Album Review: Sabrina Carpenter, Man's Best Friend

“I just want you to come inside,” Sabrina Carpenter sings on ‘House Tour’, “but never enter through the back door, house tour!”. Hearing those tongue-in-cheek lines it’s hard to believe that the singer started out on G-rated Disney Channel sitcoms. However, after six studio albums, five headline tours and 17 years in the business, Carpenter is no longer the modestly dressed poster child, covering only the most chaste of Christmas carols.

Man’s Best Friend hooks listeners right from the first “Oh, boy” in song of the summer, ‘Manchild’. It’s just as full of quintessential pop gold as her global No.1 2024 smash hit album Short n’ Sweet, with the addition of fresh new disco and country influences – not a typical combination, but Carpenter has the musical nous to make anything work. Producer Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift, Lorde, Lana Del Rey and nearly every other pop legend of the decade) lends his magic touch, but it’s Carpenter in the spotlight, taking full credit for writing, vocals, percussion and banjo – yes, banjo.

Sabrina’s Dolly Parton-esque cowgirl side comes out in ‘Go Go Juice’, a pop-country ode to inebriated phone calls, which features a fine, twangy bridge of banjo, mandolin, slide guitar and fiddle. Of course, we’ve heard country music influencing pop before – but how often do we see credits for sitar, agogô and phin on mainstream albums? The global – dare I say world music? – influence is subtle but present in funkier tracks like ‘House Tour’, a playful extended metaphor about exploring sexual desires, soundtracked with particularly groovy percussion and sampling.

Having just experienced what seems to have been a messy relationship split, we might have expected Carpenter to take the typical path of whipping up a handful of sad, angry, brokenhearted break-up songs and getting them out there. Far from it. ‘House Tour’ marks the height of the singer’s suggestive wordplay; it’s chock-full of racy innuendos: “Yeah, I spent a little fortune on the waxed floors/ We can be a little reckless ‘cause it’s insured/ I’m pleasured to be your hot tour guide/ Baby, what’s mine is now yours.”

Carpenter does take subtle implicit jabs at one -ex or another, with fans speculating as much about the title and subject of lead single ‘Manchild’, which will likely be selected as Single of the Year come December.

Then there’s the ‘Go Go Juice’ lyric, “Could be John or Larry, gosh / Who’s to say? / Or the one that rhymes with ‘villain’ if I’m feelin’ that way.” Go figure...

But the real muse of Man’s Best Friend is Carpenter’s own innate sexiness – and it’s no ‘Sugar Talking’ (now there’s a break-up song!) to say her music has never been sexier.

8/10