Sabrina Carpenter – Man's Best Friend (Bonus Track) (2025) (Hi-Res) FLAC/MP3

Sabrina Carpenter opens the follow-up to her chart-topping Short n' Sweet with a chuckle and the quietly spoken words "Oh boy." It's like hearing Dolly Parton sigh, "Am I really doing this?" before putting on her bra and wig. Carpenter—who Parton has said "looks like she could be my little sister"—is back with her thoroughly modern pin-up act, and she's turned the cheeky pop-tart self-awareness up to 11. "I get wet at the thought of you/ Uh-huh!/ Being a responsible guy/ Treating me like you're supposed to do/ Tears run down my thighs," she sings on "Tears," a spinning, twirling disco turn that takes her bawdy suggestiveness to new levels of blue. Carpenter grins, but never blushes, as she offers her date the "House Tour"—the house being her body.

"I just want you to come inside," she sings, "but never enter through the backdoor … Yeah I spent a little fortune on the waxed floors/ We can be a little reckless 'cause it's insured." The song's electro-funk flourishes recall Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6, and you've gotta wonder if Prince would have loved Carpenter. She's smart enough to choose collaborators who get the joke. Carpenter once again works with songwriter Amy Allen and producers John Ryan and Jack Antonoff, and they match her songs with the whole-package humor required. Recorded with Antonoff, "Manchild" plays out as light country with baroque Vegas glitz: cheesy '80s synth, horse-gallop rhythm, cartoonishly twanged-out guitar solos. "Amen," Carpenter sings; "Hey, men!" an exuberant girl-gang responds as she giggles. The lively chorus of "Go Go Juice"—about getting her heart broken, getting drunk and getting on the phone with wine goggles—is a boot-scoot away from being a Kelsea Ballerini song. "Never Getting Laid" is chilled R&B pop with shades of '90s quiet storm—Gen Z adult contemporary, and Carpenter wishes an ex a lifetime of agoraphobia and sexlessness. (She knows what a curse that is. "My Man on Willpower," which feels like a cousin to the great 2024 single "Please Please Please," finds her lamenting how her work-obsessed dude "won't touch me with a 20 foot pole.") The other spiritual ancestor here is ABBA, as Carpenter traffics in the Swedes' glorious melodrama on both sunny-sounding "Nobody's Son" and horn-blasting "Goodbye." Carpenter has said Man's Best Friend "wasn't written from a place of 'How do I one-up myself?'" after the wild success of Short n' Sweet. Cover to cover, it's a stronger record with fewer skips. But you have to wonder how long she can keep up the comedy. Even here, when she turns sincere on "We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night" and "Sugar Talking"—two good songs that show off her singing chops—it's hard to take her seriously. © Shelly Ridenour

Tracklist
1. Manchild (3:34)
2. Tears (2:40)
3. My Man on Willpower (3:18)
4. Sugar Talking (3:04)
5. We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night (3:23)
6. Nobody’s Son (3:03)
7. Never Getting Laid (3:28)
8. When Did You Get Hot? (2:25)
9. Go Go Juice (3:13)
10. Don’t Worry I’ll Make You Worry (3:42)
11. House Tour (2:49)
12. Goodbye (3:45)
13. Such A Funny Way (3:52)