Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend Album Review: Flirty Enjoyable

“Oh boy!” Sabrina Carpenter chuckles on the high of “Manchild,” the lead single of her new album Man’s Best Friend. It’s a refined however direct preview of this challenge’s focus: a camp-fueled takedown of incompetent males. It’s not a far-fetched or surprising subject, as Carpenter’s final album, Short n’ Sweet, noticed the pop star skewering the alternative intercourse for funsies. “Amen; hey, men!” Carpenter sings all through “Manchild,” humoring her goal as she deliberates on the way to correctly puncture egos.

For anybody who performed Short n’ Sweet into the bottom, Man’s Best Friend will likely be a welcome listening expertise. Sabrina Carpenter is witty, charming, and selectively weak, as traditional — and he or she’s backed by her anticipated companions in crime: Amy Allen and Jack Antonoff, alongside One Direction mastermind John Ryan. With her crew in place, Carpenter continues her aversion to 1 sound, skillfully amassing the gems of various eras and genres and shining them up for 2025.

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Where Short n’ Sweet noticed Carpenter breaking free from the middling pop area, Man’s Best Friend is the singer’s alternative to immerse absolutely within the sound and elegance she’s cultivated after discovering herself throughout six albums. On her seventh, at 26 years outdated, Carpenter is establishing herself because the pop supernova of the second. On the evening of the album’s launch, she dropped her second single, “Tears.” Unlike the countrified lead single “Manchild,” “Tears” is fueled by lustful disco. The Bee Gees come to thoughts as Carpenter coos, “I get wet at the thought of you,” fantasizing concerning the object of her affection. She’s by no means shied away from expressing her frank sexuality, and this album isn’t any completely different.

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Carpenter’s wholesome libido precedes her. During her appearance on NPR’s Tiny Desk final December, Carpenter acknowledged the chatter. “Some people know me for, I guess, being explicitly horny,” she mentioned to a room full of guffaws. “It’s actually not so simple as that.” The album cowl of Man’s Best Friend options Sabrina on her arms and knees, a male determine standing above her with a fistful of hair, resembling a canine proprietor holding a leash. Despite Carpenter’s very intentional presentation as a girlie pop who champions autonomy and feminine empowerment, the backlash was swift. Thank God she doesn’t give a fuck.

Alongside her core unit of songwriters and producers, Carpenter has discovered a technique to make even probably the most inappropriate matters sound like sing-a-longs. “House Tour” takes on a number of influences, from the New Jack Swing popularized by Janet Jackson to the funk-driven R&B of the Mary Jane Girls. The music is inexplicit, however the content material of the lyrics screams NSFW: “Do you want the house tour?/ I could take you to the first, second, third floor/ And I promise none of this is a metaphor/ I just want you to come inside.”

Man’s Best Friend capabilities as a spread present on wax. The bouncy, inquisitive “My Man on Willpower” paints a vivid image of Carpenter comically trying to get her beau’s consideration: “He’s busy, he’s working, he doesn’t have time for me/ My slutty pajamas not tempting him in the least/ What in the fucked-up romantic, dark comedy is this nightmare lately?” On the alternative finish of the spectrum, Carpenter’s “Never Getting Laid,” which sounds soulful sufficient for Bobby Caldwell, takes a dagger to the center of an inconsistent accomplice who she needs a lifetime of involuntary celibacy. Both of those vignettes are illustrative, evocative renderings that sound like watching a kooky Carol Burnett routine unfold in actual time.