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How Did ‘Please Please Please’ Become Sabrina Carpenter’s First Hot 100 No. 1?

Sabrina Carpenter's "Please Please Please" tops the Hot 100 this week while "Espresso" is still in the top five.

“Please Please Please” is a fundamentally weird song, shifting keys and modes and tones and even genres throughout its three minutes — it’s fun and it’s compelling and it’s cool but if it wasn’t released by Sabrina Carpenter at this particular moment in time it seems unlikely to me that it would’ve been a big hit. Christine Werthman: The comedic, bad-boy video with her real-life boyfriend, Barry Keoghan, garnered plenty of attention and has over 36 million views (“Espresso” has accrued nearly twice that many since its April release), but “Please Please Please” has a lot more going for it than just the visual. The evolving “Nonsense” outros were immeasurably helpful in establishing Carpenter as a pop star worth paying attention to, because they were always good and clever and gave you a reason to keep an eye on any major gig she was playing.

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