My friends think that Sabrina Carpenter’s new album is empowering. They believe she is “the representation of confident women everywhere,” and the internet seems to be in agreement. Well, Sabrina’s music does not inspire me, and frankly, she is not someone I want representing me as a woman.
Sabrina Carpenter has been transforming the music industry since 2014, but if you asked me, I would say that her new release is a reflection of how the music industry has transformed her.
On Aug. 29, she dropped her third studio album, Man’s Best Friend, and the media has yet to choose a new topic. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and received more than 184 million streams, making it the most successful album released by a female artist in 2025.
Her new album’s success is especially shocking, considering the fact that it managed to spark a net-wide controversy before a single song was released, quickly overshadowing its marketing campaign.. The cover shows Carpenter posing as a dog while a man holds her hair like a leash. On social media, women everywhere were quick to call her out, saying that the cover feels sexist, tone-deaf and dehumanizing.
Her response to this? Making a new cover and calling it “Approved by God”.
To make matters worse, all 12 tracks on the album orbit around the topic of men: the male gaze, toxic-masculinity and heartbreak. This may not be a new theme for her work, but it is still vastly different from the concepts of her earlier music, which covered more lighthearted topics.
Within the last five years, Carpenter’s lyrics, performances and style have become increasingly suggestive. This evolution reveals less about who she truly is as an artist and more about the blueprint the music industry lays out for young pop stars.
The majority of the album made me want to light my headphones on fire and book a meditation retreat in Thailand. To me, a good song is less about the catchiness of the beat or lyrics, and more about the emotional depth and instrumentals. She had none of that.
The instrumental tracks behind her vocals are anything but instrumental. She relies heavily on electronic production and glittery disco-pop beats. It is rare to hear drums, piano or guitar in any of her new music, and as a result, the entire album sounds flat and repetitive.
I found Man’s Best Friend to be extremely disappointing, but not at all surprising. It won’t be remembered for its artistry, but for what it reveals about the music industry. She has the potential and she has the talent to make music that is both fun and meaningful. She’s done it before, but now she has settled into an algorithm that focuses more on marketability than depth. As a result, her album shines on the charts but falls flat in the heart.
