“Oh boy.” In early June, these words called out like the lowlights of a cowboy bar on a silent drive and delivered the news that the Dolly Pocket of pop had returned. A lot has happened since Sabrina Carpenter declared herself short and sweet and, with her usual wink nudge candour, these two words seem to say, ‘I know and don’t worry, I’m getting to it.’
These were of course the opening lyrics of ‘Manchild’ – the delightfully patronising lead single of what turned out to be Carpenter’s newest chiffon-drenched offering, Man’s Best Friend. Imagine an alternate reality in the vein of Who Framed Roger Rabbit except instead of just cartoons living among humans, Carpenter represents Hollywood Renaissance perfection living amongst an animated cast of sloppy liars and badly dressed codependents that make you question how an entire gender has survived this long. A tormented Bardot she might be, but a silent sufferer certainly not. She’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way.
The respective music video, which owes unlimited flowers to Carpenter’s stylist, could have been a blockbuster in its own right. Compared to the bloodlust of 2022’s ‘Feather’, a modern femme fatale and generational pop earworm in which she innocently lured countless men to their demise, the big screen adaptation of ‘Manchild’ starts seemingly more complaisant, a sweet optimism which is inevitably punctured at every turn. In this sun-kissed hellscape, Carpenter is stuck on a merry-go-round of useless partners, hitchhiking, with frequent eye rolls, between wheels in the barren desert of dating only for it to be revealed as the camera pans out that the promised city was within walking distance all along. As usual, the men needed her far more than she ever needed them.
The song itself is part karmic line dance, part studded pop ballad. Deliciously stupid, it boasts many sucker punches to the male ego including, but not limited to, “Why so sexy if so dumb?” and “I swear they choose me, I’m not choosing them.” At this point, it should’ve been abundantly clear if it wasn’t already that the album title was very much tongue in cheek.
Since the release of her first ‘big girl album’ Emails I Can’t Send, Carpenter has reached a level of stardom that, for many, did the pop-culture equivalent of declaring her doli incapax (a legal term meaning incapable of evil). Essentially, she is too sweet-natured, too chokingly good at what she does to possibly be persecuted. She makes every joke first and makes it better. Which is why the controversial cover art for Man’s Best Friend, depicting Carpenter on her knees and tethered to a faceless suit by her blonde bombshell bouffant, seems best interpreted as the latest in a long line of satirical punchlines set to poke fun at the male gaze allegations the more prudish of pop connoisseurs aim her way.
The title is the antithesis of her being. The cheekiest flutter of a suggestion and it’s possible the cover was simply pointing out the sheer absurdity of the notion.
Regardless, art doesn’t always have to land in order to still be considered art. For many it didn’t (although Carpenter seemed to be ahead of this outcome too as her Instagram soon boasted an alternate cover and prophecy-fulfilling caption that this new one was at least ‘approved by God’). This is the Sabrina Cinematic Universe after all and maybe the truth her critics have revealed is that nobody makes it out alive.
She’s working nine ‘til late ‘cause she’s a singer and by the time she starts, the cover might just as well be a lipstick stain on a wineglass, such is its inconsequence on the album’s rich, honeyed contents.
Taking, to begin with, ‘Tears’, a swift lime chaser to the straight-talking whiskey of ‘Manchild’. The second track and natural second single drips with disco à la Bee Gees, (a staple in Carpenter’s personal jukebox) reaching unprecedented levels of camp with its barely-clothed innuendos – there’s even an allotted dance break to really let the song slink into your grooves.
Every inch of this record feels handcrafted for movement: cue hairography and blister-giving boots all round. It’s already easy to conjure the image of Carpenter’s choreo on ‘My Man On Willpower’, a flared 70s dream and stinger in the dance department that will undoubtedly take her across the stage like a dandelion in the wind.
The era of wide legs and even wider hair becomes somewhat of a theme as the album progresses – including the blatant decline of peace and love that played out then like a black and white film set to a sparkling soundtrack.
