Oh boy was this this song a bigger rabbit hole than I was prepared for. When I first started preparing this whole series last year, I noticed that "On My Way" had two music videos and thought that'd be interesting when the time came. But now that we're here, there's a lot more to unpack with these videos than I'd realized!

Okay, super basic background: "On My Way" is a song by the DJ and producer Alan Walker, with vocals by Sabrina as well as the singer Farruko. It was released on March 19, 2019, and was a partnership with the video game PUBG Mobile (a survival game where you are dropped into an arena full of weapons and have to be the last one standing amongst 99 other players), with the song being used as the event theme for the game's first anniversary. The song never appeared in any of Sabrina's albums, but was eventually included Alan Walker's 2021 album World of Walker.

On May 10, 2019, Alan Walker released a "Choose Your Path" teaser video, linking to two separate videos:

• The official video, released a couple months earlier, the day the song came out. This video was directed by Kristian Berg and stars Susanne Karin Moe. Full credits can be found here.
• An official alternate video, which includes footage of Sabrina and Farruko (as well as footage relating to the official video), released the same day as the teaser. This was directed by Alexander Zarate Frez. Full credits here.

What I've learned is that this official video was the first installment of a 'trilogy' of Alan Walker music videos: Alone, Pt. II (with Ava Max, December 2019) and Heading Home (with Ruben, April 2020). What's more is that this trilogy is just part of a more elaborate series of music videos with overarching storylines and narrative elements, that Alan Walker has been crafting since 2015 and still to this day. I can't begin to explain them, but here is one YouTuber's attempt to decipher the timeline of events across the videos. That's the nuts and bolts of the music video, but it seems like this is a very elaborate project.

Discussion questions:

• Which music video do you prefer, and why? (Saying you prefer the alternate version because you can see Sabrina, while valid, is cheating! 😜)
• This is the second time we've seen an artist release two videos. How do you feel about that artists doing this?
• What are your favorite visual elements of these videos?

 

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from her standalone singles THIS FRIDAY. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features
• Singular: Acts 1 and 2
• EVOLution era

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWzpFdr-KDw
• Premiered: December 7, 2023
• Director: Rebekah Campbell
• Set Decorator: Bianca Hernandez
• Full credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30333148/fullcredits/

Alright, I know this cycle has been labelled standalone singles… but there was nowhere else to put this video! "santa doesn’t know you like i do" is the sole music video from her Christmas EP fruitcake, which came out a few weeks earlier on November 17, 2023. Sabrina said that the video was inspired by the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which came out in 1989.

Discussion questions:

• What influences from Christmas Vacation do you find in this video?
• What are your favorite visual elements of this video?
• How do you relate this footage to themes of the song?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the her standalone singles next month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features
• Singular: Acts 1 and 2
• EVOLution era

"Alien" was a collaboration with DJ Jonas Blue and released on March 16, 2018. A standalone single in America, but was included in the Japanese deluxe editions of both Singular: Act 1 as well as Jonas Blue's debut album Blue. There were two videos:

• The first was a vertical video, premiering on Spotify on March 16 before later getting released on other channels. This video was directed by Alexandra Gavillet, and can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9J2lrgxSoE
• The second was a standard video, released on March 30. It was directed by Carly Cusson and can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ughEPQGd8w

Discussion questions:

• Which video do you prefer, and why? Do you pick up on any distinct similarities or differences between them?
• What are your favorite visual elements of these videos? How do you relate this footage to themes of the song?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the her standalone singles next month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features
• Singular: Acts 1 and 2
• EVOLution era

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qeaBFFq3to
• Premiered: July 20, 2017
• Director: Jay Martin
• Boyfriend: Casey Cott

"Why" was released on July 7, 2017, as a standalone single in America (though in Japan it was included in the deluxe edition of Singular: Act 1 released in December 2018). The music video was filmed in June and came out a few weeks after the song did, and is said to be inspired by many films. You can watch behind-the-scenes material here.

Discussion questions:

• Why?
• Should Sabrina and the boyfriend have stayed together by the end of the music video, or were the differences too much to reconcile?
  • Alternatively: They allegedly filmed multiple possible endings for this music video. How would you have liked it to end?
• What movies do you think influenced the creation of this music video, and how?
• What are your favorite visual elements of this video? How do you relate this footage to themes of the song?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the her standalone singles next month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features
• Singular: Acts 1 and 2
• EVOLution era

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAVUl0cAKpo
• Published: February 10, 2017
• Director: Hayley Young

Discussion questions:

• What are your favorite visual elements of this video?
• How do you relate this footage to themes of the song?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the EVOLution era later THIS FRIDAY. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features
• Singular: Acts 1 and 2

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckIM58Ecpcw
• Published: August 12, 2016
• Director: James Miller

The second single from the era—and the first one to actually be on the album—"On Purpose" was first released on July 29, with the music video coming out a couple weeks later, three months before EVOLution's October 14 release. This video was produced by Sabrina, and is set in London.

