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AlbumReviews: 'Emotion' by Carly Rae Jepsen
One would think that at some point, the pop worldâs 1980s obsession would eventually boil over
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One would think that at some point, the pop world's 1980s obsession would eventually boil over. But from the fashion world's retro-chic trends, the pointed brightness of contemporary design, to the endless round of nostalgia-driven entertainment ' remakes, reboots, reunions, revivals ' the 1980s seems like an endless well of bankable creative inspiration.
Carly Rae Jepsen's newest album, Emotion, is all about that 80s touch. Chorus pads, jumpy percussion draped in gated reverbs, and dramatic vocals, the Canadian singer's third official record is one catchy track after another; a hipster-infused teeny bopper of a record.
When the breakthrough hit 'Call Me Maybe' burst onto people's playlist in 2012, it contained all the right ingredients that ensured its hit status. It had that massively 80s sound down along with a literal-and-relatable touch in its lyrics, consciously-cheesy pizzicato string hooks, and an undeniable chorus.
Like almost-all other artists with the same fan demographics, 'Call Me Maybe' was the ultimate pop song ' seemingly written and produced to be a hit for an 80s-obsessed generation, too young to even see the irony of a machine-like industry feeding them food for their borrowed nostalgia. The song was bigger than its singer and in an industry of quick reflexes, it seemed like Jepsen was going to be just another one-hit-wonder.
That didn't happen. Fans would argue that Jensen started off as a more traditional singer-songwriter whose move into the mainstream was catapulted by the sudden success of the above single (itself actually a remix of the song's folky first version).
But whether Jensen's transformation into a pop wonder takes away from her artistic depth is of little concern. Emotion is a record unabashedly written by the machine to move units. That it does so in such an immaculate manner is testament to the current musical climate and again, to the power of nostalgia.
Opener 'Run Away With Me' opens with the kind of saxophone solo that would have been laughed off in the 1990s but is now back in vogue. With dripping electronic percussion and muted synthesizer plucks, the song moves into its sing-along chorus in seconds. 'E.MO.TION' follows with wiggly keyboards and bouncy rhythms before quickly leaping into a chorus of 'Fantasy/ Dream about me/ And all the we could do with this emotion', delivered with the triumphant melancholy of her predecessors Debbie Gibson and Tiffany.
In fact, it's Jepsen's natural ability to balance those elements of the sad and happy that makes the album feel like such a welcome retro celebration.
'I Really Like You', the record's first single, is an energetic bouncer which abysmal lyrics that would have hurt the song had Jepsen's delivery not worked. Instead the repeated yelps of 'I really really really really really like you' sounds immediate and inescapable.
Meanwhile, the dance-floor buzz of 'LA Hallucinations' and dance-light-rock of 'Your Type' are perhaps the most 'modern' sounding tracks on the record; the latter sounding like a fist pumper more fitting for the stage than on the record.
Emotion is a record with a callback dimension that is so en vogue, that it seems almost impossible to imagine it coming out bolstering such confidence in any other era, even the 80s, when it would have been taken as yet another bubblegum pop record. It is that conviction which makes the record such a charge of energy. Fittingly of its time, consciously weightless and stylishly generic, Emotion is a fine record completely devoid of what its title suggests.
