“Hard as it is to believe at this late date, not everyone gets yet that Sabrina Carpenter is up to something a lot more wily than just being a sex goddess,” said Chris Willman in Variety. The 26-year-old pop star just scored her second No. 1 album with Man’s Best Friend, whose cover art shows her on hands and knees, playing dog to a man who’s holding a few locks of her blond hair. But understand: The former Disney teen star is “a comedienne at heart,” and “no other star of songland is nearly so dedicated to getting laughs out of the carnage in the battle of the sexes.” The photo spoofs her own readiness to do more for undeserving guys than they’d do for her, and the dozen songs on her “very winning” new album drive home the theme by routinely mocking men’s inadequacies and her inability to stop lusting after them.
But where last year’s Short n’ Sweet established Carpenter as “one of pop’s queens of quirk,” said Jon Caramanica in The New York Times, this album “has all the hallmarks of a rush job.” Almost every song “feels traceable to a very specific ancestor,” echoing hits by Olivia Newton-John, ABBA, Blondie, and others. And the meter of the lyrics often doesn’t even fit the melodies. Yet Man’s Best Friend is still “a bright, effervescent pop record,” said Amanda Petrusich in The New Yorker, and the borrowing Carpenter does fits her approach to music making and modern romance. “I like that she is trying to inject a little messiness into a pop landscape that often feels focus-grouped into oblivion.” Besides, “maybe she’s showing us the sanest way to fall in love.” Namely, “don’t think too much” and “laugh when you can.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
6 sought-after homes in San FranciscoFeature Featuring a 1900 painted lady Victorian North of the Panhandle and views of the Golden Gate Bridge in Russian Hill
-
Film reviews: The Long Walk, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, and The BaltimoronsFeature Young men must keep moving or else, the avowed capper to a beloved British series, and an unlikely romance takes hold on Christmas Eve
-
The Taliban wages war on high-speed internetTHE EXPLAINER A new push to cut nationwide access to the digital world is taking Afghanistan back to the isolationist extremes of decades past
-
6 sought-after homes in San Francisco
Feature Featuring a 1900 painted lady Victorian North of the Panhandle and views of the Golden Gate Bridge in Russian Hill
-
Film reviews: The Long Walk, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, and The Baltimorons
Feature Young men must keep moving or else, the avowed capper to a beloved British series, and an unlikely romance takes hold on Christmas Eve
-
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues – laughs are sadly ‘thin on the ground’Talking Point Disappointing sequel to the classic rock’n’roll spoof
-
Tosca: thrilling new Puccini staging has ‘tremendous emotional force’The Week Recommends Controversial Russian soprano Anna Netrebko returns to the stage with ‘white-hot passion’ in starring role
-
The Girlfriend: irresistibly twisty drama starring Robin WrightThe Week Recommends ‘Deliciously unhinged’ show pits a son’s mother against his ‘cagey’ new girlfriend
-
Islands: gripping thriller ‘shimmers, convinces and thoroughly absorbs’The Week Recommends Sam Riley stars in Jan-Ole Gerster’s mystery about a washed-out tennis coach at a Fuerteventura resort who falls under the spell of a married guest
-
What We Can Know: Ian McEwan’s ‘most entertaining and enjoyable novel for years’The Week Recommends The acclaimed writer’s ambitious new book sets out a ‘richly imagined’ vision of post-apocalyptic Britain
-
Fannie Flagg’s 6 favorite books that sparked her imaginationFeature The author recommends works by Johanna Spyri, John Steinbeck, and more
