As fans listen to Sabrina Carpenter’s new album, “Man’s Best Friend,” with high expectations from the album’s lead single, “Manchild,” they quickly realize that it was the letdown of the summer. This was an undeniably out-there album with over-sexualized lyrics, like “[t]ears run down my thighs,” making fans take a step back. Each song was trying to tell the same story of past relationships letting her down, but the progression of this story gets lost in translation midway through the album.
“Manchild” was released June 5, having a country- influenced synthesis pop sound that takes aim at immature men. At certain parts in the song, her tone is mocking men as if they are children, shown within the lyrics, “[w]hy so sexy if so dumb?” The song quickly blew up on social media, even having its own line dance, giving listeners high expectations for the album to come.
However, each song from this record sounds the same, with similar backing tracks and explicit lyrics. The songs “Nobody’s Son” and “My Man on Willpower” have such similar intros that they are hard to differentiate from one another. The themes both imply a quick and abrupt breakup and repeat the phrase “my man” throughout the song. With such frequent repetition, listeners begin to bore early into the album.
“Man’s Best Friend” is Carpenter’s seventh studio album, following her claim to fame with the album “Short N’ Sweet,” which she released Aug. 23, 2024. “I started writing this album pretty much the day after I finished writing Short N’ Sweet, because I was in the midst of a lot personally in my head,” Carpenter said. The back-to-back writing and production of these two albums is where the downfall started. “Man’s Best Friend” is missing the caliber that her prior pieces had. Before the album initially came out, it was already facing backlash for over-sexualizing women and being anti-feminist, as the original front cover of the album portrayed Carpenter kneeling down to a man, causing uproar on social media. Over the last two years, Carpenter has changed her image by making herself a more sexually explicit artist. This bold aesthetic overshadows what is actually important: the content. It lacks the sharpness of her prior projects and lacks the quality fans expected.
“Man’s Best Friend” was expected to be a spirited and playful album, but instead it came off as provocative and indistinguishable between songs. If Carpenter had spent more time on the quality of the album instead of quantity, then it would have had potential to be the album of the summer.
