okay so I think I got it this time: it’s that that fantasy doesn’t do it for me. I’m a guy and this is just kind of a head space I can entertain but not really feel. When I feel great, it’s not the way this song feels great. I can’t even relate to wanting to be the guy she’s singing about. If a good thing happens in my life ever, I approach it slowly with a knife in my pocket. A different singer with more of an edge, who lorded her power over men at their expense a little more, maybe I could engage there. Some masochistic streak. But this? It’s too nice for me. Too pretty. There’s no universe where I’m an it girl. So the answer all along was misogyny. Who knew?