2026 Grammy Nominee - Sabrina Carpenter - "Manchild"

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. I'm Garrett Fisher, And in early twenty twenty five, Sabrina Carpenter had a decision to make. She was twenty six years old and at the absolute peak of her career. Her sixth album, Short and Sweet, released in August twenty twenty four, had become a cultural phenomenon. Espresso was the song of Summer twenty twenty four, an inescapable earworm that peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot one hundred. Please Please Please hit number one. The album itself topped the Billboard two hundred. Then came February twenty twenty five, at the sixty seventh Grammy Awards, Carpenter won her first two Grammys, Best Pop Solo Performance for Espresso and Best Pop Vocal Album for Short and Sweet.

0:56 After years of grinding she'd released her first album back in two thousand and fifteen, when she was just sixteen, Sabrina Carpenter was finally getting the recognition she'd earned. She was on a massive, sold out tour. Radio loved her. Streaming numbers were astronomical. She'd found a formula that worked. Clever innuendo leyden pop songs with sixties girl group influences and modern production courtesy of Jack Antonoff and others. Why mess with success? And yet, sitting somewhere with a random idea, Sabrina Carpenter decided to write a country song Let's Back Up. Because to understand Manchild, the lead single from her seventh album, Man's Best Friend, released June fifth, twenty twenty five, you need to understand who Sabrina Carpenter is and how she got here. Carpenter was born in nineteen ninety nine in Pennsylvania.

1:48 She was a Disney kid starred in Girl Meets World from twenty fourteen to twenty seventeen. Like a lot of young actors who also sang, she got a record deal while still on the show. Her early albums were pleasant but unremarkable teen pop, the kind of music that gets released because you're on a Disney show, not because you're making artistic statements. But Carpenter kept working album after album, year after year. She wasn't an overnight success. She was grinding it out, writing, constantly developing her voice, both literally and artistically. By her fifth album, twenty twenty two's emails I Can't Send, she'd found something closer to her authentic, self confessional, witty, a little bit heartbroken, a little bit defiant.

2:35 Then came Short and Sweet in twenty twenty four, and everything clicked. The Dolly parton influence, the cheeky wordplay, their fusal to take herself too seriously while still being emotionally honest, songs like Nonsense, where she'd improvise different outros at every tour stop. The album was only thirty six minutes long, hence the title, but it was perfectly instructed, no filler, just hits. By late twenty twenty four, Carpenter had opened for Taylor Swift on multiple legs of the aristour, experienced her first massive solo success, and proven she could carry an album on her own creative vision. She was working on new material for what would become Man's Best Friend, her seventh album, and on one random Tuesday, not too long after finishing Short and Sweet, Carpenter was in the studio with two of her key collaborators, Amy Allen and Jack Antonoff. Amy Allen had co written every single track on Short and Sweet. She understood Carpenter's voice, her humor, her way of looking at relationships. Jack Antonoff well. By twenty twenty five, Antonov had become pop music's most in demand producer. Taylor Swift, Lord, Lna del Rey, the nineteen seventy five and now Sabrina Carpenter. He'd worked on several short and sweet tracks, including Please Please Please and Slim Pickens.

4:02 On this particular Tuesday, they started working on a song that would become Manchild. The premise was simple but universally relatable. Why are we attracted to incompetent men? The guys who are gorgeous but can't handle basic adult responsibilities, The ones whose brains seem only half functional, The ones who make you wonder how they've survived this long on earth. Carpenter didn't write it about anyone specific. She made that clear later. She was still dating actor Barry Keegan when she wrote Manchild, and they wouldn't break up until December twenty twenty five. This wasn't a disc track aimed at a particular X. It was something more interesting, a self aware examination of her own patterns. The song opens with Carpenter chuckling, then sighing, Oh boy, right away, you know the tone. This isn't going to be angry or bitter. This is going to be exasperated. Amused, knowing a loving eye roll, as Carpenter would later describe it. The verses lay out the situation with specific funny details. A guy whose phone was broken, he just forgot to charge it. His outfit is so ridiculous, you hope it's ironic, he says, he's finished, But you didn't even know you'd start it. It's all familiar, and that's the point. Carpenter is describing experiences that feel achingly specific but are actually incredibly common. Then comes the pre chorus, where she cycles through possible descriptions stupid or is it slow?

5:39 Maybe it's useless. But there's a cuter word for it, I know, and that word, of course, is Manchild. Musically, the song does something clever. It starts with synthpop production, very much in the short and sweet Wheelhouse, but then as it moves into the pre chorus, a banjo appears, a sitar blends in. Suddenly you're in country pop territory. The production becomes fuller, more textured, more interesting. This was Jack Antonov's doing, and his approach to recording Manchild reveals a lot about why he's become so dominant in pop production. Antonov has said in interviews that he likes to treat machines like instruments. For Manchild, he ran old tape echo machines, not as a plugin or a digital effect, but actual physical tape machines. And he didn't just set them and let them run. He physically touched the tape, warped it by hand, created sounds that could never be exactly replicated.

