Hi, everyone. Arf!thony Atf!tano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of the new Sabrina Carpenter album, Man's Best Friend.

This is a brand new LP from pop singer and songwriter, Miss Sabrina Carpenter, a quick and direct follow-up to her breakout album that dropped last year, Short n Sweet, a record whose highlights really put Sabrina Carpenter on the map in a way that her previous releases and singles just hadn't.

I mean, while Sabrina is seen as a relatively new face in today's pop landscape, that is true, she's actually been a part of the entertainment industry in some form or fashion for most of her life now, originally trying to make her way as a young actress in the late 2000s, eventually landing a notable role on a defunct Disney Boy Meets World spinoff, and then down the road, focusing much more on her music career.

But it would take a while for her to develop a truly bona fide hit, because at this point, it's actually been about 10 years since the release of her first album. And honestly, I think having all of that time to incubate has only benefited her, as it would take a while for her to develop the snarky unfiltered lyrical style that would become a distinct trademark for her, regardless of the production that she's on top of. This would take the form of some pretty tragic bops and ballads like the title track and "Bad for Business", as well as "Because I Liked a Boy", from her Emails I Can't Send record.

But Short n Sweet saw her getting funnier and sharper in a way that I think spoke to a broad relatable frustration that many of her female fans were feeling out there on the dating scene, as she started delivering numerous songs and lyrics about feckless guys who were either relatively easy to tempt, like on the inescapable 2024 summer jam, "Espresso". Or so embarrassingly stupid you don't even want to take them out of the house, like on my personal favorite from the record, "Please, Please, Please".

Now, Short n Sweet, overall as an album, I found to be inconsistent, a lot of lowlights, but it still had enough potential to set Sabrina up for an even better record down the road, in my view, whenever that album was due to come out. However, with Man's Best Friend, that time has certainly come sooner rather than later, as we are just now pretty much a year out from Short n Sweet at this point. I

n that time, Sabrina has managed to pull together 12 more new tracks while still doing a lot of heavy promo and touring behind Short n Sweet's success. On the production side, we see familiar faces such as John Ryan and Jack Antonoff again, whose musical fingerprints were also on Short n Sweet, which leaves me wondering if some of these ideas or songs were also forged around that time period, and now it's all just being polished off and finished for the purposes of this album, because after all, much of Man's Best Friend does feel like Short n Sweet Part Two, or just a second helping that has been slightly altered with the knowledge of these sorts of songs and lyrics that from the last record happened to play over with audiences best, be it live or through streaming numbers.

Taking this many cues for your next record from your audience might not necessarily be a bad thing. After all, she was certainly leaning into that direction with the reveal of the album cover for this record, something that proved to be pretty polarizing among a number of people. There were a lot of calls of sexism, people talking about how disgusted they were with the objectification that is going on here with this visual. But personally, I saw something a lot deeper going on, because keep in mind, we are talking about a woman here who has made her name penning a whole lot songs and bangers about feeling annoyed with essentially being a man's second mother in a relationship. And even if in the grander scheme of things, the portrayal of kink on this cover is pretty vanilla, those types of relationship dynamics do require a level of trust and understanding and also communication of boundaries that just wouldn't be there with the types of partners that Sabrina often expresses anger and annoyance over.

So yeah, this cover may, in fact, be her communicating: while I am usually in this one dynamic, what I would actually like is something where I'm not in the power position, possibly. And even on a more surface-level read, it's just funny to have a record come out titled Man's Best Friend that is potentially packed with songs where Sabrina is crapping on all of these exes and taking a bunch of different men to task. Can we not at least appreciate the irony in that?

