MC’s MUSIC LOUGNE: Sabrina’s World
– 10 min read
Sabrina Carpenter is man’s best friend. Well, she is according to the promotional billboards across major cities promoting her new album. Man’s Best Friend the album, and its aesthetic feel like a continuation of her previous project but a little bit edgier and Sabrina is pushing boundaries in both her lyrics and imagery with more confidence and no apologies.
A pop album at its core with disco, funk and new jack swing elements, Man’s Best Friend has some strong musical undertones while not straying too far away from the formula that made her last album Short n’ Sweet the runaway hit that it was and continues to be. Upon first listen, some might think that many of the songs are throwaways from previous studio sessions but once you understand her influences, you can hear her going even deeper into the eras she has been exploring over the last few years – Donna Summer, Abba, Dolly Parton, The Bee Gees. The strings are lusher, the drums have more bounce and her vocals have developed into the centerpiece of the songs. Sabrina has some real underrated pipes, and many of these songs lean into those strengths, particularly on a track like “Sugar Talking”. It goes even deeper than the sound though since Sabrina has released this new album one year exactly after her previous work, similar to the way artists from the ‘70s would stack their album releases year after year. Back then, record labels would try to get the most out of their artists while they were in their vocal primes, opting to record more albums versus touring in those critical years. Mariah Carey followed a similar path during the ‘90s when she released seven studio albums and 2 compilations (yes, it really does always come back to queen MC). Sabrina mentioned being inspired by this method in a newsletter to fans back in June, and if she continues this for a few more years, her legacy is as good as set in stone.
As if this couldn’t have been predicted, the controversial album cover in fact does make perfect sense with the lyrical content of the album. As a self-proclaimed gay child of Madonna, I saw what Sabrina was doing from a mile away and it automatically sold me on the new era. The album cover is the very depiction of what Madonna has been preaching about since her 1989 “Express Yourself” music video when she was chained to a bed exerting dominance through submission. Sabrina laughed it off in a new interview with Gayle King, giving as Madonna of an answer that you can give in 2025. The new video for her next single “Tears” is pushing more boundaries featuring Coleman Domingo dressed fabulously in drag as the two dance around like only real queens can. It’s fun, tongue-in-chic and intentionally ruffling a feather or two – take that, Tommy from Arkansas.
Next week will be a week of soundtracks with new music from Lady Gaga with “The Dead Dance”, her new original song for the new season of Wednesday and the first release from Jennifer Lopez’s upcoming musical film Kiss of the Spider Woman. This week is a Sabrina takeover with two of my album highlights (and they’re the deeper cuts) along with new music from Skepta & Fred again…, TWICE, dvsn and a viral pick fit for a queen.
Listen on…
MC’s PICKS OF THE WEEK
“Never Getting Laid” by Sabrina Carpenter
Not the most obvious choice for favourite songs off the new Sabrina album but hear me out. From the minute the first beat drops on this banger, it is giving Bee Gees night fever through your entire body. I can hear the Gibb brothers singing over this luxurious beat. The lyrics are pointed towards an ex and they are firm in their intention and that’s him never getting laid, ever again. To the point where she hopes he believes that “abstinence is just a state of mind” as his coping mechanism. You know the wish is real when even the subject’s life after said wish is granted is taken into account. It’s just the right amount of anti-men content without feeling too preachy. Plus, singing so angelically about cursing your ex’s future sex life is a level of savage that only comes to those of us with a ton of practice in the matter. The reason why this song is one of my automatic highlights is boiled down to vibes. On an album that is filled with disco and funk influences, these smoother pop frequencies attract me the most. I grew up with the Bee Gees blaring through the speakers of my home thanks to my parents so those songs feel like a warm hug any time they come on. It’s always refreshing to see a modern day major popstar taking influence from that time, horny or not. While there are tons of other great songs on the album that have their own great sound from the disco era like “Tears” and “Nobody’s Son”, I’ll save my thoughts on those gems for the inevitable viral moments to come.
