Emails I Can't Send is the fifth studio album by American singer and songwriter Sabrina Carpenter, released on July 15, 2022, by Island Records. The album was released as Carpenter's first under a new label. It is primarily a pop album with elements of folk-pop, dance-pop and storytelling, while themed around drafted emails and messages Carpenter wrote but did not send.
The album spawned four promotional singles"Skinny Dipping", "Fast Times", "Vicious", and "Because I Liked a Boy"; and one official single, "Nonsense". To promote the album, Carpenter embarked on the Emails I Can't Send Tour in September 2022. The album debuted at number 23 US Billboard 200, received positive reviews and ranked in both Rolling Stones and Billboards list for Best Albums of 2022.
Development
Background
In June 2019, while promoting her fourth studio album Singular: Act II, Carpenter revealed to Marie Claire magazine that she had begun work on a fifth studio album. In 2020, she released the stand-alone single "Honeymoon Fades" and lent her vocals for the Clouds soundtrack.
In January 2021, after four albums with Hollywood Records, it was reported that Carpenter had signed to Island Records. She noted that it was "the perfect place for [her] to start the next chapter of [her] music career and evolution as an artist". Her first release came at the end of the month with "Skin" which debuted at number 48 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her first entry on the chart.
In September that year, Carpenter reported to Teen Vogue that many of the album's songs were written from emails she wrote to herself, such as a song she had previously shared on August 7 with the description as "Intro", later revealed as the title track of the album. She also revealed that she finished the album's recording in New York with Julia Michaels, JP Saxe, John Ryan and Leroy Clampitt, after she moved to Manhattan's Financial District in June of that year.
Release
Carpenter appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where she confirmed that the album would be dropped in 2022 and that the title was hidden in work released the year before. The album's name clue was in the music video for "Skinny Dipping" in a shot where the name appears in a Scrabble game.
The album was released on July 15, 2022. On March 17, 2023, Carpenter released a deluxe edition of the album.
Composition
Genres and themes
Emails I Can't Send is primarily a pop album with elements of folk-pop, dance-pop, and storytelling. The album also uses piano ballads and light-guitar instrumentals to showcase a sound where Carpenter benefited from less instrumentation. Some critics found the album was reminiscent to Carpenter's previous albums but "with fresher feelings and a closeness to the audience that did not feel as airy-fairy as before". The Strand Magazine writer Siraaj Khan agreed that the album differed from Carpenter's previous work which fell more into the contemporary R&B genre. Variety writer Julia MacCary also found that the album marked a departure from Carpenter's "previous four pop-heavy albums, experimenting with new genres, slower songs and using personal emails for lyrics". On the album, Carpenter noted: For me, was really a time capsule of a special time in my life when I dealt with many things for the first time. I feel like I came out of that with a much greater perspective, and all these songs are based on real nights or experiences and reflecting and foreshadowing.
The album was described as a "break-up album" and an "unapologetic collection of her inner thoughts, with a sense of heartache over unrequited love present throughout". Julianna Rezza of The Mud Mag called the album a "compilation of delicately told stories and new sounds".
Music and lyrics
The album begins with the title track intro which was inspired by a strained family relationship. The song deals with "trust, disappointment and infidelity". The end of the intro references the 1975 musical Chicago and smoothly transitions into "Vicious" which has a guitar-driven beat and ends in a "rock-esque vibe". "Read Your Mind" was described as a dance-pop "jump-up-and-down and dance-through-the-house" song in which Carpenter sings about the lack of communication between her and a partner. This is followed by "Tornado Warnings" which was described as a poem where Carpenter chooses to ignore her significant other's red flags. Young Hollywood writer Skylar Zachian noted that "the lyrics reveal a perfect balance of literal and metaphorical storytelling to really get us thinking about the intricacies of relationships and decision-making".