Rating: 8/10
Sabrina summer is back.
Jack Antonoff returns to work with Sabrina as a returning producer on “Manchild” after the two worked together on previous tracks “Please Please Please,” “Slim Pickins” and “Busy Woman.”
The singer opens the track with a hint of sarcasm by chuckling and then sighing “Oh boy.” The song begins with a Jack Antonoff-made synth pop, as Carpenter sings in the first verse, “It’s all just so familiar, baby, what do you call it?”
Transitioning into the pre-chorus, the song takes a yee-haw turn for the better; a banjo and sitar are blended into the production with the synthesizer base that makes the sound feel more complete.
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It’s quite noticeable here that Carpenter is dipping her toes in the country pop sound, teasing a potential switch up from her regular pop sound.
She goes through a list of potential names for an old lover — “stupid”, “useless” — until she finds one that finally clicks, “But there’s a cuter word for it, I know,” she sings.
The chorus is delivered with a cathartic chant: “Man-child/ Why you always come a-running to me?/ Fuck my life/ Won’t you let an innocent woman be?”
In the second verse, Carpenter asks herself “Why so sexy if so dumb?” and then answers “I choose to blame your mom.”
Arriving at the bridge displays how the song progressively becomes more triumphant, as she sings, “Oh, I like my boys playing hard to get/ And I like my men all incompetent/ And I swear they choose me, I’m not choosing them.”
One of the most captivating parts of the song comes after, “Amen, hey men” she sings with a smirk in the vocal delivery.
In an Instagram post following the song’s release, the singer shared that she wrote the song on “a random tuesday” shortly after finishing the “Short n’ Sweet” album.
A year ago, Sabrina Carpenter released her hit single “Espresso” from her sixth studio album, “Short n’ Sweet,” which was a massive success — becoming both Apple Music and Spotify’s most streamed song of the year.
The song single-handedly launched Carpenter to another atmosphere of pop fame — one that she had been striving towards for almost a decade.
It didn’t end there, as the album’s second single “Please Please Please” gave Carpenter her first ever No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, showcasing the singer’s promise to produce hit after hit.
Prior to the release of her “Short n’ Sweet” album in August 2024, Sabrina was an opening act for Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” legs in Latin America, Australia and Asia.
Since then, she’s been on the road with her sold out “Short n’ Sweet” tour that is set to conclude in Los Angeles this November.
Earlier this year, Carpenter won her first GRAMMY awards with Best Pop Solo Performance for “Espresso” and Best Pop Vocal Album for “Short n’ Sweet.”
In celebration of her Recording Academy wins, she released a deluxe version of the album, thanking her fans for their support of the project.
The quick release of this song after recently dropping the deluxe version of “Short n’ Sweet” has caused speculation on whether or not this single is a part of her next studio album or just a song that was left off her sixth record.
Rest assured, Carpenter took to Instagram a week after the song’s release and announced her seventh album, “Man’s Best Friend,” out August 29, where you can find “Manchild” as the album’s opening track.
One thing is for certain — Sabrina Carpenter sounds just as confident and quirky on this single like her previous record.
