Following her smash album Short n’ Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter is back in full force with Man’s Best Friend, produced primarily by pop-girly regular Jack Antonoff. The album features some of the strongest lyrical and vocal performances of Carpenter’s career.
If her recent hit “Please, Please, Please” struck your fancy, Carpenter returns better than ever with the danceable and provocative “Tears,” the upbeat yet bleakly messaged “Nobody’s Son,” and the ode to alcohol-inspired trysts “Go Go Juice.” As polished and incandescent as ever, Carpenter sings her heart out with lyrics pointed sharply at touchy-feely lovers and toxic exes.
On the opening track “Manchild” Carpenter uses the pre-chorus to level her former partners: “Baby what do you call it? /Stupid? Or is it/Slow? Maybe it’s/Useless, but there’s a cuter word for it, I know/Manchild;” and on the low-key, R&B inspired track “Never Getting Laid,” she wishes the worst for those in her past: “Boy, I know where you live/Baby I’m not angry/Love you just the same/I just hope you get agoraphobia someday.”
Ultimately, though, I find myself feeling the same way about Carpenter’s latest endeavor as I do about albums from artists like Future, Giveon, or The Weeknd. While the production is near-flawless and as clean as you could find in 2025’s music landscape, the toxic, tongue-in-cheek nature of many of these artists’ relationship-based lyrics leaves this reviewer more uncomfortable than groovy. On more than a few songs from “Man’s Best Friend,” Carpenter’s vitriol comes off disorienting, or at the very least, off-color from the poppy, happy-sounding nature of the album, making genuinely fun songs like “Tears” and “House Tour” feel unnatural by comparison.
Though no drop in quality from the ear-candy Carpenter is known for creating, “Man’s Best Friend” falls short when looking past its glamorous facade, though one could hardly tell by how clean it all sounds.
