Sabrina Carpenter has always dazzled with her sparkling charisma, cheeky puns in her lyrics, and her confident embrace of desire. On “Man’s Best Friend,” her seventh studio album released August 29, 2025, she continues to carry this persona.
We see her same playful sex-positive storytelling across a retro upbeat environment. But underneath her showy front, lies an all-too-familiar pattern: the same themes and a lack of emotional uncovering.
Although her latest album lacks depth, there are some things to appreciate. Co-produced with Jack Antonoff and co-written with collaborator Amy Allen, Carpenter delivers a clean, genre-hopping record. Tracks like “Tears” and “House Party” distribute clever and raunchy lyrics with catchy rhythms and harmonies.
Even with her vocal skills, Carpenter’s lyrical content lacked depth and her songwriting continues to be surface level. Her artist background leans more on charming puns and suggestive one-liners instead of actually unpacking the emotional weight in her storytelling and lyrics.
Throughout “Man’s Best Friend,” Carpenter ‘talks’ about her frustrations and desires without allowing the listener to ‘feel’ them. For example, in her hit single “Manchild,” which was also included on her album, Carpenter comes close to diving deeper but hides behind her witty charm. She sings, “‘Why so sexy if so dumb? / And how survive the earth so long?’” In this lyric, Carpenter delivers a jab that plays on the irony of attraction but she does not delve into her emotional experience of disappointment or disconnection. The listener is left with a zinging remark but not a revelation.
I understand her style is more lighthearted, but she needs to work on delivering a real emotional song–one that continues to resonate with the listener.
In her music style and songs, Carpenter hides behind her charming and witty persona rather than revealing deeper levels of vulnerability. The result is an album that entertains on the surface but often fails to resonate emotionally.
My stance remains the same on Sabrina Carpenter–she needs to dig deeper.
Pop music thrives on more than hooks and humor. Listeners crave the messinesses of truth, the contradictions of desire, the ache of heartbreak, and the vulnerability of longing. These create connections between artist and listener. By continually winking and joking her way out of her experiences, Carpenter may entertain and have fun, but she risks leaving the listeners emotionally unfulfilled.
Beneath the sharp one-liners and the cunning production lies a missing core–the courage to reveal herself fully. Until she moves past this, she will remain a pop star defined by charm and self image and not by vulnerability.