Spinal Tap Fans Accuse Sabrina Carpenter of Ripping Off the Fake Band
Sabrina Carpenter, aka “Hot Garfunkel,” is one of the most popular pop stars on the planet right now. The “Espresso” hitmaker has cited stars like Christina Aguilera and Dolly Parton as some of her biggest influences, but is it also possible that she’s a fan of songs like “Sex Farm” and “Big Bottom”?
Carpenter recently unveiled the cover art for her newest album Man’s Best Friend, which immediately sparked controversy online. The cover is a photo of the singer, crouched on all fours, while a largely unseen male figure pulls her by the hair. Some fans criticized the PG BDSM-themed image for “catering to the male gaze” while others suggested that it’s satirically “portraying how the public views her.”
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And then there are the people who just think that she’s aping Spinal Tap.
As you may recall, at the start of Rob Reiner’s seminal 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, heavy metal’s most punctual band gets in hot water with their record label over the “offensive” cover for the new album Smell the Glove.
As record exec Bobbi Flekman (Fran Drescher) explains, the artwork features a “greased naked woman on all fours, with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man’s arm extended out up to here and pushing black glove in her face to sniff it.”
“What’s wrong with being sexy?” guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) asks after being told that the cover is too sexist to put into production.
A number of fans couldn’t help but point out the similarities between Tap’s planned cover and Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend.
Even the official Spinal Tap weighed in on the issue.
Of course there are some key differences between the two covers. Obviously, there’s no glove, nudity or grease in Carpenter’s — and it includes some hair play instead of a leash — but most importantly, the musician herself is the person being photographed, which obviously wasn’t the case with Smell the Glove.
That being said, is it at all possible that Carpenter intended the cover to be a low-key homage to This Is Spinal Tap? Some fans pointed out that Carpenter’s aunt, Nancy Cartwright, has worked with Tap performer Harry Shearer for decades on The Simpsons.
It certainly wouldn’t be unheard of for Carpenter to slip a movie reference into her album, considering that the 2024 music video for her song “Taste” was packed with nods to films like Death Becomes Her, Psycho and Ginger Snaps.
We’ll have to wait and see if her North American tour contains any tiny Stonehenge-themed props.