I mean, it was very obvious that dynamic was going to be at play just based on the first single of this record alone, "Manchild", a bright jaunty synth pop number with a very lush chorus, great vocal harmonies and verses that veer between talking and singing. As Sabrina gets about as on the nose as she possibly can to paint a picture of a lover who is so stupid, he can barely keep his phone charged. It's so cartoonish that you have to wonder, how did she even end up in this situation in the first place? But rather than explore that very obvious question, Sabrina writes in a bridge that basically absolves her of any responsibility here. And though this does perplex me, it's not so much of an issue I'm going to overlook what sounds and feels like a really good pop hit.

However, I was hoping that once we heard the rest of this album, we would just get something in the way of more smarts and subtlety. However, after hearing the rest of Man's Best Friend, I'm sorry to say, I just don't think the depth I had my fingers crossed for is there, as I found a lot of this record to either be disappointing or unbearably silly.

Like on the following track, "Tears", which is a slick disco number that I'm very torn on in a lot of ways. I love the grooves on this track. I love Sabrina's breathy vocal harmonies. I love the way she flaunts her sexuality in a way that is explicit and hilarious. But musically, I was distracted about how this track sounds like an unabashed ripoff of Diana Ross's "Upside Down". Meanwhile, the lyricism has like a level of cheekiness and absurdity to it that reads more like an SNL skit than a legitimate pop song. Because you seemingly have Sabrina here unironically singing that her panties get so wet, they become a waterfall over her partner doing what is essentially the bare minimum.

And nowhere in this song does she acknowledge just how depressingly low these standards that are being set are. I also can't help but feel like her singing about this guy being responsible – on top of mentioning him doing like he's supposed to do – is her inadvertently putting herself in that "mom" position, while simultaneously not really liking it when the men she's with act like children. I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I feel like it's time to come to terms with, Sabrina Carpenter may not actually want this [points to album cover], as this and many other songs on this record read as if she would rather be giving her partner a gold star for doing the dishes.

Case in point, the following track, "My Man on Willpower", where Sabrina not only portrays herself accidentally, I think, as one of many different distractions in her man's life, but expresses nonstop frustration with him, focusing more on things like work or just being busy, presumably with, I don't know, adult things? But what's even more disheartening is just how scuffed the instrumental on this track sounds most of the time. With both Jack and John on this thing, I'm just confused as to how it sounds so messed up, especially in the first third of the track where the bass and drums are just downright anemic. That clap sound effect that is in the mix is almost two times louder than any other piece of percussion. For a good deal of the song vocally, Sabrina just sounds unsupported by all the instrumentation behind her.

At least with the following track, "Sugar Talking", Sabrina more or less sounds legitimately fed up as she's completely tired of this guy's crap. She doesn't want to hear the lies or the same spiel she's heard before. But while I do mess with what this track is trying to say narratively, it does suffer a bit from boring verse syndrome, and there are parts of it that sound like slowed down repurposed pieces of other songs on the album.

"We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night" also has a pretty slow start to it, too. But I do love the first hook on this one quite a bit. It's very beautiful. It's ornately arranged. The detailed layers of strings and vocals are great, and the whole thing progressively builds up from there into the prettiest ending of any song on the entire record. There's also a super-neato fuzz guitar solo on the bridge.

As far as the writing is concerned, the track tells a tale of a very funny relatable pickle where you and your partner have broken up or almost broken up. You're dealing with the repetitive motions of those ups and downs, especially in the context of your friend group knowing about the on and off nature of this relationship. You have standout lines on this track like, "At least we'll give them something to talk about," which again, very funny and feels like Sabrina is leaning even further into those Dolly Parton influences that were clearly there on Short n Sweet, and it's obvious she's self-aware of how well those played off.

The midpoint of the album, in my opinion, is where things begin to get even rougher and more inconsistent. "Nobody's Son" is this weird synth reggae number that feels like Vampire Weekend trying to do a mangled cover of "The Tide is High". Even if There is something to the tune on this one. I just don't see what Sabrina vocally brings to this style.

