The best sold Christmas 7" of 2023

Sabrina Carpenter: Nonsense / A Nonsense Christmas
(Island Records, B0038286-21, US, 2023)

In 2022, Disney film star Sabrina Carpenter released her fifth album, ‘Emails I Can't Send’, the first album for her new label, Island. Her previous four albums had been released on the Disney-affiliated Hollywood label. The 2021 single ‘Skin Deep’ was her first release for Island and also her first Billboard Hot 100 entry. The single peaked at number 45. Her second chart hit was the fifth single from Emails I Can't Send, a song called ‘Nonsense’, which Carpenter co-wrote with songwriters Julian Bunetta (The X-Factor, One Direction) and Steph Jones (Nickelback, Selena Gomez, Keith Urban). Carpenter performed the song during her 2022 Emails I Can't Send-tour, changing the ending of the song to fit the city she was performing in. This helped ‘Nonsense’ go viral on the social media platform TikTok. This, along with the song's popularity with Carpenter's fans, led to the song being chosen as a single. ‘Nonsense' peaked at number 56 on the Billboard charts and number 32 on the UK Singles Chart. It became Carpenter's biggest hit in Australia (#22) and New Zealand (#31).

The single was released on November 14, 2022, and entered the Bubbling Under Hot 100 the day before Christmas. On December 7, a holiday version of the song was released, called ‘A Nonsense Christmas’, with the lyrics changed to refer to the Christmas season. The lyrics of the original version contained some sexual innuendo, and ‘A Nonsense Christmas’ was even more so. According to Billboard, Carpenter “changed the silly lyrics to take on a more festive, flirtatious spin”. “You're my wish list / Lookin' at you got me thinkin' Christmas / Snowflakes in my stomach when we're kissin' / And when you're comin' down the chimney, ooh, it feels so good”. You get the idea.

In November 2023, lifestyle retailer Urban Outfitters released both versions of the song on a limited edition 7", sold exclusively through the company. The 3,000 copies were easily sold, making it the best-selling Christmas 7" single of 2023. Although it is debatable whether a single with the Christmas song on the B-side should be considered a Christmas single. Reviews compared Carpenter on ‘Nonsense’ to Ariane Grande, meaning that the song had an R&B-infused pop sound with, according to the album review of ‘Emails I Can't Send’ in The Indiependent, “raspy-to-silky smooth vocals that attest to the singer's extreme versatility”. The image on the front of the sleeve (the regular side) and the back of the sleeve (the holiday side) was the same, except that Carpenter's cap was replaced with a Santa hat.

Listen to ‘A Nonsense Christmas’ on Youtube: