There’s no question that Man’s Best Friend , Sabrina Carpenter’s seventh studio album , is first and foremost a breakup album. When she celebrated its release on August 29, she posted on Instagram that the songs came from a place of “ pure inspiration ,” which is to say, when she’s pissed off in the music, you can trust that she’s pissed off for real. That’s what makes Carpenter such a compelling pop star — her work toes a line between confessional and performative: We may think the crux of this album is her split from actor Barry Keoghan, but she would never be so transparent as to come out and say it. Still, she gets about as close as she can on Man’s Best Friend ’s stealth best song, “My Man on Willpower.”

The track’s title is one of the album’s most beguiling turns of phrase

See Full Page