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Pop superstardom, it turns out, did absolutely nothing to improve Sabrina Carpenter’s love life.

That’s the thrust of the singer’s shrewd and tangy “Man’s Best Friend,” which dropped Thursday night, just a year after last summer’s chart-topping “Short n’ Sweet.” The earlier album, which spun off a pair of smash singles in “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” went on to be certified triple platinum and to win two Grammy Awards — more than enough to transform Carpenter, now 26, from a former Disney kid into the latest (and horniest) member of pop’s A list.

Yet all that success seems only to have attracted more of the losers she sang about last time. Here she’s dealing with a smooth talker doling out empty promises, a crybaby who can’t decide what he wants, even a guy so fixated on self-betterment that he’s lost interest in the bedroom.

“He’s busy, he’s working, he doesn’t have time for me,” she trills exasperatedly in “My Man on Willpower,” “My slutty pajamas not tempting him in the least.”

It’s a veritable gallery of rogues, this LP, not least the dude in the dark suit pictured on the cover of “Man’s Best Friend” with a hank of Carpenter’s blond hair in his fist as she kneels before him. The image inspired an instant controversy when she unveiled it in June, with critics accusing her of propping up dangerous ideas about the submission of women in the age of the tradwife.

Responded the singer in a CBS News interview that aired Friday: “Y’all need to get out more.”

Indeed, to take the album artwork at face value is to miss the whole point of Sabrina Carpenter, which is not just lampooning a prudish instinct — of course she’s in on the joke — but demonstrating the limits of a dating scene — of an entire social power structure — in which this is what a girl at the top has to work with.

“I like my boys playing hard to get / And I like my men all incompetent,” she sings in the LP’s opener and lead single, “Manchild.” She swears she’s not choosing them — that they keep choosing her. Then she punctuates the claim by batting her fake eyelashes and rhyming “Amen” with a flirty “Hey, men.”

As with “Short n’ Sweet,” Carpenter made “Man’s Best Friend” with a tight crew of accomplices — Jack Antonoff, John Ryan and Amy Allen, plus a bunch of tasty studio players — and once again they get a sound that combines the hooky splendor of ’70s-era AM-radio pop (think ELO, Wings and especially ABBA) with touches of country and dance music.

“Tears,” in which Carpenter lusts after a guy capable of putting together a chair from IKEA, is a pillowy disco thumper with echoes of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “That’s the Way (I Like It)”; “Nobody’s Son” puts starchy palm-court strings over a bouncy reggae groove. Carpenter’s singing plays like an actor’s sizzle reel, by turns winsome, sneering, bubbly and resigned; in the twangy “Go Go Juice” alone — it’s about a woman who’s woken up at 10 a.m. and opted to spend the day drunk-dialing exes — she runs through every emotional gradient separating determination from shame.

Song for song — line for line, really — “Man’s Best Friend” isn’t quite as sharp as “Short n’ Sweet,” which offered the rare thrill of a young artist coming into her own on her sixth studio album. Occasionally, you can sense Carpenter reaching for a memeable lyric, as in the many gags about wetness in “Tears”; “When Did You Get Hot?,” meanwhile, feels like something Ariana Grande abandoned after workshopping for a minute.

When she’s on, though, she’s on: “Goodbye” is a dazzling orchestral-pop number in which she gives the boot to a hot-and-cold lover — “Arrivederci, au revoir / Forgive my French, but f— you, ta-ta” — and “House Tour” a winking sex romp whose thwacking drums and rubbery funk bass call to mind Paula Abdul’s “Opposites Attract.” (After Doja Cat’s Antonoff-produced “Jealous Type,” might this signal a coming Abdul-aissance?)

Near the end of the album, Carpenter dials down the comedy for “Don’t Worry I’ll Make You Worry,” a sad and shimmery ballad about the thin line between love and war. “Silent treatment and humbling your ass / Well, that’s some of my best work,” she sings over strummed acoustic guitar before promising oh so sweetly to “leave you feeling like a shell of a man.”

If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.

Sabrina Carpenter doesn’t care what “Tommy from Arkansas” thinks about her artistic choices.

