Sabrina Carpenter – Tears

Coming in just a touch lower than last time…

[Video]
[6.25]

Nortey Dowuona: “Sabrina could be one hit away her whole career. As long as I’m alive she’s a millionaire. and even if i die, she’s in my will somewhere, so she can just kick back and chill somewhere. She won’t even have to write rhymes.” – Taylor Swift, as she listens to this song and finds it blandly enjoyable, then puts on the mixes of her new album and forgets about it.
[6]

Claire Davidson: The bulk of Man’s Best Friend was recorded with live instrumentation, and you can absolutely tell; in terms of pure sonic craftsmanship, it’s easily the best collection of music Sabrina Carpenter has ever released. “Tears” is a great showcase for that more layered approach: the relaxed disco groove, powered by lightly funky guitars, is relaxed but never overpowering, providing a feather-light companion to Carpenter’s breathy delivery. A noted acolyte of 70s pop, she seems to relish the song’s campy period touches, too, infusing even the silly “ch-ka-TA!” ad-libs with zeal. All of this would make for a wonderfully fizzy earworm if not for the lyrics, where Carpenter half-jokingly exalts the absolute bare minimum of effort from her partner. Really, I could just recycle most of my commentary on “Manchild” here—all of the punchlines feel borrowed from better sources, up to and including the contrast between Carpenter’s exaggerated horniness and her partner’s total lack of attentiveness. (She even includes another joke about this guy not being able to use his phone!) Any woman who relates to this material has surely heard it expressed with more sharpness than “Tears” provides, leaving Carpenter sounding far more disillusioned than a track this frothy can sustain. 
[6]

Ian Mathers: This is both a less compelling song than “Manchild” (which, based on how often I’ve caught myself humming the chorus of, I may have slightly underrated) and leans harder into the depressingly realistic feeling heteropessimism (I’m not upset at women for talking about men this way, I’m upset that so many of us seemingly work day and night to make it accurate) which means it’s just, for me personally, a huge bummer. I would like to not be alone the rest of my life, and this is not helping me feel optimistic about that.
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Sabrina Carpenter became Lizzo so gradually that none of us noticed until now.
[6]

Al Varela: I have mountains of issues with Man’s Best Friend, and if literally any other song from this album was up for blurbs I’d be giving harsh words. Thankfully, “Tears” is the one song that truly excels as a follow-up to Short n Sweet. It’s more flashy ’80s pastiche, but it’s still done with a bright melody and kick-ass disco strings, and a legitimately galling chorus that dares radio stations to play it with that titular line. It’s bold in the ways I wish was more present on the full album.
[8]

Alfred Soto: I like the piano line that conjures early ’90s pop house, and the way she breathily deadpans smut like “I get wet at the thought of you” is her superpower. Annie, never mind Andrea True, couldn’t get away with it. Yet I do knock “Tears” a point for trickier verse melodies than she can handle.
[7]

Joshua Lu: The titular WAPicitiy of “Tears” would have been shoved into a throwaway line on a song like “Bed Chem” but here must bear the weight of the whole chorus, and it’s not clever enough to do that on its own. This idea also feels weirdly tacked on to the rest of the song, a decently funny list of basic tasks that highlights how she finds competency sexually appealing but doesn’t really benefit from all the waterworks. The overall result feels less like a clever exploration of a silly idea and more like self-Flanderized slop of her canonical bad taste in men, thrown together just to give her something to sing over a Jessie Ware instrumental. Fun, but increasingly uninteresting.
[5]

Katherine St. Asaph: Feels it was built solely around the (admittedly good) line “tears run down my thighs” and the need to put out a pop-disco single like everyone else. Carpenter’s goofy pinup repertoire just doesn’t suit this rarefied, foggy Jessie Ware atmosphere and vice versa; the two artists are equally horny, but in very different ways. It’s not even her best repertoire — the central joke has been made by dozens of memes, jokes, and greeting cards about “porn for women.” (Tellingly, the music-industry interludes are much funnier.) Her musical floor’s still pretty high, though.
[6]