Sabrina Carpenter has had a very, very, very good year.
Her album “Short ‘n Sweet” soared to No. 1 in the United States and other countries on its release in August. Its singles “Please Please Please,” “Taste” and “Espresso” reached Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Last month, she earned Grammy nominations for best new artist as well as album, song, and record of the year, making her one of only 15 people ever to achieve that in the same year. Her appearance at Coachella in April was widely hailed as one of the best of the fest.
So it’s fair to wonder whether this charmed year can get any better. And the answer, provided at Carpenter’s sold-out show at Crypto.com Arena, which is followed by two nights at the Kia Forum, Sunday and Monday, Nov. 17-18, is yes. Yes, it can.
And yes, it did when, midway through Carpenter’s terrific 90-minute show, singer Christina Aguilera strutted on stage to duet with Carpenter on Aguilera’s hits “Ain’t No Other Man” and “What a Girl Wants.”
This wasn’t just the usual bring out a big star and blow the crowd’s mind. Carpenter was posting videos on YouTube of her covering Aguilera songs as a child. Both Carpenter, 25, and Aguilera, 43, got their starts as child stars on Disney Channel before growing into adult pop stardom.
This wasn’t so much Aguilera passing the torch as it was an acknowledgment that Carpenter has earned the right to carry it too.
“So … that just happened,” Carpenter said with more than a touch of awe, as Aguilera sauntered off stage, long platinum tresses, bedazzled thigh-high boots and all. “And somehow, the show continues.”
The stage was designed as a towering penthouse apartment, with different rooms that served as settings for different songs. The first segment of the show was styled to resemble the set of a TV variety show. Carpenter first appeared in a videotaped intro that featured her in a bubble bath with an announcer telling her the TV show was about to begin. She dashed onto the stage wrapped in a towel and dove into “Taste.” The towel dropped, she scampered across the stage in a black-lace baby-doll negligee, garters and stockings, as 11 dancers descended sweeping staircases on either side of the tri-level penthouse set.
The act moved swiftly through songs from her new album and the 2022 album “Emails I Can’t Send,” her first grown-up records after making a handful of teen or tween pop albums while starring on Disney Channel’s “Girl Meets World.”
And these are definitely not songs for the Radio Disney demographic, with Carpenter’s lyrics of love and life as a 20-something talking about things grownups do. The country-tinged “Slim Pickins” bemoans the lack of good men, “Lie To Girls” covers similar ground, and both were early highlights.
“Decode,” which closed the first act, was performed almost entirely on a round bed with a white fur cover, Carpenter surrounded by her backing dancers, in a great piece of stage choreography. It ended with Carpenter and one of her male dancers behind a curtain drawn for privacy, their silhouetted figures making clear that very private things were underway.
Not as raunchy as the time fellow former Disney Channel star Miley Cyrus got her adult popstar freak on the MTV Video Music Awards a decade ago, but the dad in front of me still tried to hold his hand over the eyes of his daughter before she pushed his hand away in pre-teen annoyance.
The second act saw the penthouse transformed for a swanky cocktail party, kicking off with the swingy pop of “Bed Chem” and the airy dance-pop of “Feather,” the biggest hit off “Emails I Can’t Send You.”
At the close of “Fast Times,” Carpenter announced she “had to pee so bad,” and then ran into a part of the set that opened up to reveal a stylized bathroom complete with a heart-shaped toilet on which she perched to sing “Sharpest Tool,” the kind of wistful song of longing that, sure, you might lock yourself in the bathroom to sing when you’re blue.
The highlight of this segment was the surprise appearance of Aguilera, of course, who looked every bit the powerhouse diva she is. Carpenter looked overjoyed to have Aguilera there – they’d sung “What a Girl Wants” on Spotify in September as part of Aguilera’s celebration of the 25th anniversary of her debut album, and Carpenter has always named Aguilera one of her main inspirations.
Third act highlights included the slow ballad “Dumb and Poetic,” sung before a curtain on which a galaxy of stars was projected, and “Juno,” a dance-pop disco number that embraces her sexuality as a healthy, happy and, as the lyrics make clear, horny human being.
“Please Please Please,” the biggest hit of her career, earned the biggest screams and cheers of the night on its arrival. After “Don’t Smile,” the show closed with “Espresso,” the single she dropped just before Coachella, which soundtracked the summer for many fans.
The penthouse glowed now in the sunshine of the morning after the night before. It had been a very good party indeed.
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