6:40 It's a weird approach for modern pop music. Most producers are working entirely digitally, stacking tracks in a computer, tweaking frequencies with plugins. Antonov intentionally uses analog equipment, and he uses it imperfectly, creating textures that have warmth and character. For Carpenter's vocals, Antonov made a crucial decision. Keep them raw and close. Don't stack them, don't double them, don't smooth them into polished perfection. Let Sabrina's actual voice be the thing you hear, intimate and present. This matters because Manchild works as well as it does, partly because it sounds so conversational. Carpenter's not trying to impress you with vocal runs or dramatic belting. She's just talking to you, laughing about the absurdity of her own romantic choices. The bridge is where the song's real inside appears. Carpenter sings about liking boys who play hard to get, liking men who are incompetent, and then the kicker and I swear they choose me. I'm not choosing them. It's a perfect moment of self delusion, the kind of thing people tell themselves to avoid responsibility for their own patterns, followed by amen, like she's blessing her own denial. The song debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot one hundred when it was released June fifth, twenty twenty five. It was Carpenter's first single to debut at the top spot, though Please

8:10 Please Please had previously climbed to number one. It also hit number one in the UK and Ireland, becoming her fourth UK chart topper in a row. But the path to release was interesting, and it reveals Carpenter's confidence in her own artistic instincts. Remember, Short and Sweet was a pop album, a massively successful pop album. Espresso was synth pop perfection. Please Please Please was sixties girl group pop with modern production. That's what people expected from Sabrina Carpenter in twenty twenty five, and she decided to lead her new album with a country influence track. When she announced Manchild on Instagram, her caption was telling this one's about you. Immediately, fans started speculating was this about Barry Keeogan? Was this a diss track? The Internet loves drama, loves the idea of songs as secret messages about real people. Carpenter addressed this directly a few days later. She wrote that she'd written the song on a random Tuesday with Amy and Jack, not too long after finishing Short and Sweet, and it ended up being the best random Tuesday of my life.

9:20 She continued, Not only was it so fun to write, but this song became to me something I can look back on that will score the mental montage to the very confusing and fun young adult years of life. It sounds like the song embodiment of a loving eye roll, and it feels like a never ending road trip in the summer. That phrase loving eye roll perfectly captures what Manchild is. It's not mean, it's not vindictive. It's affectionate exasperation. It's laughing at yourself for your own choices, while also acknowledging that, yeah, sometimes men are ridiculous, and it's okay. To point that out, she ended I writing thank you men for testing me with a pig emoji and a white heart. Even her caption had that playful tone. The music video, directed by Vanya Hayman and Galmougia, took that energy and ran with it. The concept Carpenter is hitchhiking across the American West, trying to get somewhere, but every guy who picks her up is useless. She rides on the back of a jet ski being driven on a highway.

10:27 She's in a shopping cart attached to a motorcycle. She reclines in a motorized lazy boy chair. None of these men can actually help her reach her destination. It's a visual metaphor for the song's content, guys who promised much but deliver little. The video required thirty seven outfit changes thirty seven for a three minute song. Carpenter is in daisy dukes and dresses in various Western inspired looks. The directors wanted fast paced editing, something that felt like a movie trailer, keeping the energy high throughout. During the second day of the shoot, Carpenter fell backwards into a cactus. She's told this story in interviews with evident delight. They were filming in the desert, doing increasingly elaborate and dangerous looking stunts. Carpenter wielded a shotgun, she fell off a cliff with safety measures. Presumably she encountered an orca somehow, and at some point during all this chaos, she backed into a cactus. The entire second day of filming, she was pulling cactus spines out of her body. But she came back for a third day because, as she put it, the original cut wasn't crazy enough. Yet. That commitment to the bit is very Sabrina Carpenter. She's not precious about looking perfect or staying safe. She's willing to throw herself completely into a concept, even if it means literal pain.

11:55 The video dropped June sixth, twenty twenty five, and immediately went viral. The absurdiest humor, the constant costume changes, the ridiculous modes of transportation, it all reinforced the song's playful tone. This wasn't a serious commentary on gender dynamics. This was a fun, slightly unhinged romp through relationship frustration. On October eighteenth, twenty twenty five, Carpenter performed Manchild, on Saturday Night Live, where she pulled double duty, serving as both host and musical guest. The staging was perfect, a bedroom set, with Carpenter dressed in a white T shirt and pink underwear emblazoned with the SNL logo retro playful, slightly subversive. It was her second time on SNL as musical guest and her first time hosting. The fact that she could do both comedy sketches and musical performances highlighted her range. She'd come from acting, after all, she knew how to work a camera, how to commit to a bit. Norman's got attention not just for the song, but for Carpenter's confidence.

