Man's Best Friend (Sabrina Carpenter album)

Man's Best Friend is the seventh studio album by the American singer-songwriter Sabrina Carpenter. It was released on August 29, 2025, through Island Records. Carpenter produced the album with Jack Antonoff and John Ryan, who also produced tracks on her previous studio album, Short n' Sweet (2024). Primarily a pop and soft rock record, its lead single, "Manchild", charted at number one in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and in the top ten in several worldwide territories. Carpenter selected "Tears" as the second single, released concurrently with the album as the second track.

The cover artwork, evoking dominance and submission, generated controversy and significant media attention; some criticized it as appealing to the male gaze in a manner detrimental to women, while others saw it as satire and a way to challenge misogynistic expectations of women's sexual behavior. Later, Carpenter released an alternate direct-to-consumer cover, which she described as "approved by God".

Man's Best Friend received generally positive reviews upon release, with praise for its production and Carpenter's vocals, but criticism for its sexual and mature lyrics. The album debuted at number one in 18 countries, including the United States, where it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Man's Best Friend and its songs earned six nominations at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album.

Production and release

On June 11, 2025, less than a year after the release of her sixth album Short n' Sweet (2024), Sabrina Carpenter teased her next album in an Instagram Live in which she was "rifling through a stack of records by Donna Summer, ABBA, and Dolly Parton, before landing on her own".

As opposed to previous albums where Carpenter had worked with a variety of songwriters and producers, she instead chose to work with only three of her previous collaborators: songwriter Amy Allen, and producers Jack Antonoff and John Ryan. Carpenter stated that the writing and recording process of the album "felt like a band", and added that she and Allen would sing melodies and lyrics during long walks, while Antonoff and Ryan would work on building "cinematic gorgeous arrangements" for each track. With this album, Carpenter made her record producer debut, co-producing all the tracks with Antonoff and Ryan. Man's Best Friend was released on August 29, 2025.

Composition

Man’s Best Friend is primarily a pop and soft rock record that blends retro-inspired styles. Critics have compared the album's music to ABBA, and Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album. The album's eclectic production includes Clavinet, sitar and agogô. The lyrics are snarky and witty.

Album artwork and controversy

The album's cover artwork, revealed via Carpenter's Instagram account on June 11, 2025, features her posed on a hand and knees in a black mini dress and heels while an anonymous male figure, cropped out of the frame, grabs her hair. Another promotional image showcases a dog with the album's name written on its collar. The cover received criticism and garnered controversy on social media. Some critics deemed it offensive and appealing to the male gaze in a detrimental manner to women. Glasgow Women's Aid, a charity providing support for victims of domestic abuse, called it "regressive" and "pandering to the male gaze and [promotion of] misogynistic stereotypes" with "an element of violence and control". Kuba Shand-Baptiste of The i Paper wrote: "At best, Carpenter's cover is a bad example of satire. It's titillating to those who do believe women are inferior". Arwa Mahdawi of The Guardian said the cover was not "subtle or sex-positive—it's just soft porn pandering to the male gaze", criticizing the concept of hair-grabbing as insensitive.

Others saw the cover as satire—a way to challenge "misogynistic expectations of women" and their sexual desires. Adrian Horton of The Guardian thought that Carpenter was "clearly working in the Madonna tradition of sexual provocation for provocation's sake, poking fun at tropes and people's prudishness with an alluring frankness". Dominique Sisley of Dazed wrote: "The idea that one image has that much influence, in an internet full of hardcore pornography, where men can now freely make deepfakes or use AI prompts to create a whole world of horrors, seems a bit delusional". Jessica Clark of Mamamia thought that Carpenter was "not reinforcing objectification, but rather skewering it". Helen Coffey of The Independent believed that the cover's detractors "know literally nothing about Carpenter, her music or her brand". Emma Specter of Vogue called the controversy the result of a "depressingly puritanical society". Taylor Crumpton of Time similarly stated that Carpenter "is not the problem. Our lack of orgasms is." Carly Simon, whose 1975 album Playing Possum received similar controversy, defended the cover and did not understand why it was "getting such flak". She said: "It seems tame. There have been far flashier covers than hers."

Carpenter released an alternative cover artwork for the album for pre-order on June 25, jokingly responding to the controversy by stating that the alternative cover was "approved by God". It depicts her in a gown at a formal event, grabbing onto a suited man's arm and looking off-camera. Some media publications thought that the cover referenced a 1957 photograph of Marilyn Monroe and her then-husband, Arthur Miller. A second artwork variant, featuring Carpenter lounging on a chair in a room filled with flowers and holding a card with the album's initials "M.B.F.", was made available for pre-order on July 8. A third artwork variant—dubbed the "final" alternate—was unveiled on August 8, showcasing Carpenter hosting a dinner in a "sparkling" blue dress, while she "commands" five men, dressed in tuxedos; simultaneously, a bonus track for the variant, "Such a Funny Way", was announced.

In an interview with Gayle King for CBS Mornings, Carpenter defended her decision to release the album with its original artwork, stating "I think between me and my friends and my family and the people that I always share my music and my art with first, it was … it just wasn't even a conversation. It was just, like, it's perfect. For what the album is, it's perfect for, you know, kind of what it represents. My interpretation is being in on the control. Being in on your lack of control and when you want to be in control. I think as a young woman, you're just as aware of when you're in control as when you're not." She further told Apple Music's Zane Lowe that she believed it to be a generational reaction, stating "There is a generation that gets offended by some of the things I do, and it's a generation that has either young children ... or they've raised children, and they're just sort of looking at it from a different point in their life – sort of scolding." She also described the artwork as an accident.

Promotion

Starting on July 23, 2025, Carpenter began revealing the album's track titles via social media posts of hand-selected fans posing with puppies. She finished her Lollapalooza performance on August 3 with a teaser video for the album. She also held album listening parties in Los Angeles and New York where twenty-six fans each were given an exclusive listen to the unreleased album. The Short n' Sweet Tour, which began in 2024 and contains dates until November 2025, also serves to promote Man's Best Friend.

Singles and music videos

"Manchild" was released as the album's lead single on June 5. Co-written with Amy Allen and Jack Antonoff, both of whom had previously worked on Short n' Sweet, the song is a country-influenced pop song that lyrically adopts a playful tone as it critiques immature male behavior. The single topped the charts in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, where it marked Carpenter's second number-one on the Billboard Hot 100; it also charted in the top twenty in other countries, including Germany, Norway, and the Philippines. The music video for the song, directed by Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia, was inspired by the fast-paced editing of movie trailers. The video, released on June 6, depicts Carpenter hitchhiking across the American West with a "diverse crop of men" (some of whom use strange modes of transportation, such as a jet ski, a shopping cart attached to a motorcycle, and a motorized recliner chair), and getting into wacky and dangerous scenarios (such as wielding a shotgun, falling off a cliff, and encountering an orca). Carpenter performed "Manchild" for the first time at Primavera Sound 2025 on June 6.