Sabrina Carpenter surprises with Man’s Best Friend: pop satire and well-judged humor

Sabrina Carpenter’s album is mischievous, irreverent and musically masterful. A modern pop musical to discover, even from Paris.

With Man’s Best Friend, Sabrina Carpenter proves she’s not just a rising star of commercial pop. This seventh studio album confirms an intelligent and audacious artistic turn, where biting humor meets polished production. In collaboration with Jack Antonoff, Amy Allen and John Ryan, she offers a satirical reading of modern love relationships, carried by a narrative as piquant as it is melodic.

A musical comedy set to disco and sarcasm

Man’s Best Friend reads like an offbeat romantic comedy, somewhere between Hollywood screwball comedy and 70s pop experimentation. In it, Carpenter examines gender roles with a self-assumed irony, poking fun at stereotypes while delivering catchy refrains. Right from the introduction with Manchild, we understand the tone of the album: mocking but never cynical, provocative but always refined.

In it, she questions, with apparent lightness, an essential question: “Why are men so… lame?” All set against a backdrop of synths, vocoded choruses and retro rhythms, in a vein that sometimes evokes ABBA, sometimes Fleetwood Mac, but always with a very personal twist.

Scathing punchlines against a backdrop of impeccable production

The title Tears sums up the project’s ambition: to blend sensuality and sarcasm, provocation and elegance. A line like “I get wet at the thought of you… being a responsible guy” hits the nail on the head, followed by a euphoric Donna Summer-style disco chorus. It’s absurd, daring and perfectly calibrated.

The same strategy is employed in My Man on Willpower, where Carpenter reverses roles and mocks male puritanism with a rare sense of comic timing. Here again, the influence of a series like Fleabag is evident: self-mockery, lucidity, the absurdity of gender relations.

Demanding pop beneath the glitter

What’s striking, beyond the punchlines, is the quality of the production. The tracks incorporate unexpected instruments – sitar, clavinet, tropical percussion – without ever lapsing into an exercise in style. The title track, We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night, demonstrates a musical sensibility akin to Broadway, with its orchestral flights of fancy and meticulously crafted transitions.

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