Man’s Best Friend Made me Feel like an Acquaintance

By Maia LeClair

Photo provided by The New York Times

Freshly single and not yet ready to mingle, Sabrina Carpenter’s newest album Man’s Best Friend is an ambivalent mix of femininity, humor and overly synth-heavy beats. 

Dropping amid the wake of the infamous Sydney Sweeney/American Eagle advertisement, many online compared the two to be similarly pushing an agenda of patriarchal white-girl submission. But instead of seriously leaning into the idea of blonde hair marking good genes, like Sweeney’s raspy voiceover suggested in the ad, Carpenter’s album plays up on an exaggeration of femininity, and what it’s like to be a single young adult, in a “Barbie”-like fashion. 

In that same vein, the song “House Tour,” cheekily filled with metaphors and adlibs, tells the listener that her house is located on  “pretty girl avenue.” Carpenter encourages her audience of girls and women to feel pretty and fun in some songs, and in others, she bemoans her consistent misfit status against her more popular peers. “Nobody’s Son,” is an example where she laments how all her friends are in love but, “I’m the one they call for a third wheeling.” This pandering to perpetually-single, unlucky-in-love women feels relatable–like a casual phone call to talk about breakups and “Love Island”–but one has to ask, is it genuine? 

It might be doubtful that a rich, blonde and beautiful woman could actually feel the way she does in Man’s Best Friend. Although her split with actor Barry Keoghan made assumptive headlines, listeners might ask themselves how much of those actual post-breakup feelings made their way into the album. “You could be using your lips on a girl with big tits,” from the song “Never Getting Laid,” feels like an example of how Carpenter feels othered and unwanted. But is she singing these lines because they’re relatable or because she believes in them? Carpenter is constantly balancing two conflicting identities here–awkward and perfect. Can she truly toe this line?

Carpenter’s newest album is a marketing dream to college girls fumbling through disappointing relationships, and this is a good thing. Music is meant to be interpreted differently and taken as one’s own. “Man’s Best Friend” isn’t groundbreaking music or anything new from her body of work so far. It’s a continuation of a safe, fun night-out for women everywhere that never ends.