After years toiling within the post-Disney-star pop ecosystem, Sabrina Carpenter lastly broke by way of final yr with Quick n’ Candy, her sixth album, which rode to pop ubiquity (and powerful Grammys recognition) off the again of “Espresso,” “Please Please Please” and “Style” its three catchy, sharply written megahit singles. Since then, she’s staged a huge world enviornment tour and, in some way, discovered time to document a follow-up: Man’s Greatest Pal, which as soon as once more finds her working with Jack Antonoff, John Ryan, and the songwriter Amy Allen.
Like its predecessor, Man’s Greatest Pal positions Carpenter as a sort of TikTok-era Mae West: a intercourse image who’s in on the joke, and who can flick between candy and savage in milliseconds. This time round, there’s a bit extra unhappiness and frustration within the combine—Quick n’ Candy might need made frequent reference to the irresistible nature of Carpenter, however this document pokes some holes in that self-confidence as she sings about males who’re disinterested, impolite, or simply plain annoying. Listed below are 5 key takeaways.
Provocation with Function
Man’s Greatest Pal was already a media sensation earlier than it even got here out, due to its vaguely provocative cowl—Carpenter, on all fours, with a person in a swimsuit grabbing her hair—and its title, which some followers assumed was being offered actually and uncritically. In fact, the presentation of the album makes a variety of sense whenever you hearken to it: Many of those songs, like “My Man on Willpower” and “We Virtually Broke Up Once more,” middle on Carpenter’s incapacity to chop herself off from males who trifle along with her feelings or make her really feel undervalued. (On her being handled, in different phrases, like a canine.)
Euro Swag
One of many songs on Sabrina Carpenter’s pre-show playlist is ABBA’s “If It Wasn’t For The Nights,” an underrated and comparatively obscure from 1979’s Voulez-Vous, written by Björn Ulvaeus about how his personal sense of workaholism was the one factor getting him by way of his divorce from Agnetha Faltskog. Carpenter’s ABBA standom comes into full bloom on Man’s Greatest Pal, which attracts distinct affect from the plush white European pop of the ’70s and ’80s. There are shades of “I’ve Been Ready For You” on “We Virtually Broke Up Once more Final Evening,” whereas “No person’s Son” performs like a love letter to the Swedish pop trade, in some way nodding to “One in every of Us,” Ace of Base’s “The Signal” and Jens Lekman’s “The Reverse of Hallelujah” in equal measure.
Then there’s “Goodbye,” the album’s triumphantly acerbic nearer, which channels “Voulez-Vous” and the hearty chug of “Take a Likelihood on Me.” If Carpenter needs to remain on this lane for some time, there’s nonetheless loads of bizarre ABBA music from which to mine inspiration: personally, I’d love to listen to her tackle “Guests”-esque paranoid coldwave.
