If you’re not aware, the pop star is back. Young female singers are swarming the top of global streaming charts, and Sabrina Carpenter is right at the forefront .
She’s hosted SNL. The Grammys keep piling up. She secured the lone feature on Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Life of a Showgirl. And she’s dueting with Dolly Parton and headlining Coachella.
With Man’s Best Friend, Carpenter dips into the familiar well of summer-stained pop hits dripping with airy lyrics and gossip-filled romances. But her album cover makes a dirty break from past works—shedding stairways and escalators for a controversial pose more akin to a dog (i.e. man’s best friend).
We see a change in her music, too. In whittling down the lyrics, Carpenter focuses on the wit and charm of swirling relational turmoil. She replaces her innocent Disney roots with vulgar and winking sexual innuendos. She craves controversy and feeds on conservative ridicule against her provocative and inappropriate behavior.
Now, Man’s Best Friend aims to see how far the Sabrina Carpenter persona can go. What she might not have intended is also testing how willing fans are to endure the onslaught of tongue-in-cheek demands for better romantic partners.
Few songs carry any positive encouragement or lasting value to listeners.
When it comes to Carpenter’s core topics of relationships, love, and worth, the messages skew selfish and self-centered more than creating positive images to model in our own relationships.
On “My Man on Willpower,” Carpenter admires her partner’s ability to work to provide for her (despite the toll it takes on their time spent together).
As noted previously, “Manchild” carries few redeemable qualities apart from Carpenter’s realization she needs to find a partner who’s more mature.
The album’s primary cover art depicts Carpenter on all fours in a tight and revealing dress at the feet of an unidentified male who’s gripping her hair in a suggestive manner. The art unfortunately plays off the album’s title while also echoing the hateful and harmful reality of women being called “b—–” in media and history.
The secular spin is that Carpenter attempts to upend and satirize this common portrayal of women. Yet, her lyrics and onstage persona do little to suggest she’s playing it this way for anything other than attention.
“Tears” exists as a catalogue of reasons Carpenter crudely feels attraction for a new lover. She sings, “Considering I have feelings, I’m like, “Why are my clothes still on?”/Offering to do anything, I’m like, “Oh my G-d.”
“We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night” reveals Carpenter’s half-hearted approach to conflict. She sings, “We had sex, and then we made amends, that’s right…We almost got so close.” The song devolves into a description of how sex makes up for harmful patterns of broken trust and demeaning language.
“Goodbye” serves as Carpenter’s vindictive tirade against a relationship recently ended. After sharing a lengthy list of reasons why they’ll never get back together, she says, “I’ll say Arrivederci, au revoir/Forgive my French, but f— you ta-ta.”
“Go Go Juice” provides Carpenter with an answer to the question of where she turns when heartbroken. She sings, “A girl who knows her liquor is a girl who’s been dumped.”
“Sugar Talking” sees Carpenter challenging her lover to “put your loving where your mouth is/Your sugar talking isn’t working tonight.” The song continues flinging insults back and forth as the argument sharply turns away from love to hate in a night gone wrong.
“Never Getting Laid” contains Carpenter’s misplaced well wishes after a relationship ends. She sings, “I wish you a lifetime full of happiness/And a forever of never getting laid.”
On “House Tour” Carpenter repeatedly compares her body to different aspects of a house, saying she’s pleased to be her new boy’s “hot tour guide.”
The title of one song reads “When Did You Get Hot?” And after reading that title, you now know everything you need to know about that Carpenter song. (She manages to make three separate references to a male’s private parts while repeating that question.
Elsewhere, she sings about having PTSD because a boy broke up with her. The reasons are blurry and paint a concerning picture of lack of accountability for her own actions in what is clearly a string of troubling relationships.
Across the album, Carpenter utters over a dozen f-words. Several songs contain other profanity such as “bull—-,” “a–,” “b—-,” and s-words.
In previous iterations, Carpenter’s not-so-subtle metaphors of relationships in distress garnered winking nods and smiles. Her popularity rose but remained confined to the summertime window designed for airy hits with three-month expiration dates.
With Man’s Best Friend, Carpenter has signaled she’s the heir apparent to previous generations of artists such as Madonna and Brittney Spears, whose sexualized personas quickly became the defining feature of their careers.
Playing off the imagery of a man’s best friend does little to strengthen Carpenter’s attempt to find a lasting relationship. Instead, the reliance on cheeky metaphors of exploitation and sexual roles only doubles down on the harmful stereotypes Carpenter’s music claims to parody.
Jackson Greer is a High School English Teacher in the suburbs of Texas. He lives in Coppell, Texas with his wife, Clara. They love debating whether or not to get another cat and reading poetry together. Also, he is a former employee of Focus on the Family’s Parenting Department.
