Say you can’t sleep? Sabrina Carpenter knows. That’s that her espresso.

The 25-year-old pop sensation’s smash hit of the summer, “Espresso” — with its grammatical mystery of an earworm line, “That’s that me espresso” — gave listeners a taste of her new album, “Short n’ Sweet.” The former Disney Channel actor’s sixth studio album follows an explosive year marked with successes, from opening for Taylor Swift on her Eras Tour to performing at Coachella.

In the flirty, fun and wholly unserious “Short n’ Sweet,” Carpenter’s soprano vocals take humorous jabs at exes and drop innuendos with an air of cheeky innocence. Sugary songs like “Taste” and “Juno” incorporate enough not-safe-for-work references to have listeners blushing almost as much as the rosy-cheeked singer.

There’s a country twang to some tracks, like “Slim Pickins,” an acoustic number bemoaning the difficulties of finding a good man and having to settle for a guy who “doesn’t even know the difference between ‘there,’ ‘their’ and ‘they are.’ ”

Carpenter is more vulnerable with ballads like “Dumb & Poetic” and “Lie to Girls,” in which she drops her carefree front to sing unguarded lyrics airing out grievances against an ex.

“Don’t think you understand,” she sings in “Dumb & Poetic.” “Just ’cause you act like one doesn’t make you a man.”

But it’s when pop tracks blend into R&B that Carpenter shines. Her breathy vocals work so well on tracks like “Good Graces” and “Don’t Smile,” reminiscent of Ariana Grande or Mariah Carey.

Which direction will she take next? Only Carpenter knows. — Kiana Doyle, AP

Willie Nelson has never in his long life not wanted to be making music.

After 2023 saw him celebrate his 90th birthday with an epic concert celebration, get inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and release two studio albums along with the constant touring, 2024 finds him as unretired as ever with “The Border.” It’s his 152nd album, counting live collections and collaborations, according to Texas Monthly.

While his last studio album, “Bluegrass,” explored the music of Kentucky, the new one — produced by longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon — is firmly planted in his native Texas and its southern borderlands.

Inflections of Mexican music have run through almost all of Nelson’s work, but he occasionally leans into it, as he did with the 1998 masterpiece “Teatro.”

He does some of the same with “The Border,” whose best tracks are heavy with the sounds of Mexico. That includes the title track, written by Nelson favorite Rodney Crowell with Allen Shamblin and sung from the perspective of a Border Patrol agent. It begins like a Western, with a standoff between the law and the cartels. But then comes a shift, when the agent despairs for his life and family and empathizes with the people he takes into custody.

“From the shacks and the shanties come the hungry and poor,” he croons on, “some to drown at the crossing, some to suffer no more.” Nelson delivers the lines with a direct rasp reminiscent of the final recordings of his Highwaymen bandmate Johnny Cash.

He throws jazzy spitballs through “What If I’m Out of My Mind,” a Western swing tune in the style of Texas’ Bob Wills, written by Nelson and Cannon. The duo wrote about half the songs on the album, and they’re the strongest.

There’s not a bad song in the bunch. If there’s fault to be found with “The Border,” it’s that the stark desert tone established in the beginning isn’t sustained, and at times, it swerves from bluesy rockers to country shuffles that are downright breezy.

In “Hank’s Guitar,” written by Cannon and Bobby Tomberlin, Nelson sings from the first- person perspective of Hank Williams Sr.’s titular instrument. “He held me close against his chest, and he wrote ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart,’ ” Nelson sings. In the end, the guitar gets packed into the blue Cadillac in which Williams died at age 27.

It’s a reminder of how lucky we’ve been to have had Nelson — arguably second only to Williams in country music greatness — for so much longer. — Andrew Dalton, AP