In the music industry, as with many industries, it’s known as a dog-eat-dog world. Even at the top of the charts, it’s generally understood that competition is fierce, and the playing field is full of people who have worked for what they have and are not intent on letting it go any time soon.
With the industry being male-dominated, there’s even more to overcome as a female artist. Sexism runs rampant, both within the industry itself and in the press, and even amongst fans. A long list of male artists and male-fronted bands full of men top the charts, taking up line after line after line of number 1s, 2s, and 3s.
What’s a girl to do?
Enter Sabrina Carpenter and her newest, extremely aptly named album, Man’s Best Friend.
Just last year, we saw her climb her way up the ladder with hit after hit from Short n’ Sweet. August is clearly her lucky month, as both albums have been immediate successes.
Short n’ Sweet, boasting songs like “Espresso”, “Please, Please, Please”, and “Taste”, sitting at number 1 on the US Pop charts, now joined with Man’s Best Friend, which has climbed its way to that same number 1 spot in just a week of being released.
Her first single from the album “Manchild”, released in June of this year, has already gone platinum on American, Australian, and Canadian charts.
As a successor, “Tears” is not far behind, having already amassed over 9 million streams on the Global Spotify chart. Not to mention the music video.
A 5-minute masterpiece, some might say. “Tears” shows Sabrina (and her good-for-nothing boyfriend) after their car has seemingly crashed into a ditch, leaving our heroine to wander to the nearest house in search of help.
If this sounds like Rocky Horror, then you’ve definitely caught on to what one can assume was a massive inspiration here. With drag queens and camp humor galore, “Tears” has a wide cast of characters, who are all seemingly protagonists and antagonists within their own right, all at the same time.
The entire thing leans into a theme that seems to have started back when the music video for “Feather” came out in 2023. That video depicted Sabrina doing what she does best: being the object of affection for men everywhere and not sparing them a second glance.
Over time, if you’ve been paying attention, you may have seen the “controversy” that has followed this young woman. Suffering from what some call the “Disney Star Curse,” Sabrina found herself shoved into the box of innocence for her role in Girl Meets World, and never to be let out of that box, even when she grew up.
Now at 26, she is still fighting that box.
There are some who claim that she’s somewhere between “inappropriate” and “catering to the male gaze”, but there are also plenty of listeners across the board who can truly see what Sabrina is doing for what it is.
After all, with songs like “My Man on Willpower”, “We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night”, and “Tears”, the message becomes clear if one takes a moment to listen.
Sabrina Carpenter does not write break-up albums. She writes albums that very blatantly convey a sentiment that so many women (and men, and all the genders in between) have felt themselves feeling at least once or twice.
“Men ain’t shit.”
While it’s true that Sabrina explores sexuality within her lyrics and her fashion, at the heart of it all is a kind of empowerment that doesn’t get embodied nearly enough in an age of female oppression. She does what she wants for herself, not for others. She sings about her experience, as so many artists do, but she never compromises the stories that she’s telling.
Like every person on earth, she has been wronged- but unlike every person on earth, she decided to put those feelings into songs. Some may call them campy or full of satire, but at the base of it all, there is no denying that the sentiments come from a very real place that so many people can relate to.
With Man’s Best Friend still hot off the vinyl presses, there’s no telling where the story will take us next. What adventures will we be tagging along with?
One thing’s for certain. It’s going to be a hell of a ride.
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