“House Tour” by Sabrina Carpenter
Sabrina dipping her toes into New Jack Swing was not on my bingo card this year. “House Tour” is one of the dirtier songs on the album, with lyrics like “I got some chips ahoy if you’re hungry” and the very sneaky “I promise none of this is a metaphor”. Hmmm… Sabrina offering her “chips ahoy” to her suitor? One of the cleverer connotations to her “cookies” so to speak, I’ll be using that one lol. An immediate smash that is criminally buried at track 11 on the album, this song has the blaring horns and bass-claps that made the late ‘80s and early ‘90s a revolutionary time in music. The song is both sultry yet absolutely ridiculous, basically following her thirst for this man to get into her pants, I mean house. The entire song is sexual innuendo, about entering “through the back door” and how she “spent a little fortune on the waxed floors”. Ever the relatable horny queen, I feel like she’s speaking my language. Well, if we’re being literal maybe only half my language given the previous lyrics but the point is it’s campy and it works. The end of the song has Sabrina instructing her man to take his shoes off. This is her marking her territory and letting it be known that while she may want him to “come inside” in her house, make no f*king mistake about it, it’s still very much her house so she’s calling all the shots. If we are looking for songs off the album that can “justify” the controversial album cover then “House Tour” is a prime example of that. Besides, why is the accusation always that female artists are trying to attract the “male gaze” whenever they are expressing their sexual fantasies? In Sabrina’s world, the only gaze that matters is her own.
“Back 2 Back” by Skepta, Fred again…
There’s no producer that is hotter with the festival ravers right now than Fred again… who has made a name for himself on the underground grime scene before blowing up and earning millions of devoted fans. His latest collaboration with fellow grime rapper Skepta “Back 2 Back” is the follow-up to their summer smash “Victory Lap” which went viral earlier this summer. Some may even call this the continuation and literal “victory lap” following the success of said song – and every hit needs a sequel, right? The production is just as nasty and Skepta’s flow is just as smooth except maybe this time he’s even cockier in his delivery. Skepta channels his come-up and the struggle it was to be taken seriously as an artist on a worldwide level. The best part of the track however is the originality behind the beats as generally up until this point Fred again… has become synonymous with flipping samples into new beats. This time around he started from a blank canvas creating an original track free of samples, allowing for Skepta’s lyricism and voice to shine on their own without the distraction of an already recognizable melody carrying the song. With “Back 2 Back” it’s both Fred again… and Skepta’s talents that do all the talking, and they’re in their bags. Both “Victory Lap” and “Back 2 Back” are featured on their new collaboration EP Skepta… Fred that also features three other bangers from the two for all the club kids to devour.
“Up to you” by TWICE
The MC K-pop/J-pop discovery journey continues and this time it’s the latest release from girl group TWICE. The girls have released their sixth album in Japanese titled Enemy, adding to their vast discography of both Korean and Japanese albums that have helped make them one of the most successful girl groups of the last 10 years. “Up to you” feels like a bubblegum pop song that requires you to dance your troubles away in a world of rainbows and butterflies where the “skies are ocean blue”. Where most girl groups have a sexy edge, it seems that TWICE are on the other end of the spectrum – embracing youthful and sweeter aesthetics that are fun and appropriate for all ages. After my first full listen of this latest project, I can see a young five-year-old me dancing alone in his bedroom – and that’s a very happy place to be. I first was introduced to the girls when they were featured on Megan the Stallion’s deluxe album Megan last summer on the remix to her hit “Mamushi” which in turn led to Megan being featured on their own single “Strategy”, both absolute bangers that found their way onto my 2024 playlist and also a bit of a departure from their usual bubblegum pop sound. They may be experimenting with new aesthetics and sounds but their newest album shows that they have not abandoned their roots, delivering an easy, breezy pop record. The girls are also on the verge of a major North American takeover as they recently became the first-ever K-pop girl group to headline Lollapalooza in Chicago last month. Between the multiple mega-selling groups and runaway hit that is KPop Demon Hunters, this summer belonged to K-pop.
