After Espresso and Please Please Please, Sabrina Carpenter has made the cover art of her forthcoming album, Man’s Best Friend (set to release on August 29), a conversation starter rather than the first track — Manchild.
She is seen on all fours while a suited figure — just out of frame — is clutching her hair. The 26-year-old in a little black dress appears to be “pawing” for attention in the high-contrast image with a filmic quality. It’s a reminder of a photo shoot of French singer and actor Serge Gainsbourg and his then-partner, British actor Jane Birkin.
Her growing catalogue is sassy and, at the same time, provokes smirks and winks. A young woman enjoying her sexuality? She is not the first one.
It’s a strategy as old as Elvis Presley when the singer appeared on The Milton Berle Show in 1956, gyrating his hips while performing Hound Dog. What came next was enough to make it to newspapers all over the US: The American TV host Ed Sullivan said Presley would be shown only from the waist up on his show. It was enough to awaken curiosity in millions and millions of people.
The publicity machine didn’t stop with Presley. In 1976, the Sex Pistols were on the Bill Grundy Show. “Say something outrageous,” was how the show went. The group did what they were told.
Take the case of Madonna, who built an establishment dedicated to shock-and-awe tactics. In 1986, she sang of teenage pregnancy in Papa Don’t Preach and then in 1990 released the video to Justify My Love with its themes of sadomasochism. The video had everything to gain in terms of popularity once it was banned on popular TV.
“It’s always so funny to me when people complain,” Carpenter told Rolling Stone. “They’re like, ‘All she does is sing about this.’ But those are the songs that you’ve made popular. Clearly you love sex. You’re obsessed with it. It’s in my show. There’s so many more moments than the ‘Juno’ positions, but those are the ones you post every night and comment on. I can’t control that. If you come to the show, you’ll [also] hear the ballads, you’ll hear the more introspective numbers. I find irony and humor in all of that, because it seems to be a recurring theme. I’m not upset about it, other than I feel mad pressure to be funny sometimes.”
Carpenter is a musician who plays with how images are portrayed. Her stage persona is that of a 1950s pin-up... a Betty Boop figure in corsets and high heels against silhouettes of hearts. But when you listen to her songs, you find well-crafted lyrics that build on the image of a powerful woman.
Listen to her song Dumb and Poetic from her 2024 album Short n’ Sweet: J*** off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen/ Don’t think you understand/ Just ’cos you talk like one doesn’t make you a man. In Good Graces she unleashes fury: I’ll tell the world you finish your chores prematurely/ Break my heart, and I swear I’m movin’ on/ With your favourite athlete.
Look beyond the album cover of her forthcoming release: You can’t make it in the music business without strong sales numbers. She is not reducing women to pets; she is simply calling women to join her for a Spritz while sharing stories of their lives.