On ‘House Tour’, Carpenter delivers what can only be described as Malibu Barbie’s inner monologue with the child lock barely clinging on. In the fashion of a twisty discotheque, she gleams, “I promise none of this is a metaphor” and then you can feel her grin, deadpan and ditsy, burning through the speakers as she giggles and finishes “I just want you to come inside.” It’s so dumb it’s perfect. On a much less breezy note, on ‘We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night’, Carpenter appears less Playboy Bunny and more ‘Hopelessly Devoted’ as she carries out, with a definitive country lilt, the kind of supple ballad that would be best enjoyed with a body of water to bat the damp eyes of your reflection at. Orchestral longing in the dark.
‘Nobody’s Son’ opens with the kind of text so copy and paste you’ll swear Carpenter stole it straight from the recesses of your own messages before she proclaims the most gut-melting of truths: “All my friends in love and I’m the one they call for third-wheeling.” Not to worry, where there’s loss, there’s liquor. ‘Go Go Juice’ details the unimaginable thrill of drunk dialling as a consolation prize for being dumped in such glorious splendour, you’ll consider becoming single just to take up the hobby. The delivery has serious throbs of youthful femininity and seems the perfect closer to yet another summer of the PowerPop Girls (a trio of chart-topping heroines that includes Carpenter alongside Charli XCX and Chappell Roan) not to mention the hazy midsection that sounds precisely how vodka-softened edges and an evening with your best girl friends feels.
It seems for every devastating revelation and merciful plea on this record, there’s two swift follow ups that suggest Carpenter is having ultimate fun and doesn’t need you anymore anyway.
The swishest, most spritely spiteful example of this attitude of course being ‘Never Getting Laid.’
In this swanky course of cocktail music, Carpenter wishes eternal celibacy on the last person unfortunate enough to let her drop from their fingertips. Composed as you like, presumably displaying deadly innocent dimples, she coos: “Wish you a lifetime full of happiness and a forever of never getting laid.” It’s as if ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed’ (and obviously spiting you with sex) was a song. The keys in which are so bright and the sentiment so plainly spelled out, you could see her delivering it from the top of Sesame Street.
‘When Did You Get Hot?’ is as good a sultry chart entry as anything released in the early 2000s, when Aguilera’s ‘Genie In A Bottle’ was still hot on everyone’s tongue. Elsewhere, ‘Don’t Worry I’ll Make You Worry’ is a beautiful promise of destruction that maintains such lightness while guaranteeing: “I’ll leave you feeling like a shell of a man.” There surely remain plenty who would take that chance. Although, they are probably the same bountiful bunch who already tried to give Carpenter a lift to the city only to leave her hanging onto the taillight, handling ne’er-do-wells with a shotgun or resting uncomfortably on the hood just to be aimlessly pawed at.
Needless to say, the track list is deliriously colourful, fun and inventive. A blushing homage to everything that Carpenter’s ever loved and everyone she almost wishes she hadn’t.
To them, the ones who left her scorned only to return, tail between their legs, she simply says ‘Goodbye’. The closing track is a familiar kindling of the 70s that picks at the instrumentation of ABBA, textured and mature, and swishes out of sight in every language required to shake the wasters off for good. One last chirpy “fuck you, ta-ta” couldn’t hurt.
By now, the cowboy bar is long into the distance. Its solitude and resignation replaced with the sun-speckled stretch of Mediterranean coastline. A place where there are no animated miscreants, okay maybe a few, but mostly it’s all top-down weather and a car full of your favourite people. The endless horizon, with its sugar-dusted dirt pathways boasts a billboard, the kind too pretty even for its surroundings. There, in pastel calligraphy sit three simple words: tiny is mighty.
Sabrina Carpenter: Man’s Best Friend – Out 29 August 2025
Carpenter – Manchild (Official Video) – YouTube
