Man's Best Friend

Whatever star Short n’ Sweet prophesied Carpenter to be is obliterated in the company of Man’s Best Friend—an album that, far and away, outdoes its predecessor at each turn.

Carpenter continues her aversion to one sound, skillfully collecting the gems of different eras and genres and shining them up for 2025.

Ultimately, Carpenter feels like she's writing from her own relatable experience on Man's Best Friend and while her tongue remains firmly planted in her cheek, the album has plenty of pop bite.

If I’m dinging anything, it’s the temptation to coat every chorus in frosting, but I guess that’s also what makes Man’s Best Friend so much fun to listen to. Even when Carpenter over-ices the cake, the bite underneath is her own – funny, flirty, occasionally feral, and unmistakably Sabrina.

She’s made an album that sounds consistently inviting and sometimes exciting.

It may have taken Carpenter six albums to finally find the right formula that works for her as a budding pop diva, but now it’s clear there’s no looking back. If Short n’ Sweet solidified her stardom, Man’s Best Friend plates her status in gold.

It’s note-worthy how fresh and vivacious ‘Man’s Best Friend’ sounds.

There’s a Trojan horse quality to Man’s Best Friend: it’s so distinctly Carpenter that you might not even realise it’s one of the year’s singular, musically provocative pop records.

Man’s Best Friend is so committed to the part that it begins to approach self-parody—“I bet your light rod’s, like, bigger than Zeus’” is not Carpenter’s best work—but mostly it’s sublime.

It’s messy, it’s funny, it’s occasionally shallow, but it’s also thrilling, because it dares to treat those qualities as virtues. Carpenter knows the heartbreak is real, but the laughter is what keeps you alive long enough to sing about it.

Song for song — line for line, really — “Man’s Best Friend” isn’t quite as sharp as “Short n’ Sweet,” which offered the rare thrill of a young artist coming into her own on her sixth studio album. .... When she’s on, though, she’s on.

The flickers of brilliance are scattered all throughout Man’s Best Friend, and for the most part, it’s a great album with some moments of weakness. It’s a clear step ahead of Short and Sweet, and hopefully, will be another stepping stone on the path to her magnum opus.

Man’s Best Friend sees Carpenter and main collaborators Jack Antonoff and John Ryan continuing in a similar vein as Short n’ Sweet, paying homage to the past with the multi-culti, pan-genre pastiche of lead single “Manchild” bumping up against the Paula Abdul-era dance-pop of “House Tour” and the yacht-rock-meets-R&B standout “Never Getting Laid,” which is filled with smooth electric piano and some very ’70s-coded mono synth lines.

Carpenter is at both her best and her worst when she leans into humour, which is threaded throughout the record. It’s a continuation of what’s made her so memorable in the past: the campy innuendo of Bed Chem’s 'come right on me… I mean camaraderie' or her viral 'have you ever tried this one?' sex position-asides on tour. Here, that same instinct bubbles up everywhere; sometimes brilliantly, sometimes too much.

There are incredible highs here, but too much that feels like a first draft.

The production feels sturdy and busy. But there are no instant hits other than Manchild, and though the songs are dense with hooks and melodies, none of them are particularly memorable.

While it provides plenty of tell, there's not nearly enough show.