13:04 Here was an artist comfortable enough in her own skin to sing about incompetent men while wearing underwear with a logo on it. She wasn't trying to be sexy or provocative. She was just being herself. Funny, self aware, a little bit chaotic. Here's what makes Manchild work as more than just a novelty song. Underneath the humor, there's real insight about patterns in relationships and self awareness. The song doesn't blame men for being incompetent. It examines Carpenter's own attraction to incompetence. That's a much more interesting angle. Anyone can write a song complaining about exes, it takes real honesty to write a song examining your own role in choosing those exes. The line and I swear they choose me, I'm not choosing them, followed by amen is brilliant because it's both funny and true to how people actually think.

14:00 We tell ourselves stories about our romantic choices. We pretend we're passive recipients of others attention rather than active participants making decisions. Carpenter is gently mocking that tendency while also admitting she does it too. The country influence in the production is strategic. Country music has a long tradition of songs about no good men, cheating hearts, and romantic disappointment. By incorporating banjo and sitar, by giving the song that country pop flavor, Carpenter is connecting to that lineage while updating it with modern synthpop production. And the choice to release this as her first single after Short and Sweet was genuinely bold. She even acknowledged this in her Instagram post about the release. It is deaf, a bold and scary move to release a f full ass country song after only releasing one song last year and it having such a success in the pop genre. She continued, like, I'm very scared as I type this, Lol, but I think that's the entire point of chapelone. Be bold and scary and have fun. Be pop star girl, then pop an edible plus watch YouTube vibes. The whole point of this is to be silly. That last line is key.

15:25 The whole point of this is to be silly. Carpenter understands that pop music doesn't have to be serious to be meaningful. It can be playful, funny, even goofy, and still connect with people on a real emotional level. The commercial success of Manchild validated her instincts. Debuting at number one on the Billboard Hot one hundred meant she'd now had two number one debuts. Please Please Please climb to one, but Manchild started there. In the UK, it was her fourth consecutive chart topper, following Espresso, Oh Please Please Please, and Taste. The song also became a moment of cultural conversation.

16:06 Articles were written analyzing whether it was actually about Barry Keyogan TikTok was full of people singing the chorus relating it to their own experiences. The phrase manchild became shorthand for a specific type of romantic frustration. On November seventh, twenty twenty five, Manchild was nominated for a Record of the Year at the sixty eighth Annual Grammy Awards. It was one of eight songs nominated in the category, up against tracks by Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Chapel Roone, Kendrick Lamar, and others. The nomination was significant because it represented the Recording Academy recognizing Carpenter not just as a pop star, but as a serious artist making interesting creative choices. Record of the Year isn't just about commercial success. It's about artistic merit, production quality, overall impact. Jack Antonov's production was a big part of that nomination. The tape echo machines, the blending of country and pop, the decision to keep Carpenter's vocals raw and intimate. All of that elevated Manchild beyond just another catchy single. Amy Allen's contribution can't be overstated either. Allan has become one of pop music's most sought after songwriters. Working with Harry Styles Lizzo and Halsey, in addition to Carpenter Her ability to help artists find their authentic voice while still creating commercially viable songs is rare, but ultimately, Manchild works because of Sabrina Carpenter herself, her

17:37 willingness to examine her own patterns, her refusal to take herself too seriously, her understanding that you can be funny and honest at the same time. The song sits in this perfect space between confession and comedy. It's self deprecating without being self loathing. It's critical of men's behavior without being preachy. It's catchy without being shallow, and it represents as an artist who's figured out how to be commercially successful while staying true to her own creative vision. Carpenter didn't need to release a country influenced song as her comeback single. She could have done safe pop, something that sounded like Espresso Part two. Instead, she took a risk That risk paid off. Manchild debuted at number one. The album Man's Best Friend, released August twenty ninth, twenty twenty five, became her second consecutive number one album in the UK.

18:32 Critics praised its production, its blend of influences and Carpenter's growth as a songwriter. Twenty six years old, seven albums in Sabrina, Carpenter had gone from Disney kid to Grammy nominated artist with a clear creative identity. The girl who'd been grinding since she was sixteen had finally figured out not just how to make hits, but how to make hits that actually reflected who she was. Manchild is proof that sometimes the boldest creative choice is to be yourself, even if yourself is someone who writes loving eye roll songs about incompetent men while falling into cacti during music video shoots. The song ends with Carpenter repeating Amen like a prayer, blessing the chaos of young adult relationships. It's funny, it's relatable. It's perfectly crafted pop music that sounds effortless, even though it required old tape machines, thirty seven outfit changes, and a random Tuesday that turned into one of the best writing sessions of Carpenter's life, and on Grammy Night February first, twenty twenty six, that Sunday could become an award show winning Sunday either way. Sabrina Carpenter had already won.

19:44 She'd made exactly the song she wanted to make, released it exactly when she wanted to release it, and the world had responded by making it number one. Not bad for a loving eye roll about man children. Next week on Hip Maker Chronicle, we continue our Grammy countdown with Lady Gaga's Abracadabra, the spell she cast during a commercial break that transported viewers back to the famed Monster era. How Gaga faced her fear of returning to dark pop, why the chorus includes Latin words for love and death, and how a slower scrap song became a dance floor masterpiece. I'm Garrett Fisher. Choose better, or at least write funny songs about it.