Sabrina Carpenter is everywhere, from sold-out arenas to constant features on Pop Base, she is one of the most relevant pop stars of the moment. Therefore, the girls were shaking in their cowboy boots on August 29th this year when she released her latest studio album, Man’s Best Friend. This album is filled with one-liners and glittery hooks, but where Short n’ Sweet, her sixth studio album, felt cohesive, Man’s Best Friend leaned too hard on shock value and innuendo, leaving it safer in sound but riskier in all the wrong ways.
Sabrina Carpenter has come a long way from her Disney days, building a musical career that really clicked with Emails I Can’t Send in 2022 to the Grammy-winning Short n’ Sweet in 2024. She is now back with her seventh album, Man’s Best Friend, with Jack Antonoff and John Ryan, released in August of this year. With 366,000 album units, the biggest first-week sales for a female artist in 2025, this is by far her biggest era yet, record-breaking sales and the strongest debut of her career. But before the album was released, there was already a massive amount of discussion regarding the provocative imagery of the album art. The numbers solidified her visibility, but whether the songs hold up is another question.
Lyrically, Man’s Best Friend discusses the familiar concepts of sexual empowerment, disappointment in men and the playful digs at men and their toxic ways. The first single, “Manchild”, was definitely the way to introduce the album, exposing male immaturity in a way that seems ridiculous yet extremely relatable. In fact, throughout the tracklist, Carpenter continuously uses these one-liners that tap into everyday dating frustrations. “Ain’t Nobody’s safe when I’m a little bit drunk” or “I’m suddenly the least sought-after girl in the land.” The humour resonated well on first listen due to the relevance it has to the dating world in 2025. This being said, the constant reliance on innuendos became repetitive quickly, the initial cheekiness becoming duller and duller with each track. Songs like “House Tour” or “When Did You Get Hot?” lean so heavily on sexual humour that what was once refreshing with Short n’ Sweet now feels predictable. We get it, Sabrina, sex is good.
The sound of Man’s Best Friend is all over the place. One minute you get disco-pop, then some funk, maybe a little bit of country pop sprinkled in. “Goodbye” has those ABBA-style harmonies, where “Sugar Talking” slows it down completely, and I’m struggling to see the clear vision. Like, girl, we can’t keep up… There is no unity in these tracks. This is what makes me miss Emails I Can’t Send. That album had a consistent emotional theme that resonated through all her songs, it felt like a storyline rather than a scroll through my Instagram feed. Sabrina has shown she’s capable of cohesion, yet she keeps missing that mark. That being said, I fell in love with “Tears”, where she goes full disco glitter. It’s camp, it’s dramatic, it’s – in my words – “Very Cheetah Girls, Very Bratz Movie”. But that’s the issue with the album, you fall in love with one track, and you won’t find it anywhere else.
Carpenter’s persona released with The Man’s Best Friend was as loud as the music, although it seems she’s leaning on stunts rather than substance. We are used to the concept of new music introducing new identities. Billie’s hair or Taylor’s colourful albums. Though I doubt anyone expected Sabrina to start this new era by releasing an album cover so controversial. The original cover of her crouched down to a man was obviously intended to stir, but I believe it crossed a line. Absolute stunt, but honestly? A little offensive. When you’re posing underneath a man, bending down to a man, what is that meant to suggest? Sure, it can be spun as satire, but to me, it appears as playing into these misogynistic views rather than subverting them. Later on, an “Approved by God” version was released, only doubling down on the joke. This made the whole album situation seem calculated rather than authentic. I think this summarises Sabrina’s whole issue. The reliance on cheeky controversy begins to feel hollow. Instead of pushing her creativity forward, the branding distracts from it, which is upsetting when we know she has the talent.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend is cheeky and sparkly, but no amount of chart-smashing makes it her best work. With Short n’ Sweet the question was, which is your favourite? With Man’s Best Friend, it feels more like, which do you hate the least? The album leaves me reaching for her other projects, where the same explicit jokes land with ten times more decorum. “Tears” might stay on my rotation for a month or two, but the rest? Pretty forgettable — safe in sound, and risky in all the wrong ways.
Adam Morolla 
Jessie Goates 
Layla