Carly Rae Jepsen’s Pop Music Universe Keeps Expanding
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The post Carly Rae Jepsen’s Pop Music Universe Keeps Expanding appeared first on Consequence.
“Loneliness sounds sad, but I think it can be exhilarating and exciting, and I think it can be the most intimate feeling in a really special way,” says Carly Rae Jepsen, speaking with Consequence over Zoom in early October. She’s reminiscing on a night she had not too long ago — a lovely night, with a lovely man, she explains — that ended with her sitting on her roof, alone, staring at the moon.
“I was feeling small, and excited, and grateful to be alive,” she remembers. “All of the songs on this album are trying to tap into whatever that ten minutes was that I had up there.”
The record that spawned from this moment of inspiration, appropriately titled The Loneliest Time, arrives this Friday, October 21st. Its title track, released ahead of the album, is a fantastic collaboration with Rufus Wainwright that Jepsen describes as a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to work with one of her personal heroes. The disco-drenched single has been making waves on TikTok, with casual listeners declaring that Carly Rae is here to save pop music. They might just be right.
What Jepsen understands about disco-inspired music is that a track in this vein should be as long and indulgent as possible.
“Before we knew it, the song was five minutes long, and I kept saying we were going to shorten it, but we just couldn’t,” she says of “The Loneliest Time.” “The joy of getting to be in music at the age I’m at now is I’m less worried about things, and it’s just what I’m attracted to. I think that joy comes through in the song.”
Jepsen can design a pop song like a master craftsman in their workroom; her beloved 2015 album, EMOTION, has achieved something of cult classic status since its release, and her latest LP proves that she’s still thriving in her lane of ’80s-inspired sounds and aesthetics.
Other tracks released ahead of the full album include “Western Wind,” “Beach House” (which includes a truly iconic line about the desire to harvest someone’s organs), and “Talking to Yourself,” which speaks for the lowkey delusional among us. There’s also the wonderful “So Nice,” the namesake of Jepsen’s ongoing tour, which was the last song to have made the cut in the final lineup for the album.
“How often do you hear a song about a guy who’s just so nice and polite and lovely?” Jepsen posits when questioned about this song in particular. The answer is, truthfully, not that often — and that’s probably for a reason. “There’s something really funky about the production of that mix with these sweet lyrics. That juxtaposition? I really get off on that,” she continues.
At the end of the day, not only can Carly Rae Jepsen write a great pop song, but she understands the importance of music in this particular space, too. She points to the Spice Girls as a formative influence in her own life. She was raised on the likes of Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor; the girl power sensation both ruined and saved her, she jokes. Jepsen relishes the challenge of emoting in the “short, condensed” way demanded by pop music.
She’s correct about that: In many ways, crafting a great pop song is as challenging, if not more challenging, than the process of music in many other genres. Elsewhere, she could afford to be meandering; in pop music, Jepsen must be as fine-tuned as possible. “It’s kind of like jazz,” she muses. “Every word has to count. There’s no filler — every word is crucial.”
She shares that she often has visceral reactions to pop music as a listener herself. “I either love it or loathe it,” she elaborates. “Does it land for me or does it rub me the wrong way?”
Jepsen believes The Loneliest Time is one of her more personal offerings yet. She pushed herself into new territory with connective tissue like “Bends” and topics she wouldn’t have thought to touch on before this LP, such as the humility involved with a song like “Far Away.” She shares that the record developed fairly organically — without digging too deeply into specific points of inspiration, there are parts of The Loneliest Time that stem from what she describes as her “first real experience with grief.”
The other side of the coin, naturally, expresses all the moments of joy listeners might expect from an artist like Jepsen. She laughs about the fact that getting Tom Hanks to star in the music video for “I Really Like You” in 2015 has made her a bit “cocky,” but it’s also given her a boldness she might not have acquired otherwise. When Rufus Wainwright agreed to sit down with her for a session, for example, she was prepared to carve her heart open for the saddest song of her career.
Instead, she brought the fellow Canadian singer-songwriter into her preferred orbit. “He’s a star,” she gushes about his work on the song and in the theatrical, magical music video.
When given the space to express any remaining thoughts on the album, she’s unperturbed. “Go look at the moon,” she repeats — and she means it.
Catch Carly Rae Jepsen on tour; tickets are available via Ticketmaster.
The Loneliest Time Artwork:
Carly Rae Jepsen’s Pop Music Universe Keeps Expanding
Mary Siroky
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