Sabrina Carpenter is savoring sweet success yet again. The diminutive pop star’s massive hit “Taste” has entered the Spotify Billions Club, having tallied more than 1 billion streams on the platform. It’s Carpenter’s fourth song to achieve the feat following fan favorite “Nonsense,” the zeitgeist-defining smash “Espresso,” and the chart-topping hit “Please Please Please.”
“Taste” peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It’s the opening track and third single from Carpenter’s 2024 album Short n’ Sweet, which won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album this year. Carpenter wrote the song with hit-making songwriters Julia Michaels and Amy Allen plus producers John Ryan and Ian Kirkpatrick. Julian Bunetta is also a producer on the track, which adopts an upbeat country-tinged pop-rock sound as Carpenter informs her ex’s new lover, “You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you.”
“Taste” is also known for its music video, which pairs Carpenter with superstar actress Jenna Ortega in a plot inspired by the Meryl Streep movie Death Becomes Her, with references to other films like Psycho, Kill Bill: Volume 1, and—in a nod to Ortega’s other acting roles—entries from the Scream and Addams Family franchises. The Dave Meyers-directed clip casts Carpenter and Ortega as romantic rivals vying for the same partner, played by Rohan Campbell. Their conflict descends into a procession of cartoonish violence before the two women accidentally kill the boyfriend character, share a kiss, and leave the former lover’s funeral to crack jokes at his expense.
Regarding the song’s subject matter, Carpenter told Paper Magazine, “I will write any song. It doesn’t mean I’ll put it out, but I’ll write it. I think the series of unfortunate events I’ve encountered in relationships are no secret to people who know me or think they know me.” As for the video, she told Amazon Music, “I had this vision and idea to show just a very open, light-hearted, brutal relationship between two women where it’s obvious how much they love each other and are obsessed with each other. But also there’s jealousy and anger, and I think it’s something that just felt so human to me.”
Order Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet on vinyl now.
