★★★☆☆
Following the success of her 2024 album Short n’ Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter has big shoes to fill—mostly in the shape of her pop princess image that she’s built for herself since breaking back into pop consciousness in 2023.
Carpenter’s new album Man’s Best Friend certainly meets the high standards she set nearly a year ago, but doesn’t necessarily stretch beyond them. Her seventh studio album is the culmination of the lyrical and genre experimentation of her past work and seamlessly expands what has now become her trademark sound into a full 12-track narrative, though with little deviation.
“Manchild,” the album’s hit single, does just this, bringing listeners back into Carpenter’s world by kicking the album off with a synthesizer melody and lyrics that call for helpless men to stop using her love as a crutch.
“Why so sexy if so dumb / And how survive the earth so long?” Carpenter asks, before repeating her constant plea: “Won’t you let an innocent woman be?”
Part of what made Short n’ Sweet intriguing to longtime fans and new listeners alike was its variety. Carpenter used her last album, and later its deluxe version with five added tracks, to experiment beyond the glossy mainstream pop she had become known for, diving into R&B, electronic, and even country tracks with little hesitation.
Man’s Best Friend, however, notably lacks this same boldness. Beyond changes in tempo and a few sonic standouts from the second half of the album, it’s clear Carpenter has found her signature sound and, with the help of Jack Antonoff’s production, decided to stick with it.
One of those standouts, “Go Go Juice,” is what “Slim Pickins,” a later track on Short n’ Sweet, wishes it could be. Carpenter uses an acoustic melody so catchy you might not notice the country-pop song is about desperate, drunken phone calls—that is, until the fiddle solo and slurred background vocals creatively woven into the song’s bridge remind you.
“I’m just drinkin’ to call someone / Ain’t nobody’s safe when I’m a little bit drunk,” Carpenter sings.
“House Tour,” the album’s second-to-last track, is an equally creative song reminiscent of the ’80s. It’s classic Carpenter in the good sense: so innuendo-laden it’s a little bit edgy, but fun and flirty enough to be relatable. The vocals are steady, and the production makes her sound straight out of a disco track.
“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,” Carpenter teases.
Beyond this, the upbeat tracks from Man’s Best Friend tend to stick to a formula, with overproduction on tracks like “Nobody’s Son” overpowering the character of her voice, and in songs like “My Man on Willpower,” overshadowing her clever lyrics.
“I think the schedule could be very nice / Call up the boys and crack a Miller Lite, watch the fight / Us girls are fun but stressful, am I right?” she sings in “Never Getting Laid,” a less-produced track that allows the witty, if a little bitter, lyrics to stand on their own.
Similar to the last track on Short n’ Sweet, Carpenter ends this album with a proper farewell. This time, rather than telling her lover to “cry because it’s over,” she tells them off to a tune reminiscent of a tango:
“Can’t call it love, then call it quits / Can’t shoot me down, then shoot the s—t,” she sings sweetly on “Goodbye.”
Although Carpenter certainly hasn’t called it quits and continues to ride the momentum of her last album, Man’s Best Friend feels like too much of a good thing. Her lyrics rarely miss, but her best songs have proven to be the ones that don’t necessarily fit the produced pop sound we’ve come to expect.
