<\/p>\n
Pop superstardom, it turns out, did absolutely nothing to improve Sabrina Carpenter\u2019s love life.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the thrust of the singer\u2019s shrewd and tangy \u201cMan\u2019s Best Friend,\u201d which dropped Thursday night<\/a>, just a year after last summer\u2019s chart-topping \u201cShort n\u2019 Sweet.\u201d The earlier album, which spun off a pair of smash singles in \u201cEspresso\u201d and \u201cPlease Please Please,\u201d went on to be certified triple platinum and to win two Grammy Awards \u2014 more than enough to transform Carpenter, now 26, from a former Disney kid into the latest (and horniest) member of pop\u2019s A-list.<\/p>\n Yet all that success seems only to have attracted more of the losers she sang about last time. Here she\u2019s dealing with a smooth talker doling out empty promises, a crybaby who can\u2019t decide what he wants, even a guy so fixated on self-betterment that he\u2019s lost interest in the bedroom.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s busy, he\u2019s working, he doesn\u2019t have time for me,\u201d she trills exasperatedly in \u201cMy Man on Willpower,\u201d \u201cMy slutty pajamas not tempting him in the least.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a veritable gallery of rogues, this LP, not least the dude in the dark suit pictured on the cover of \u201cMan\u2019s Best Friend\u201d with a hank of Carpenter\u2019s blond hair in his fist as she kneels before him. The image inspired an instant controversy when she unveiled it in June, with critics accusing her of propping up dangerous ideas about the submission of women in the age of the tradwife.<\/p>\n Responded the singer in a CBS News interview that aired Friday: \u201cY\u2019all need to get out more.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, to take the album artwork at face value is to miss the whole point of Sabrina Carpenter, which is not just lampooning a prudish instinct \u2014 of course<\/i> she\u2019s in on the joke \u2014 but demonstrating the limits of a dating scene \u2014 of an entire social power structure \u2014 in which this is what a girl at the top has to work with.<\/p>\n \u201cI like my boys playing hard to get \/ And I like my men all incompetent,\u201d she sings in the LP\u2019s opener and lead single, \u201cManchild.\u201d She swears she\u2019s not choosing them \u2014 that they keep choosing her. Then she punctuates the claim by batting her fake eyelashes and rhyming \u201cAmen\u201d with a flirty \u201cHey, men.\u201d<\/p>\n As with \u201cShort n\u2019 Sweet,\u201d Carpenter made \u201cMan\u2019s Best Friend\u201d with a tight crew of accomplices \u2014 Jack Antonoff<\/a>, John Ryan and Amy Allen<\/a>, plus a bunch of tasty studio players \u2014 and once again they get a sound that combines the hooky splendor of \u201970s-era AM-radio pop (think ELO, Wings and especially ABBA) with touches of country and dance music.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/b> Ashlee Simpson blazed a trail. Now she\u2019s seeing where it leads<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cTears,\u201d in which Carpenter lusts after a guy capable of putting together a chair from IKEA, is a pillowy disco thumper with echoes of KC and the Sunshine Band\u2019s \u201cThat\u2019s the Way (I Like It)\u201d; \u201cNobody\u2019s Son\u201d puts starchy palm-court strings over a bouncy reggae groove. Carpenter\u2019s singing plays like an actor\u2019s sizzle reel, by turns winsome, sneering, bubbly and resigned; in the twangy \u201cGo Go Juice\u201d alone \u2014 it\u2019s about a woman who\u2019s woken up at 10 a.m. and opted to spend the day drunk-dialing exes \u2014 she runs through every emotional gradient separating determination from shame.<\/p>\n Song for song \u2014 line for line, really \u2014 \u201cMan\u2019s Best Friend\u201d isn\u2019t quite as sharp as \u201cShort n\u2019 Sweet,\u201d which offered the rare thrill of a young artist coming into her own on her sixth studio album. Occasionally, you can sense Carpenter reaching for a memeable lyric, as in the many gags about wetness in \u201cTears\u201d; \u201cWhen Did You Get Hot?,\u201d meanwhile, feels like something Ariana Grande abandoned after workshopping for a minute.<\/p>\n When she\u2019s on, though, she\u2019s on<\/i>: \u201cGoodbye\u201d is a dazzling orchestral-pop number in which she gives the boot to a hot-and-cold lover \u2014 \u201cArrivederci, au revoir \/ Forgive my French, but f\u2014 you, ta-ta\u201d \u2014 and \u201cHouse Tour\u201d a winking sex romp whose thwacking drums and rubbery funk bass call to mind Paula Abdul\u2019s \u201cOpposites Attract.\u201d (After Doja Cat\u2019s Antonoff-produced \u201cJealous Type,\u201d might this signal a coming Abdul-aissance?)<\/p>\n Near the end of the album, Carpenter dials down the comedy for \u201cDon\u2019t Worry I\u2019ll Make You Worry,\u201d a sad and shimmery ballad about the thin line between love and war. \u201cSilent treatment and humbling your ass \/ Well, that\u2019s some of my best work,\u201d she sings over strummed acoustic guitar before promising oh so sweetly to \u201cleave you feeling like a shell of a man.\u201d<\/p>\n If you can\u2019t join \u2019em, beat \u2019em.<\/p>\n