Sabrina Carpenter is too sexy. Sabrina Carpenter is the pop princess we have been waiting for. Sabrina Carpenter is a homewrecker. Sabrina Carpenter is for the girls. Sabrina Carpenter performs for the male gaze. Sabrina Carpenter supports the dolls. Sabrina Carpenter’s new album isn’t deep enough. Sabrina Carpenter is a bad feminist.
These are all criticisms levied at Miss Carpenter in the wake of her new album, Man’s Best Friend ˆthat dropped on August 29. No stranger to public scrutiny regarding her sex life, Carpenter has taken the ‘y’all need to get out more’ and “so opposite of the world ending” approach to album criticism. Carpenter seems to have taken the stance of “it’s not that deep”, which is a similar sentiment shared with people on the internet regarding her new album – but fans are not pleased with.
There have been many a TikTok made discussing the lack of emotional depth in this new album, with many fans expressing their disappointment that the tracks of Man’s Best Friend are sisters of Juno, Bed Chem, and Taste, as opposed to being more closely related to lie to girls, emails i can’t send, and because i liked a boy. There is definitely some merit in this disappointment, which ties back to the infamous album cover controversy. For those of you lucky enough to miss this clusterfuck, here is some quick context: When Carpenter unveiled the album cover for Man’s Best Friend, the internet was divided on if it was satirical or not, and if the satire worked given there was a question of her intent. My general opinion is that Carpenter was clearly being tongue in cheek with the cover and calling out gender roles in relationships, but that her collection of work (at least her most popular and well-known songs) isn’t subversive enough for her intent with the cover to be evident to everyone. Sabrina is known to be cheeky and witty, yes. Is she known for being a revolutionary feminist? No.
And I am writing this as a girl who dressed up as Carpenter for the Eras Tour because emails i can’t send is one of my favourite albums of all time. But I was holding out hope that when the album dropped, we would get a cuttingly satirical, honest and subversive album. An album that would discuss topics of being hypersexualised in the public eye, and the complicated nature of being known as the sexy popstar, when these same people who go to your shows were likely slutshaming you during the Drivers License fiasco of 2021. I wanted at least some feminist critiques in Man’s Best Friend, which I didn’t think was unrealistic due to the album title.
But alas, that is not what we got.
The album is good, there are some really fun tracks. I love how in this sociopolitical climate, Carpenter got actor Coleman Domingo to don drag for a Rocky Horror-inspired music video, especially given the great extent to which trans, queer and gender non conforming folk are marginalised in this day and age, even more so if they are a person of colour.
I do, however, think that the cover and title set up people’s expectations that the album would be more subversive or cutting than it was in actuality. And while I do think this is a flaw of the album marketing, vision and disjointed ethos, I’m frustrated knowing that male artists don’t have such expectations and criticisms lobbied at them in the same way.
We criticise Benson Boone for many things (taking inspiration from queer aesthetics while also being outwardly neutral on politics that affect the very people he is taking inspiration from), but not being deep enough is never one of them despite penning “Moonbeam ice cream, taking off your blue jeans”.
Female performers are expected to cut themselves open and share their most vulnerable thoughts with the world. But men can write “watermelon sugar, high” and win a Grammy (before I get people yelling at me, I know Harry can write deep and emotionally resonant music, I am just using this as an example of how male pop stars are largely exempt from this criticism).
And yes, I think it is also worth noting where pop music stands in 2025. We are seeing new stars like Olivia Dean and Audrey Hobert on the rise, who are very openly singing about their innermost thoughts and personal experiences. A highlight of Dean’s discography is her song Carmen, a love letter to her grandmother who was part of the Windrush generation. Meanwhile, Hobert’s debut album is a collection of intrusive thoughts and insecurities reflecting the internal dread pervading the psyches of much of Gen Z.
Pop is taking to a more personal and emotionally charged place than it has been in the past decade with even the hyper pop spaces honouring more personal songwriting. For example, Charli XCX on Apple, I Think About It All The Time, and So I, with themes of generational trauma, anxieties about motherhood, and losing your best friend (however not every artist is like this, given the popularity of Addison Rae). This is even consistent with the male pop stars of 2025, with Sombr crooning about girls loved and lost, Conan Gray waxing poetic about queer heartbreak, and Role Model taking accountability for a relationship that failed due to his poor mental health.
But at the end of the day, it is almost as if there is no correct way to be a female musician. Taylor Swift writes 31 songs for a singular album discussing everything from losing the love of her life, delusional situationships, and her disdain towards the public’s obsession with her love life, and this album was criticised for being “too deep” and “trauma dumpy”. Sabrina Carpenter decides after the success of her sultry pop hits to write an album full of songs of the same vein, and then she gets slapped with the “shallow” label.
I think that many things can be true at once. Sabrina Carpenter and her team made a confused album, which seemed to want to be more subversive than the music actually was. Sabrina Carpenter is being held to unfair standards with her music, in a world where women are expected to be everything all at once. Sabrina Carpenter writes music that girls can relate to, and can dance to. Sabrina Carpenter’s new album is nothing like the diaristic style of emails i can’t send that she dropped in 2022.
Sabrina Carpenter is an imperfect popstar, and while I think we should always hold space for criticism, I will always ponder whether the critiques are unfairly gendered (as they so often are).
Top photo – Pictured: Sabrina Carpenter, Source: Instagram/sabrinacarpenter