Sabrina Carpenter has quickly ingrained herself into today’s culture as one of The Big Pop Stars of our era, with her brand of humorous and flirty pop being a great counter to the depressing adult contemporary of modern charts (for every “Espresso,” “360,” and “Not Like Us” we got last year, there’s an “Ordinary,” “Beautiful Things”, or “DAISIES” this year). I was tentatively excited to see her output this year: a new album so quickly following her great last LP Short And Sweet is an ambitious goal, so it should surely pay off, right? 

The first single and opener, “Manchild,” almost immediately tempered my expectations. It’s a pretty for-par country pop song with a repetitive structure and an almost Flanderized level of silly catchphrases. “I like my men all incompetent / And I swear they choose me, I’m not choosing them / Amen, hey men!” is portrayed as the climax of the song and was immediately put on billboards. It reads as a Rupi Kaur poem more than it reads as the lead single to your next album. 

In fact, “Manchild” wasn’t even described as the lead to an album. Instead, Carpenter’s Instagram post accompanying it portrayed the song as a B-side from Short And Sweet. Look at the actual bonus tracks from that era, and it’s clear “Manchild” is taken directly from those sessions: “Couldn’t Make It Any Harder” and “15 Minutes” are both just as quippy, have that country sound, and are better than “Manchild.” 

There are so many fun directions that Carpenter could have gone with a new album, particularly building on the glamorous R&B that “Good Graces” teased. However, continuing down a path of stale country pop that’s aiming for social media jokes just seems boring for an artist wanting to “court controversy,” as YouTuber Naomi Cannibal put it in her review. The flashy cinematography, the Spinal Tap-referencing cover art, the Colman Domingo in drag of it all. It doesn’t feel genuine; it all feels like Sabrina wants to make her art seem more interesting and provocative than it really is. 

Provocative is not what this album is. Sabrina mostly stays in the “Manchild”/ “15 Minutes” lane, with a steady stream of “just fine” country pop with silly bars about how she’s short and wants a hot guy. “My Man On Willpower” has lines about missing a distant partner that could read as touching if they weren’t paired right next to “My man wouldn’t touch me with a twenty-foot pole.” An interesting concept about losing hope in finding a committed relationship on “Nobody’s Son” is paired with production that feels like it’s trying to become the next crossover hit. And “Go Go Juice” is just terrible, with slurred lyrics that go for quirky drunk and end up feeling so tiring that I almost didn’t even finish the album for this review. 

There are some shining lights: about a fourth of the album tinkers with a late-’80s disco/new jack swing sound that genuinely really works for her. Single “Tears” uses these really inspired key changes to create awesome dynamics within the pretty standard pop song structure, making it feel really off-kilter and sunny. “When Did You Get Hot?” has a really funky bassline and some of Sabrina’s most genuinely funny lines (“Sorry, I did not see the vision / Thank the Lord the fine you has risen”). Most importantly, the disco-indebted penultimate track “House Tour” is made for radio in a way that doesn’t feel like TikTok pandering, with a glittery Mary Jane Girls-inspired outro that will go insanely hard at a concert. There are actually great moments on this album that make the low points (tracks 3 through 7 in particular) just feel so incredibly low. 

Man’s Best Friend is a 5 out of 10. You can listen to it on YouTube here.