Album Review: Carly Rae Jepsen – E.MO.TION
2 min read
Has it really been four years since we called Carly Rae Jepsen (maybe)? Time has flown and her smash breakthrough single Call Me Maybe is still fresh in our brains. Even her album Kiss felt like it was released yesterday; 2012 wasn’t yesterday though, and that’s what’s scary! The Canadian native has returned to the music scene with her third effort E.MO.TION, after a full on 2014 starring in the Broadway production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. It will be interesting to see how Jepsen has grown as a pop artist in recent years.
Carly wanted to work with some of the big guns when writing this album; names like Sia, Greg Kurstin and Peter Svensson are just a few that have been dropped. Right from the get go with Run Away With Me you delve into a world of pop indulgence. Though some might view the single as repetitive, given how much Jepsen relies on the central melody, the song has an ecstatic sense of joy, and its hook-centric sound is ultimately very rewarding. Indeed, you’re guaranteed to get every song stuck in your head at some point. Boy Problems is definitely one of the catchier tracks and you can tell that Sia was one of the writers behind it. Ballads don’t rear their heads often on E.MO.TION, but tracks like Your Type that are borderline pop ballad are still just as accepted.
Overall the album is pop haven, featuring synths galore and relatable lyrics all ’round. Carly Rae Jepsen’s sound has come along way over the last three years. E.MO.TION demonstrates a more maturely written pop sound without leaving out all the mainstream appeal; most of these tracks you wouldn’t mind hearing on the radio, and for those who love Carly’s work they won’t be disappointed. It would have been nice for some piano/acoustic ballads to have been thrown in to give you some downtime, but if a pure boppy pop album is what you’re after, you’ll get exactly that with E.MO.TION.
