"Have her music pieces really earned that spot of legend?"- Internet fuels Sabrina Carpenter industry plant theory over equalling The Beatles record

Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet album has bagged the first spot on the latest Billboard 200 albums' chart. Alongside, the singer is also celebrating her three singles, Taste, Please Please Please, and Espresso, making it on the Hot 100 singles list. The musician is the only one to have ever charted her first three top-five hits in the aforementioned sector, simultaneously after The Beatles. This has led to speculations about her being an ‘industry plant’ occurring online.

Sabrina Carpenter managed to beat her competition, Travis Scott and his 2014 album Days Before Rodeo, when it came to climbing to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Her Short n’ Sweet album is her first album to reach the Top 20 of the chart. It has also been marked as his year’s third-largest debut, following Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department.

Sabrina Carpenter snagged 362,000 “album equivalent units” as per Billboard. This includes a mix of online and physical sales alongside streaming.

Netizens speculate that the singer is an 'industry plant' (Image via X)

After Billboard compared the musician to The Beatles, netizens began to speculate that there was “something fishy going on,” including calling her an ‘industry plant.’ For those uninitiated, the term has been given to those artists who present themselves as independent artists but are actually garnering success through the backing of the industry and hefty financial funding. Several artists like Ice Spice, Cardi B, Jack Harlow, and Billie Eilish, among others, were given the moniker.

Multiple netizens called Sabrina Carpenter an ‘industry plant’ online, with some saying:

“Obvious industry plant. Never heard a song from this person. Don’t even know who they are but somehow they keep popping up on my timeline,” an X user said.

“Crazy the amount of white industry plants there are,” another platform user commented.

Sabrina Carpenter’s LP was streamed 233 million times and bagged the first album spot on both the streaming chart and the vinyl sales chart. Meanwhile, other comments about the 25-year-old read:

“I ain’t ever listened to one of her songs except when spotify force feeds me them,” another netizen said.

“Chart manipulation is the new norm. Can’t trust anything unless it’s backed by real talent and a time machine,” a platform user said.

“This is my first time hearing of this person,” another X user said.

Despite the singer, who accompanied Taylor Swift on The Eras Tour, receiving criticism online, she also received support from her fans who stated that she deserved her success. Some comments read:

“Now if it was a man u wouldn’t say the same thing," one X user said.

“Yall just straight up hating,” another netizen said.

“I literally have listened to taste and espresso a total of 10,000 times,” a platform user said online.

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More about the stiff competition between Travis Scott and Sabrina Carpenter

The Beatles had their three top-five hits I Want to Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, and Please Please Me on the Hot 100 singles chart, occupying the first, second, and fourth spots in 1964. Carpenter’s Taste, Please Please Please, and Espresso have bagged the second, third, and fourth spots on the aforementioned chart.

Travis Scott’s Days Before Rodeo, which was released on August 23, the same day as Carpenter dropped her album, sold 361,000 equivalent album units, falling just short of Carpenter’s sales.

Scott dropped the album to honor its 10th anniversary. Songs included Don’t Play, Mamacita, and guest appearances from industry legends like Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan, Migos, and PeeWee Longway, among others.

Apart from Sabrina Carpenter and Travis Scott having new releases on the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart, Lainey Wilson’s Whirlwind album also debuted on the eight spot after earning 48,000 equivalent album units.