In an interview with “CBS Mornings” on Friday, the “Espresso” singer talked about her reaction to the controversy behind the cover of her seventh album, “Man’s Best Friend,” which displays Carpenter on her knees at the feet of a male figure pulling her hair.

Gayle King read aloud a comment in which a fan said that Carpenter “can’t have it both ways. If it’s satire of how men treat us, it can’t also be a straightforward image of a woman being submissive just because it’s sexy.”

“Y’all need to get out more,” Carpenter told King. “I think I was actually shocked because I think between me and my friends and my family and the people that I always share my music and my art with first, it just wasn’t even a conversation.”

Last year, Carpenter released the album “Short n’ Sweet,” an LP that became one of the vibe setters for last summer.

During the 67th Grammys ceremony, the record took home two awards — pop vocal album and pop solo performance for “Espresso.”

Her follow-up effort was released on Thursday; the original artwork dropped months before, on June 11. By June 25, and amid the backlash, the artist posted an alternative cover on her Instagram that was “approved by God.” In it, the former Disney Channel co-star of “Girl Meets World” — she also sang the theme song — is simply standing by a man.

During the interview, the “Please Please Please” singer discussed her intentions behind the original cover art that divided fans.

“My interpretation is being in on the control, being in on your lack of control and when you want to be in control,” Carpenter said. “I think as a young woman, you’re just as aware of when you’re in control as to when you’re not.”

She added: “[‘Man’s Best Friend’ is] about the humanity of allowing yourself to make those mistakes, knowing when you’re putting yourself in a situation that will probably end up poorly, but it’s going to teach you something.”

But what do her parents think?

“My parents actually saw the photo, and they loved it.”

Sabrina Carpenter divided fans earlier this month with her choice of cover art for her forthcoming album, “Man’s Best Friend.” Playing on the title, she poses on all fours like a dog while a faceless man pulls her hair.

While some interpreted the cover as cheeky and ironic — especially given the themes of the album’s first single, “Manchild” — others accused the former Disney Channel star of promoting sexist stereotypes and setting women‘s rights back decades.

Carpenter has addressed criticism by releasing an alternative cover “approved by God,” the singer revealed Wednesday on Instagram.

The black-and-white image seemingly channels Marilyn Monroe as the singer, dressed in an elegant beaded gown, leans against a man in a suit. Carpenter is front and center while the man‘s face is partially hidden.

This isn’t the first time Carpenter has ruffled some feathers.

In 2023, she received backlash from the Catholic Church after she filmed parts of her “Feather” music video at the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church. The Diocese of Brooklyn said it was “appalled” by the nature of the video and the priest who allowed her to film there was removed from his administrative duties.

When asked about the incident in an interview with Variety, Carpenter responded, “Jesus was a carpenter.” She doubled down during her Coachella debut in 2024, wearing a shirt with the same phrase.

The singer has also raised eyebrows on her Short n’ Sweet Tour, which returns to North America this fall. During her sultry performance of “Juno,” she acts out a different sex position every night.

Carpenter addressed the criticism that she’s shaped her entire brand around sex in her June cover story with Rolling Stone.

“It’s always funny to me when people complain,” she said. “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.”

In a since-deleted post, an X user shared the first “Man’s Best Friend” cover and asked, “Does she have a personality outside of sex?” Carpenter responded, “Girl yes and it is goooooood.”

Among those who came to Carpenter’s defense of the original album art was “You’re So Vain” singer Carly Simon, who received backlash for the cover of her 1975 album, “Playing Possum.”

“She’s not doing anything outrageous,” Simon told Rolling Stone. “It seems tame. There have been far flashier covers than hers. One of the most startling covers I’ve ever seen was [the Rolling Stones’] ‘Sticky Fingers.’ That was out there in terms of sexual attitude. So I don’t know why she’s getting such flak.”

“Man’s Best Friend” will be released Aug. 29, a little over a year after Carpenter’s last project, “Short n’ Sweet.” Signed editions and copies with the alternative cover are available for preorder on her website.