With Man’s Best Friend now settling on the mind like an uncomfortable encounter with a ticket inspector on an empty train, the shuffling embarrassment, the awkward silence to follow the lack of purpose behind the music, is embedded. It continues with Such a Funny Way. Where Sabrina Carpenter initially split the pearl-clutching purists from the provocateurs, it turns out it was both who looked foolish. Carpenter’s latest album is a rigid set of shallow pop songs which does nothing to elevate her capabilities as a songwriter. Her repetition of genre fad and nostalgic beats is enough to win some over, and her sexualised, plain style opens the door for people to project themselves onto the stories at hand. There is a skill involved in convincing people that there is depth to this music. Such a Funny Way continues that grift, the bonus track an inevitability of a popstar with vinyl variants to shift.
Crucial to this is that Carpenter is just a drop in the ocean of pop grifts. Her provocative style, yet lacking substance as both a performer and cultural commentator, was a revealing moment for Man’s Best Friend. As it turns out, the cover controversy was not a comment on the male gaze, nor was it an empowerment of sexualisation. A simple message got lost in the one-tree forest. Try again with Such a Funny Way, then, a predictable song which hears out those usual tropes. Carpenter cannot write about sex well enough to make it sound like anything more than the act itself being satisfying. There’s not a moment of intimacy, doubt, or interest in how she portrays the act of a loving embrace. It’s transactional. But, then, so too is pop music. Carpenter using her strongest song from the Man’s Best Friend sessions as the bonus track is not ironic; it’s just frustrating.
Here is where she gets to grips with a depth, a detail which brings on a questioning tone to those overt and clear intimate acts. It’s not shyness but a clarity of falling when you can’t help but feel it is a disaster to do so. But then it takes the typical turn, those verses wasted on a faux playfulness heard in the piano burst and clinging to the smell, taste, and memory of polite sentimentality. When charting already ventured waters, any artist with respect for their craft will try and find a new way through. Even if it fails, it’s considerate to try. Carpenter does not. She does not need to. She has topped the charts with this sound, and once you hit the high point of sold-out stadium shows, why change what the people want? What they think they want is what they get in these instances, and it means the project, no matter the artist, is weaker for it.
Carpenter has played up the tone of Short ‘n’ Sweet just barely enough to warrant a selection of new songs. Such a Funny Way has promise to it, which is crushed as soon as the tempo changes. It’s back to the similar tricks of Man’s Best Friend from there on. But for a moment, it sounds as though Carpenter could develop this plain and obvious notion into a sincere comment. That would not bag the success Carpenter has enjoyed for the last year, and so whatever that message was, be it liberation or rebellion, is shied away from. In its place is a vagueness which neither denounces nor displays any nuance. Not a moment on Such a Funny Way suggests any growth for artist or genre, and that’s the damnable part of it beyond those so-called pearl-clutching listeners pointing out there is no substance to be found.