“Excited” by dvsn
R&B duo dvsn have kicked off their newest musical cycle since signing a new joint deal with Jermaine Dupri’s So So Def Recordings and HYBE America. This of course comes off the heels of their OVO Sound deal being completed after years of success with the label that is famously run by Drake. The latest track “Excited” has the duo’s alternative-R&B sound but this time with a new twist with echoes from the early 2000s and a sample of Floetry’s “Say Yes”. My fellow R&B heads will recognize the sound of Floetry anywhere – the track was a big hit back in 2003 when it hit #8 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop charts and #24 on the Hot 100. Lyrically, the song explains the intoxicating rush that one gets when they are together with their lover, both lustful and emotional. While I have always had a strong appreciation for the experimental R&B that came out of the mid-2010s (the era in which dvsn debuted), there’s nothing like the melodies that R&B tunes from the early aughts had. There’s a simplicity to them that makes them such irresistible ear worms – mixed with the smooth beats underneath and it’s a perfect love-making recipe. This sound is a no-brainer for dvsn who are made up of vocalist Daniel Daley and producer Nineteen85 who recently lent his producing talents to Mariah the Scientist’s latest album, a love letter to ‘80s R&B (as highlighted in last week’s column). The outro of the song with Daley’s buttery smooth vocals over those piano notes is all the healing my soul needs as we transition out of summer. Relying on nostalgia is a common thread in today’s media world, but dvsn have found a way to still carve their own niche that makes their sound still feel new while still having those throwback elements that we all adore.
MC’s VIRAL PICK
“All Night” by Beyoncé
A crowning jewel in every single Beyoncé album is the inevitable R&B-driven slow jam. For Lemonade, an album that is rich in diverse musical genres packaged in a concise 12-songs, it is “All Night” and 9 years later the song continues to breathe new life into one of her most successful and career-changing projects. “All Night” has been adapted by social media users as a “hard launch” soundtrack, the moment when you are ready to announce to the world that the person you have been dating or seeing is officially yours and you two are committed to each other. It wouldn’t be social media without a challenge of some sort and the “All Night” challenge is fairly simple. The two of you walk hand in hand, back to the camera while one of your grabs the other by the legs and lift them up, holding them in their arms like a baby. Lainey tells me this is what Chinese and Korean drama audiences have known for years to be a variation on the “princess carry”. All of course to the soundtrack of the pre-chorus and chorus of the song where B sings those famous “kiss-up and rub-up and feel-up on you” lyrics. Seems romantic and also a little dangerous, so basically my love language. If my little summer 2025 fling had worked out, I could see myself taking part but alas not everything is meant to be. As my queen MC says, we love everybody (even if the bullet was dodged dahhling)!
@dianaasburlea <3 @Roman Benjamin #fyp #beyonce #allnight #trends
♬ All Night - Beyoncé
@nikki_rodriguez 1 for 2
♬ All Night - Beyoncé
@jujulaparisienne hard launch
♬ All Night - Beyoncé
@lilireinhart ♬ All Night - Beyoncé
@embreighcourtlyn Bae @deja 🦦
♬ All Night - Beyoncé
“All Night” has benefitted tons from this trend, with the song being one of the most popular sounds on the TikTok app over the last few weeks garnering an impressive 225k uses at the time of writing and is currently Beyoncé’s third most popular song on Spotify in terms of daily streams only behind “Halo” and “Crazy in Love” earning over 500k+ streams a day on Spotify alone. Not bad for a song that was an album track from a nine-year-old album, it is Beyoncé though so I can’t say I’m surprised – greatness always prevails.
You can also check out my “MC’s MUSIC LOUNGE” Spotify playlist here to keep up to date with my weekly picks throughout the year.
With Love,
MC
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