Discussion questions:

• What are your favorite visual elements of this video?
• How do you relate this footage to themes of the song?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the EVOLution era later this month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features
• Singular: Acts 1 and 2

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlH78Tm_oUk
• Published: March 11, 2016
• Director: Jessie Hill

"Smoke and Fire" was released in February 2016, with its music video a few weeks later. Just under a year after the release of her first album, Eyes Wide Open, it was originally intended to be the lead single of her next album, EVOLution. However, after undergoing some… well, evolution, Sabrina decided to keep it as a standalone single rather than putting it on the album. However, for various organizational reasons, I decided to include it as part of the EVOL era for the sake of this project. (Totally not just so that this part of the series wouldn't be too short.)

Discussion questions:

• Despite the title, this video doesn't include any smoke, nor does it feature fire, as one might expect, and instead featured ballet (which Sabrina had trained in for years). Other than her background, why do you think they went with these creative choices?
• What are your favorite visual elements of this video?
• How do you relate this footage to themes of the song?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the EVOLution era later this month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features
• Singular: Acts 1 and 2

It's that time once more! Cast your votes for your favorite music videos from Singular: Act 1 and Singular: Act 2. You can check out the previous discussions here:

• Almost Love
• Sue Me
• Paris
• Exhale
• In My Bed

And of course, remember that we are ranking the videos, not the songs.

Cast your votes here: https://strawpoll.com/XOgOVz2k0n3

Note: the form asks for your name, but please give your Reddit username, not your human life name!

Feel free to share any other thoughts you've had about the music videos of this era as a whole, and stay tuned next week for more Music Video Mania, when we take a look at the EVOLution era! And if you haven't yet, there's still time to rank the EICS videos, the EWO videos, the SNS videos, and her Guest/Feature videos!

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN3bTP84GCU
• Published: June 28, 2019
• Director: Phillip Lopez
• Creative Director: Amber Park
• Unit Production Manager: Taylor Zeller-Newman
• Full credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10560006/fullcredits/

"In My Bed" was the third single and second music video from Singular: Act II. The song was released on June 7, 2019, just over a month before the album came out, and the music video released a few weeks later.

Discussion questions:

• What are your favorite visual elements of this video?
• How do you relate this footage to themes of the song?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the Singular albums THIS FRIDAY. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features

Woke up in a cold sweat at 2:30 in the morning when I realized I forgot to do this yesterday.
(That's not as much of a joke as I wish it was)

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gqu8ZTEM1k
• Published: May 17, 2019
• Director: Mowgly Lee
• Makeup Artist: Allan Avendano

"Exhale" was the second single from Singular: Act 2 ("Pushing 20" didn't receive a music video), coming out on May 3, a few months before the album's release in July, and the music video came out a couple weeks later. This video was filmed… somewhere, I presume, but it's not clear where.

Discussion questions:

• This video has been described as "simple but affecting". How does it make you feel?
• The ending notes are ever so slightly different as the ending in the album version of the song. What's your reaction to this change?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the Singular albums at the end of this month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w4Udbys4O4
• Published: November 16, 2018
• Director: Lauren Dunn
• Stylist: Jason Bolden
• Choreography: Teresa 'Toogie' Barcelo
• Full credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9314534/fullcredits/

"Sue Me" is the second single from the two-part Singular era, and the last single from Act I. The song released with the album on November 9, 2018, and the music video came out a couple weeks later. In it, Sabrina lives out her best Elle Woods lifestyle while frustrating her lame ex. (Fun fact: it was also shot at the same school that Zoey 101 was filmed for the first couple seasons.)

Discussion questions:

• What do you think Sabrina Carpenter, Attorney At Law in training, will specialize in?
• What are your favorite visual elements of this video?
• How do you relate this footage to themes of the song?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the Singular albums at the end of this month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features

Hot off the heels of Marina releasing her poetry book Eat The World in October 2024, Princess of Power (album and song titles all stylized in all caps) is the Greek/Welsh singer's sixth album and third under the "MARINA" moniker (previously being "Marina and the Diamonds"). The album was released through her independent label Queenie Records and distributed by BMG.

