Sabrina Carpenter releases new album, Man’s Best Friend, featuring nine explicit tracks. The singer defends bold lyrics and risqué performances, calling it “just fun”. Critics praise standout tracks like House Tour but say the album lacks depth. Carpenter celebrates launch with fans at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. Of the 12 tracks on her new album, nine of them are labelled as explicit. Carpenter co-produced it with Taylor Swift collaborator Jack Antonoff, along with John Ryan, who also worked on her previous album, last year’s Grammy-winning Short n’ Sweet, which topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Times’s Victoria Segal said that musically Man’s Best Friend was “negligee-thin, surprisingly vanilla”. The Independent also went for three stars, saying while “there are some sensational songs… too much of the rest struggles for lift-off”. Reviewer Adam White wrote: “With Carpenter circling many of the same themes in her lyrics, the hit rate on Man’s Best Friend is largely dependent on its song-by-song production. House Tour is sensational, a chugging slice of 80s power-pop so instantly catchy that you’re able to forgive it holding some of the album’s biggest lyrical clunkers,”
Carpenter told Rolling Stone magazine the record “wasn’t written from a place of ‘how do I one-up myself?’ or ‘how do I re-create something else?'” She said: “Short n’ Sweet was this magical gift; it fed me, and it fed a lot of other people in the world. It felt true to me, and it felt authentic to a lot of other people. It’s rare that those line up ever, let alone more than once. It unlocked my brain to know myself more and more.”
The former Disney star, 26, has built her brand around fun and risqué pop music, and her sexual lyrics and provocative performances regularly cause a stir. At the Brit Awards in March, media watchdog Ofcom received 825 complaints, with the majority involving her pre-watershed opening performance where she wore a red sparkly military-style mini-dress, with matching stockings and suspenders.
BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat spoke to two young fans in Hertfordshire to get their initial thoughts. Amy, 21, commented: “It’s the type of album you want to dance to and drive with the windows down to. I love House Tour, I think it’s so fun and so theatrical. I love the whole theatre kid showgirl vibe from her.” Guy, 20, suggested it sounded like Carpenter was “being open and in touch with her femininity” on “some sad songs” as well as having “Short n’ Sweet-vibes songs”.
The singer-songwriter celebrated the album’s release with a Spotify-hosted fan event at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The Grammy-winning star is known for her provocative music and performances. Last month however, BBC News culture reporter Annabel Rackham noted how her performance at London’s Hyde Park had been “noticeably toned down as the US singer embraced a more family-friendly show”.
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