After this, "Never Getting Laid" is one of my faves, even if the verses do sound like a dead ringer for Bill Withers' "Just The Two of Us". Still, the track is a beautiful blend of pop and soul with some incredible changes on the chorus. The writing, I am still a bit perplexed on as Sabrina does communicate this weird sense of jealousy and ownership that I didn't really care for on some of the key tracks of Short n Sweet. It's this If I can't have him, nobody can mentality, where because she can't be with this person who she has idolized in her mind, she would rather this guy become agoraphobic and never get laid again for the rest of her life because the idea of him even kissing another woman that is not her would just tear her apart.

And look, I realize lots of people have these feelings and writing a song about them isn't inherently wrong, but I feel like that writing should also come with a bit of a reality check in terms of just how silly these ideas are.

"When Did You Get Hot?" features some of the funniest and cutest lyrics on the entire record. Though I will say the production on this one smacks of the vibe that Lana Del Rey conjured in her recent cover of Sublime's "Doin Time". Either that or some flirty girly pop with a hip hop backbeat that would have landed on one of the three Austin Powers soundtracks back in the day. The whole vibe here, even if the tune itself is fine, just comes across as dated and awkward. I mean, after a track like this, I do very much understand the growing sentiment that maybe Jack Antonoff is just not really doing the pop girlies he's constantly working with any favors.

Which brings me to the next couple of tracks on the record, which see Sabrina going into a bit of a country direction. Now, if you recall, some of my favorite songs from Short n Sweet saw her doing exactly that. I was actually excited to see her lean more in that direction on this record. But "Don't Worry, I'll Make You Worry" with all of its bland, spaced out, twangy, syrupy instrumentation, just sounds like a leftover from The Tortured [fucking] Poets Department.

Meanwhile, "Go Go Juice", while in concept, it is a very cute and funny drunk dial anthem, the tune and instrumental leaves the track feeling less subversive and less salacious and more like product placement. Sort of like the Chips Ahoy name drop on "House Tour", which is a grade-A piece of synth funk, which while Sabrina does say in the lyrics, "there's no innuendo going on here," there's actually more innuendo on this track than on any other on the record, which is fine. I get it. I see the irony. The song is hilarious. It's actually one of my favorites on the record, even if it is very on the nose as she describes the house tour and how she would like this guy to come inside, maybe check out the back door. You're not going to want to listen to this one around the kids.

But then the closing number just feels like some ABBA worship, which I feel like is honestly a very, very tall order to fill. As Sabrina and company, when assembling this one, I think really failed to bring over the layers and the space and the fanfare that you would need to really even gain a fraction of the epicness and the theatrics that make ABBA's music just so beautiful and epic, which is a shame because it feels close to there, but no cigar. The vocal layers that we need are certainly laced into the production. The strings are there, the galloping melodies. There's even an interesting little faux-exotic instrumental passage in the back end of the track. Sabrina is singing goodbye in different languages. Again, all the baseline elements you would need for something in the style are there, but the overall presentation just comes across as very flat, very dry.

This is just one of many moments on the record, frankly, that felt like they had a lot of potential, but just end up feeling rushed because they were only brought to the point to where they just felt good enough.

Unfortunately, I just feel like this record brought us just more of Short n Sweet. When I say that, I mean the things that made Short n Sweet a very good record, but also the things that made Short n Sweet a very underwhelming record. Again, that's a shame because I feel like Sabrina Carpenter had the potential to really leapfrog that record in a massive way, but it just doesn't feel like her and her collaborators took the time to really sit on these songs and develop them more effectively and maybe just work out some better production strategies or whatever with some of the tracks, too.

Not to mention the lack of development on the writing side, and Sabrina not really moving or growing much on that front outside of having more of a clear idea of what her audience wants and just trying to give them a more concentrated version of that without actually thinking of any of the underlying messaging or how she would go on to explore some of these themes further in a way that was, I don't know, thoughtful.

But yeah, sadly, this record is really lacking in my view, which is why I'm feeling about a decent to strong 5 on it.

Anthony Fantano, Sabrina Carpenter, forever.