Sabrina Carpenter at Variety Hitmakers: When a Viral Pop Star Turns the Mic on the Industry

Sabrina Carpenter used her Variety Hitmaker of the Year acceptance speech to tell a room full of executives, producers and artists to “write the music you want to listen to yourself.” It was a deceptively simple line that cut through the usual award-show gloss, echoing a bigger shift in pop: authenticity is no longer a branding bullet point, it’s the business model.

Coming off a year defined by chart-climbing singles, viral hooks and a headline-making tour run, Carpenter’s presence at Variety’s annual Hitmakers event wasn’t just ceremonial. It was a status update: she’s no longer the former Disney kid trying to prove herself—she’s one of the people defining what mainstream pop sounds and feels like right now.

Sabrina Carpenter speaking on stage at Variety’s Hitmakers event
Sabrina Carpenter accepting Variety’s Hitmaker of the Year honor at the 2025 Hitmakers event. (Image: Variety)

From Disney Roots to Variety’s Hitmaker of the Year: How Sabrina Carpenter Got Here

Carpenter’s arrival at Variety’s Hitmakers event is the culmination of a long, very 2020s pop trajectory: Disney Channel origin story, early singer-songwriter experimentation, then a clean, confident pivot into sharp-edged, meme-literate pop. The key difference is that she’s managed to evolve without discarding the emotional specificity that first drew a young audience to her work.

In the past few years, she’s landed on the kind of tracks that feel engineered for both the radio and the timeline—songs that can survive a 15‑second TikTok loop but still hold up as full-length narratives. That balance is exactly what makes the Hitmaker of the Year distinction matter: it’s an award about craft as much as clout.

Close-up of a studio microphone in a recording booth
Behind every viral hook is a meticulous studio process—and a clear sense of what you’d actually want to hit play on.

The Variety Hitmakers stage, traditionally stacked with power brokers and chart fixtures, has become a kind of unofficial summit for pop’s present and near future. Carpenter’s inclusion signals that industry gatekeepers now see her less as a supporting player and more as one of the people pushing the sound of modern pop into its next phase.


“Write the Music You Want to Listen To”: A Simple Line, a Big Statement

“Write the music you want to listen to yourself.”

On paper, that sentence sounds almost obvious—what artist doesn’t want to love their own work? But in a business dominated by playlist placement, algorithmic feedback loops and a constant chase for “sounds like X meets Y” pitches, Carpenter’s advice borders on subversive. It’s a reminder that real hitmaking still starts with taste, not with data.

The line also quietly pushes back against the idea that young pop stars are just front-facing avatars for committee-written songs. Whether or not every track is entirely self-penned, she’s arguing for a standard: if you wouldn’t queue it up on your own time, why put it out at all?

Songwriter’s notebook with handwritten lyrics and a pen
Carpenter’s advice lands like a challenge to songwriters: would you actually stream the songs you’re turning in?

The Anatomy of a Carpenter Hit: Hooks, Humor and Heart

Carpenter’s discography over the last few years shows that she doesn’t just talk about writing the music she wants to hear—she’s built a recognizable aesthetic around it. Her biggest songs tend to share a few traits:

  • Lyrical specificity: Highly detailed, almost diary-like imagery that gives tracks replay value.
  • Wry humor: Punchlines and double entendres that play extremely well on social media.
  • Melodic immediacy: Choruses that feel simple on first listen but reveal subtle complexity underneath.
  • Emotional contrast: Sad or vulnerable themes packaged inside breezy, uptempo production.

That formula—if we can call it one—maps directly onto her Hitmaker of the Year recognition. Variety tends to reward not just commercial success, but a sense that the artist is steering their own ship creatively. Carpenter’s catalog increasingly sounds like someone trusting their instincts rather than chasing someone else’s lane.

Pop hitmaking in 2025 is a collaborative sport, but Carpenter’s evolving sonic identity feels unusually coherent.

Why This Speech Matters for the Industry: Authenticity vs. Algorithm

Variety’s Hitmakers event functions as a mirror for the music business: who’s hot, who’s ascendant, and where executives think the culture is heading. Carpenter using that stage to champion creative self-interest—“write the music you want to listen to”—is an implicit critique of a system that often encourages artists to reverse‑engineer trends.

In practice, her mantra could mean a few things for different corners of the industry:

  1. For songwriters: Stop hoarding your favorite ideas for hypothetical “bigger artists.” Make the songs you’d put on your own playlist.
  2. For labels: Back artists with a strong point of view, even when that POV doesn’t fit neatly into existing trend reports.
  3. For fans: Reward music that feels genuinely idiosyncratic, not just “playlist-ready.”

The irony is that the strategy she’s endorsing—leading with taste rather than trends—is exactly what often ends up producing the most durable hits. Audiences might arrive via meme or snippet, but they stick around for a voice that feels both specific and self-directed.

Crowd at a pop concert with hands raised and stage lights in the background
The modern hitmaker isn’t just writing for radio—they’re writing for arenas, timelines and deeply online fan communities.

Strengths, Weaknesses and the Risk of Becoming a Brand Before a Person

Carpenter’s Hitmaker of the Year moment underscores her biggest strengths: a clear artistic voice, a knack for cultural timing, and a sense of humor about her own success. The best of her recent output feels like eavesdropping on group chats you wish you were in—self-aware, stylish, a little chaotic but tightly edited.

The potential downside is the same one facing most high-visibility pop artists right now: when your persona is this memeable, there’s always the risk that the internet falls in love with the brand before it fully grasps the person behind it. The industry’s enthusiasm for her might tempt overexposure, and the pressure to deliver another instantly viral moment can be as creatively limiting as any focus group note.

Still, her own advice offers a kind of built-in safeguard. As long as “write the music you want to listen to” remains more than just a quotable line, it could be the thing that keeps her work surprising when the hype inevitably cycles through its next phase.

Woman wearing headphones listening to music alone at sunset
The real test of a hitmaker: would you still hit play on your own songs when no one’s watching the charts?

What Sabrina Carpenter’s Hitmaker Era Signals for the Future of Pop

Carpenter’s Variety Hitmaker of the Year honor feels less like a victory lap and more like a thesis statement: this is what a contemporary pop architect looks like when she’s fully in control of her narrative. Her call to “write the music you want to listen to” isn’t just advice, it’s a subtle reframe of what the industry should be rewarding—taste, conviction and a willingness to sound like yourself in a marketplace obsessed with sounding like everything else.

If she continues to follow that philosophy rather than merely perform it in acceptance speeches, Sabrina Carpenter won’t just be one of the defining hitmakers of this moment; she’ll be a blueprint for how the next wave of artists navigate the tension between virality and vision.

Entertainment & culture editorial

Verdict: A savvy, self-aware Hitmaker of the Year speech that doubles as a quiet manifesto for a more artist-led pop future.