Review Summary: take your shoes off
Man's Best Friend. Where do I even begin? On the heels of her most commercially successful year to-date, Sabrina Carpenter is back and releasing a brand new record, just one year removed from
Short n’ Sweet and, oh boy, what a release has this been; there are many reasons as to why this reviewer has been worried about
Man's Best Friend being a lackluster follow-up: such a quick turn-around from her previous album has caused skepticism about the actual music being sonically and lyrically stagnant —
Short n’ Sweet B-sides, if you will. Lead (and only) single ‘Manchild’ did little to disprove that notion; its country-tinged synth-pop is not only interchangeable with other country cuts from her last offering, but it’s also too bland and devoid of how flirtatious and playful Sabrina used to get, settling instead for less witty turns of phrase (“Why so sexy if so dumb?/And how survive the Earth so long?”). Seeing that returning collaborator Jack Antonoff acts as main producer here was especially worrisome. The polarizing artwork dangerously oscillates between subversive and regressive, though if you have cursory knowledge of Sabrina’s brand, this cover shouldn’t be all
that surprising. And so, with only an opening track and the tracklist at our disposal, we were left to witness the results once August 29th rolled around.
Now that we’re finally here, we can make definitive statements:
Man's Best Friend is Sabrina’s best work yet, period. When announcing the album, Sabrina named Dolly Parton, Donna Summer and ABBA as the biggest influences during its conception; the sound throughout these twelve tracks justifies those mentions. Twangy guitars, soft-rock and country-pop tracks galore (‘Manchild’, ‘Sugar Talking’, ‘Go Go Juice’), post-disco and synth-pop bliss aplenty (‘Tears’, ‘Nobody’s Son’, ‘House Tour’); closer ‘Goodbye’ is textbook ABBA, from its piano chords down to its heavenly “a-ha”s throughout. In terms of how
Man's Best Friend sounds, its production is consistently strong: its disco influence is a match made in heaven with Sabrina's vocal work which is stronger than ever; its arrangements are more detailed and playful, bereft of
Short n’ Sweet’s occasional monotony and strings of meandering ballads, this time around replaced with clean, unforgettable hooks. Even most of the pop songs that infuse country in their arrangements (which were hit-or-miss on last year's album, for me) are irresistible this time around, especially ‘Go Go Juice’’s fun and overstuffed chorus, slowed-down bridge section and vivacious production (which includes banjo work from Sabrina herself).
If Sabrina's brand of sex-positive pop -full of innuendos and tongue-in-cheek puns- isn't your thing, then this album won't be for you; it’s actually even hornier than before. ‘Tears’ is a spectacular slice of post-disco that, in Sabrina's hands, is not about
actual crying, but all about “tears running down [her] thighs” since she's “getting wet at the thought of you” and being turned on by a man who respects her or offers to do anything, including, but not limited to, assembling a chair from IKEA. The sultry R&B of ‘When Did You Get Hot?’ finds Sabrina infatuated by a guy who was “an ugly kid”, but a “sexy man” now and wondering where such a makeover took place, prompted up against insistent kick drums, bubbly synths and quirky production touches. Late highlight ‘House Tour’ is bound to be a fan-favorite, either for its dancefloor-ready energy or its memorable quips; Sabrina promises that “none of this is a metaphor” before admitting that she just wants you to “come inside”, “be a little reckless ‘cause it's insured” and “never enter through the back door” (in reference to her house, duh). In the hands of a less capable performer, these lyrics would scan as awkward, but Sabrina injects a lot of personality in her vocal cadences this time around. Barring a few cherry-picked moments that are too languid and earn their own eye-rolls (“Gave me his whole heart and I gave him head” and “Did you just say you’re finished? Didn't know we started”), doubling down on her brand is another aspect of
Man's Best Friend’s charm. While such a focus might prove tedious and redundant to some (since the album circles around familiar, well-worn themes: break-ups and make-ups, immature boys and attractive men), the record's cheeky attitude, both in sound and delivery, could win over past detractors.
Outright pop perfection is obstructed, however;
Man's Best Friend’s Achilles heel lies in the choice of collaborators: while John Ryan proves to successfully capture Sabrina’s aesthetic in sound, her creative partnership with Antonoff still yields mixed results when it's just the two of them; ‘Manchild’ and ‘Don’t Worry I’ll Make You Worry’ are prime examples of the “
Short n’ Sweet leftovers” fear I described earlier and, at the end of the day, these two songs scan as either awkward (per the former’s mediocre fusion of country and pop) or inconsequential (per the latter’s meandering and hookless pace), both in their nothing-burger instrumentations and their lyrical angles. On the other end of the spectrum, ‘Goodbye’ and ‘We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night’ benefit from Antonoff’s ornate production and are both respectable additions to this tracklist, though nowhere near the magic that is captured on the rest of the tracklist when Carpenter, Antonoff and Ryan are all in the production side of things.
I doubt
Man's Best Friend will be as commercially successful or cause the same cultural uproar as its predecessor, but it's, in every aspect, a much better project: free of many downtempo moments, this album is pure dance-pop goodness, especially now that she overtly welcomes Donna Summer-esque disco in her sound; the low points are fewer and don't detract much from an otherwise consistently strong collection of songs; Sabrina mostly surrounds herself with playful and detailed production that plays to her vocal strengths and her flirty, coquettish delivery; doubling down on her cheeky and suggestive writing style allows her to abandon her past lyrical anonymity. It's a shame that this release came at the end of the summer, since many of these songs beg to become summer-hits; moreover, I have the unfortunate suspicion that
Man's Best Friend will become an overlooked album when we look at Sabrina's discography in the (hopefully long and fruitful for her) future. By and large, however, her new album is proof that she can command the pop scene and win us over: with
Man's Best Friend, we're the ones down on all fours and Sabrina's the one grabbing us by the hair, when all's said and done.
