Known for her modern take on vintage fashion, coquette aesthetic, and playful femininity, Sabrina Carpenter returns with her typical, yet stronger-than-ever satirical style on Man’s Best Friend.
As the title of her previous hit album says, the time it took Carpenter to produce another album was short and sweet. Just a year after Short n Sweet, she returns with 12 fresh pop tracks.
The album is playful and clever, delivering a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor with puns and sarcasm. Through the lyrics, it is easy to imagine Carpenter rolling her eyes in disappointment with her love life.
The whole sound of the album is polished and poppy, but with a retro streak through every song. The production is well done, with influences from genres such as disco, country, and jazz. Carpenter’s confident vocal delivery and interesting sounds make the whole record distinct and interesting.
It is fairly common for musicians to pay homage to classic movies with their music videos. Carpenter does just this for the second track of the album, “Tears.”
The video features Carpenter dressed to kill in a blue skirt suit, a color-swapped version of the lead character’s outfit in the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The video itself is much like Rocky Horror, eclectic and surreal, while featuring Carpenter making her way through a wacky haunted house with a diverse collection of characters.
Unlike the lead single, “Manchild,” which takes a dig at emotionally immature men, “Tears” describes the kind of love Carpenter longs for in a danceable track that is not overly serious.
Overall, this album further cements Sabrina Carpenter as a modern pop machine, with over 64 million streams just on opening day. Carpenter likely will continue to garner mass attention and relevance in pop culture with her unique aesthetic and sound.