The first single was Butterfly on February 21, followed by Cupid's Girl on March 21, followed once more by CUNTISSIMO on April 10, with the album announcement later that month. It came out on June 6, and while not a single, a music video for I <3 You also came out that day as well. The deluxe edition was released on October 24, 2025, which added four extra songs as well as a remix track.

The album is largely disco-inspired, drawing influence from 70s and 80s pop stars, primarily uptempo but with a few ballads. Major themes involve personal transformation, empowerment, and moving past trauma and toxic relationships (common themes in her music). Marina has framed the album as being the product of having to rebuild herself from scratch.

Listen: YouTube | Apple Music | TIDAL | Spotify | Genius Lyrics

Popheads [Fresh Album] Discussion Thread | Popheads AOTY review (also by me)

Reception

• Metacritic aggregate: 74/100
• The Arts Desk: 4/5
• Paste: 7.4/10
• Pitchfork: 5.7/10

Disparate review snippets:

>It’s a non-linear work that flits between cutesy simplicity and heel-on-your-neck assertion, two mindsets that tumble into each other as Diamandis twists her kaleidoscope of vibrant synth-pop. But the ride is no less fun for its perpetual motion; if anything, the giddy dizziness that blurs Diamandis’ age is PRINCESS OF POWER’s best case for the throne. ~Paste

>There’s a confidence threaded throughout the album that’s unmistakable, the kind of clarity that only comes after you’ve burned down every false version of yourself and built anew from the ashes. ~Atwood Magazine

>It’s pretty unfortunate that Marina — whose trio of early 2010s records were striking, ingenuous dissections of identity, fame, and humanity — has fizzled out to create safe and bouncy alt-pop that never quite wants to reach to her previous heights. ~Northern Transmissions

>Diamandis is unafraid of the preposterous. With her light operatic soprano voice and her guilelessly forthright lyrics, there’s a cinematic musical theatre element, like a cross between Lady Gaga, M3GAN and “Starship Troopers”-era Sarah Brightman. ~The Arts Desk

>Princess of Power moves with a clean, steady chug, but its dichotomy of feminine softness vs. strength comes off depressingly two-dimensional. The one-size-fits-all tracks feel like they rolled off a conveyor belt and the writing sometimes tips into childlike cliché. ~Pitchfork

>Fifteen years in, most artists’ careers are leveling off, or worse. “Princess of Power” suggests that Marina’s is finally beginning for real. ~Variety

Commercial Performance

In the US, the album debuted at #42 on the Billboard 200, and in the UK, #7 on the Official Albums Chart. This was its only week in the top 100.

Questions

• What are your favorite and least favorite songs on this album?
• How would you rank this album among the other two 'MARINA' albums, and how would you rank it among all six?
• What do you think is the future for Marina as an artist?
• How have your impressions of this album changed since it was released? Are there any songs that you didn't care for initially that you've since come to appreciate, or perhaps the inverse?

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JudqK1hL18w
• Published: July 13, 2018
• Director: Hannah Lux Davis
• Full credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8701328/fullcredits/

"Almost Love" was the lead single off Sabrina's third studio album, Singular: Act 1, which would come out in November 2018. The song was released as a single in early June, and the music video a little over a month later. It was filmed at the Pasadena Museum of History a couple months prior.

Discussion questions:

• What are your favorite visual elements of this video?
• How do you relate this footage to themes of the song?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos from the Singular albums at the end of this month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet
• Guest/Features

• Music video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAKFzFqJa58
• Published: March 31, 2023
• Director: Phillip Lopez
• Producer: Collin Druz
• Production Assistant: Kevin Michael Brennan

Another song and collab that exists in various iterations. "That's Not How This Works" was originally released by Charlie Puth in a collaboration with the pop duo Dan + Shay in March 2023. Before the song came out, a short film starring Charlie was released, featuring Sabrina, which you can watch here. The film depicts a solid relationship crashing apart, laying the groundwork for the theme of the song. The song and accompanying music video came out two days later, with the song playing over various scenes from the short film, as well as some other footage. Two weeks later, a remix of the song—subtitled Sabrina's Version—came out, replacing Dan + Shay's verse with a new one by Sabrina.

