Brianna DeWert

Sabrina Carpenter is one of the most recognized pop artists of today with one of the strongest rebrands since her “Short n’ Sweet” album. “Man’s Best Friend” is Carpenter’s seventh studio album and was released on Aug. 29. Seeing the cover for her new album, I could only imagine what all of her songs could be about. Is it simply another 10 song album where Carpenter criticizes her exes explicitly with the same, re-used pop synths? Or did she come up with something unique and original, all while staying true to her new brand persona?

With 12 songs on the album, all of the songs were consistent to the genre Carpenter has stayed in, which is dance pop. A lot of her songs are upbeat, fun and danceable. Carpenter does a great job of staying true to her brand, but she does this a little too well. While most of her songs fit her persona, they were oftentimes repetitive in music and topic. The lack of variety was a huge problem while listening to the album. 

The first song, “Manchild,” sounded like a standard stereotypical Sabrina Carpenter song: she’s cute, she’s quirky and all men are stupid. While the lyrics are funny, having that same story for the rest of her songs makes this choice seem unoriginal and bland. 

The next song, “Tears,” was a hard listen. Just from reading the lyrics, her explicitness was not “funny” like her previous album, “Short n’ Sweet.” Instead, they were unnecessarily gross. With a catchy beat and Carpenter going into full physical detail about the same things, the song by itself is an awkward listen. Do not get me wrong, I will listen to explicit lyrics in music, just that these tried to come off as cute when it leaned more towards gross.

Some of Carpenter’s songs on “Man’s Best Friend” were good, though. “Sugar Talking” was a slower beat pop song, and “Never Getting Laid” sounded like aesthetic elevator music; both of these had the most emotion, if any emotion, compared to the rest of the album. “House Tour” was a good upbeat dance song trying to dig deep into the 1970 and-1980s—there was nothing wrong with it except for the same repetitive innuendo. 

For the rest of her songs, it is simply such an unoriginal-sounding album. “We Almost Broke Up Last Night,” “Nobody’s Son,” “Go Go Juice” and “Don’t Worry I’ll Make You Worry” had mostly the same synth, heavy autotune, guitar in the back and lacked variety between each song. Carpenter has a lot of talent, and it was disappointing to see it not be utilized in her album, especially with how far she’s come as a singer, writer and brand.

When listening to a specific artist who leans towards a specific persona, it is important to understand what the songs are made for. Carpenter’s music is produced to be danced to, played at parties and air on the radio 100 times. Even with the clear purpose in mind, you will not catch me adding any songs from “Man’s Best Friend” to my playlist. It is not a terrible album, but it is mediocre for someone who truly enjoys better music.