By: Renae Visico
Barely a year after her breakout record “Short ‘N Sweet”, 26-year-old pop singer Sabrina Carpenter seemed to be striking the iron while it’s hot with the recent release of her seventh studio album “Man’s Best Friend.” Sonically and thematically, Man’s Best Friend is a worthy successor to her prior album, as it rides similar highs and lows.
While many aspects of Carpenter are short, such as the gap between her albums and her height, her rise to fame has been anything but so.
Her musical journey exemplifies the phrase “slow and steady wins the race”; she’s been releasing music since the days of Disney Channel, which now only lasts as memories of our childhoods.
Starting off as a child actor, most notably for her role as deuteragonist Maya Hart in Disney sitcom “Girl Meets World”, Carpenter signed a record deal with Disney’s music label, Hollywood Records, at 14 years old.
As part of a deal with Disney, Carpenter had released four studio albums with Hollywood Records between the years 2015 and 2019: “Eyes Wide Open”, “EVOLution,” and twin albums “Singular: Act I” and “Singular: Act II”.
All four of her albums detailed Carpenter’s life through the pop music machine, lyrical stories of anxiety in songs like “Exhale” and female empowerment anthems such as “Sue Me”.
Sabrina was growing out of her Disney Channel era, but it was clear she hadn’t yet found a sound that stuck for her.
That lack of an original sound changed when Carpenter switched to Island Records and released her fifth studio album, “Emails I Can’t Send”. She found her signature witty sound through her fifth record’s hit single, “Nonsense,” and carried that charm to the release of the summer-defining hit “Espresso” two years later.
The following album, “Short ‘N Sweet,” established Carpenter as the charming deadpan romantic we all know and love, and instead of switching up her sound, she took its success as a sign to maintain the image she created for herself for “Man’s Best Friend.”
However, the rollout for this new album did not go without controversy. The album’s standard cover featured Carpenter on all fours with a man pulling her hair; this seemingly degrading album cover divided casual listeners and longtime fans alike.
On one hand, people claimed that her willingness to submit to a man was misogynistic and, as Arwa Manhdawi of the Guardian claims, “pandering to the male gaze”. On the other hand, others such as Mamamia’s Jessica Clark argued that it was just Sabrina’s trademark satire and that if the album’s lead single, “Manchild,” was anything to go off of, the album wouldn’t center around unironically degrading herself.
Regardless of the controversy surrounding the rollout, pop listeners were eagerly awaiting “Man’s Best Friend” in the midst of a dreadfully stale summer pop scene. Many people were tired of the Alex Warrens and the Benson Boones dominating the pop charts, and fans were craving a return to the pop girl renaissance similar to last year’s summer.
“Man’s Best Friend” seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel that fans have been waiting for, but was Sabrina able to live up to their expectations?
The short ‘n sweet answer: yes.
“Manchild” set the tone for this release perfectly with Carpenter’s humorous lyrics about her disappointment with the childish men she dates. The country and disco influences of this pop track were reminiscent of her previous album’s second hit single, “Please Please Please,” effectively sticking with listeners and generating hype for an album that promised to ride off that same sound.
Fast forward two months, “Man’s Best Friend” finally becomes ours with “Tears” as the second single.
“Tears” is a disco-pop track about how men doing the bare minimum is enough to make Carpenter want them, and the self-deprecating undertones are not lost on the listener.
While it accomplishes everything it set out to do with its funky production and creative music video storytelling, it lacks the punch that her previous album’s third single, “Taste,” had. The lyrics and production don’t show her full potential as a performer or songwriter compared to other songs on “Man’s Best Friend”. A more captivating second single would have been track 08, titled “When Did You Get Hot?” or track 11, titled “House Tour.”
The rest of the album could be described through the yin and yang circle. In Carpenter’s case, the yin refers to her minimalist mid-tempo ballads while the yang refers to her fun pop diva bangers.
After “Tears,” tracks three to seven of “Man’s Best Friend” are the yin of the album.
Songs like “Sugar Talking,” “We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night,” and “Never Getting Laid” reek of pop music producer Jack Antonoff’s signature “almost, but not enough/close but no cigar” synthwave production that reads more like study music than artistic statements. Unlike her similar minimally-produced songs like Short ‘N Sweet’s “Slim Pickins” or even EVOLution’s “Run and Hide” from way back when, Carpenter’s songwriting in these tracks simply isn’t interesting enough to justify their uninteresting production. Her efforts to write more sincere lyrics aren’t unwelcome, but it’s clear that more time spent in the oven would have elevated the first half into playlist-worthy songs.
However, in every yin there is a yang, which is brought by tracks like “My Man on Willpower” and “Nobody’s Son.” Both tracks echo the country-inspired disco pop sound that “Manchild” promised, and the production is dynamic enough to engage the listener.
Lyrically, both tracks are similar laments on how her men have taken self-improvement more seriously at the cost of their desire for her. “My Man on Willpower” has lyrics that read, “he’s busy, he’s working, he doesn’t have time for me,” which are reminiscent of themes from “Short ‘N Sweet” tackled in Slim Pickins’ “If they’re winning, I’m just losing.”
As lovely as these two tracks are, they weren’t caffeinated enough to wake listeners up from the sleeper tracks in between.
The yin unfortunately continues in the middle of the latter half with “Don’t Worry I’ll Make You Worry.” Carrying many of the half-baked songwriting problems as songs in the prior half, its subdued vocal and synthwave production provides a snooze break right in the middle of much more fun songs.
Thankfully, the eighth to twelfth tracks of “Man’s Best Friend” continue the yang of the album, providing Carpenter’s return to that me espresso that listeners have been thirsty for all summer.
Songs like “Go Go Juice,” “House Tour,” “Goodbye” (Sabrina’s personal favorite track), and “When Did You Get Hot?” (My personal favorite) further demonstrate how much fun Sabrina can have with her songs, and the production has just as much fun. “When Did You Get Hot?” and “House Tour” are easily the funniest songs on the album, with lines like the former’s “Your light rod’s, like, bigger than Zeus’s” and the latter’s “and I promise none of this is a metaphor” (the irony!) drawing an audible laugh from me. “Go Go Juice” is a song that was practically meant to be tap danced to at a pub, especially during the bridge’s whimsical fiddle solo. “Goodbye,” a fitting title for the album’s closing, echoes the legendary Swedish disco group ABBA, which resembles the album’s opener more than its less interesting filler songs.
Like Manchild, Goodbye’s liberating tone makes it ideal for belting during a last-minute summer road trip with the sunroof open.
Overall, the yin and the yang perfectly balance each other to create a solid record that’s worthy to stand along “Short ‘N Sweet.”
“Man’s Best Friend” says that whether you’re tired of her or not, Carpenter loves what she’s doing, and she’s here to stay. As Carpenter only continues to gain more fame, it’ll be interesting to see what the future has in store for her.
Will she continue in her current direction and give “Short ‘N Sweet” another sister, or will she swerve and show fans a new side of her?
Only time will tell, but until then, get home safe.