Discussion questions:

• Acting Brina! Does anything stand out about her performance in the short film?
• Which do you prefer: the straightforward film, or the music video rendition?
• What are your favorite visual elements of these videos, and how do you feel the footage relates to the themes of the song?
• Should I… does this video actually belong in this project, given that she's only in the video as an actress and not as a singer? 😅
  • Alternative question: if they had a version of this video that used Sabrina's Version of the song, what would you change about the footage to incorporate that?

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the Guest/Feature videos THIS FRIDAY. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQb0DJZLhRM
• Published: November 19, 2018
• Director: Joshua Shultz
• Set Decorator: Joelle Cary
• Full credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9310112/fullcredits/

Is it Christmas already? Nope, but time is fake, so (not even for the last time in this project), we're looking at one of Sabrina's holiday songs. "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was originally composed Theodor Geisel and Albert Hague for the animated 1966 classic How The Grinch Stole Christmas based on the book by Dr. Seuss (known by some as gasp Theodor Geisel), and was originally performed by Thurl Ravenscroft.

Lindsey Stirling is a violinist who is known for doing both original music and covers in a wide variety of genres—classical and film soundtracks, as well as pop and rock and EDM and everything—alongside her choreographed dancing while playing. She competed on America's Got Talent as a "hip-hop violinist," and a few years later she received a lot of acclaim for her cover of Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, which she performed with the a capella group Pentatonix. Stirling's holiday album Warmer in the Winter came out in October 2017, and featured a handful of guest vocalists, including Miss Carpenter on this here song. A year later, the deluxe edition of the album came out, and a month after that, this music video was released.

---

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos Guest/Feature videos at the end of this month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet

• Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC9i8w2cHwM
• Published: October 7, 2020
• Director: Emil Nava
• Producer: Kirsten Arongino
• Makeup Artist: Allan Avendano
• Full credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13294216/fullcredits/

On the MVM of our dear Sabrina's birthday, the lore is gonna run deep, as we look at her collaboration with Zara Larsson. Like Sabrina, Zara has been on the scene for over a decade, and has only recently been properly taking the world by storm, with her 2025 album Midnight Sun (and recent remix edition) as well as her appearance on the remix of PinkPantheress's "Stateside". (There's a lot more that can be said on Zara's recent surgence, but that's for another day.)

This story starts in April 2019, when Zara released her song "WOW." The song officially became a single in August 26, 2020, with a music video on October 22 of that year. "WOW" was the third single of Zara's third album Poster Girl, which came out in May 2021.

However, that's not all that was brewing!

On August 7, 2020—a few weeks before the song officially became a single—Netflix released the movie Work It, starring a former Disney starlet named Sabrina Carpenter, who plays a high school girl named Quinn who tries to start a dance team at school, despite not being all that great at it herself (this movie also gave us her single "Let Me Move You"). Quinn gets help from a talented dancer named Jake (played by Jordan Fisher), with whom—in a shock to absolutely nobody—she develops some chemistry. In a pivotal scene of the movie, Jake gives Quinn an impromptu lesson on how to follow and freestyle in dance, and he selects a rather romantic song for them to dance to: you guessed it, "WOW" by Zara Larsson. You can watch the scene here.

A month or so later, Zara released a remix of the song, featuring a new verse by our very own Sabrina Carpenter! Sabrina had connected with Zara to work on it because she loved the song as a result of incorporating it into the movie (which Sabrina had executive produced as well). At one point, a performance with the two of them aired on the Kelly Clarkson show, but very little survives from that clip. And finally in early October of 2020—still a couple weeks before the regular video released—a music video for the Sabrina remix came out! Like the song itself, this remix uses the original's video while interpolating new footage of Sabrina during her verse.

Discussion questions:

• If you watched both versions of the music video, how do you compare them? Does Sabrina's footage strengthen it or take away from the original?
• Which do you prefer: watching Sabrina dance but not sing in the Work It clip, or seeing her extra appearance in the remix video?
• If you've seen the whole movie, how do you feel about Sabrina's dancing in Work It? How'd you enjoy this particular scene?
• What are your favorite visual elements of these videos, and how do you feel the footage relates to the themes of the song?

(I keep calling the version without Sabrina "the original video," even though the remix came first and technically is the original in fact.)

These questions are meant to be a jumping off point for potential discussion, but not a restriction. Feel free to share any thoughts you have, as responses to these questions or more organic reactions!

Come back next week for more Music Video Mania, and stay tuned for when we rank all of the music videos Guest/Feature videos at the end of this month. Polls are still open for all the cycles we've discussed already:

• Emails I Can't Send
• Eyes Wide Open
• Short n' Sweet