As I mentioned last week, this has been a very lean year for me in terms of new album releases. I know plenty of good new music was dropped, but most of it missed be my a mile.
I hope to remedy that by catching up with some of the more intriguing titles as 2022 turns into 2023. I’m particularly interested in getting to know new albums by The 1975 and Clean Cut Kid, two releases recommended by occasional commenter Daniel.
I’m a huge fan of Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2015 album Emotion, as sparkling and clever a pop collection as you’ll find on this side of the 21st century.
Her follow-up, 2019’s Dedicated, somehow flew right past my radar. I recall opening track ‘Julien,’ but I don’t think I ever heard the whole thing through. It suffered a similar fate as Emotion, receiving widespread critical acclaim but very few sales. Is there no room these days for Jepsen’s brand of danceable pop?
Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2015 album Emotion is a rare bird — an audience-friendly pop confection considered a cult classic due to its low sales and small but devoted fan base.
This album is so bright and infectious, it should have been pouring out of radios and phones all over the world. Instead, it showed up on plenty of critics’ top ten lists but struggled to chart. The album sold better in Japan than in the United States or Jepsen’s native Canada.
The best pure pop album of the decade came from Carly Rae Jepsen, who two years earlier seemed like the ultimate one-hit wonder following the runaway success of her track ‘Call Me Maybe.’
E*MO*TION proved that Jepsen definitely had the chops as a songwriter and performer to transcend that early spike, even as the album tragically failed to find much of an audience.
The third top single of 2017, according to Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll, is Carley Rae Jepsen’s ‘Cut to the Feeling.’ I’m a big Jepsen fan so I’m happy to see her show up so high, especially for a song I’ve never even heard. I’m looking forward to firing it up now.
This track was cut not just from Jepsen’s critical-adored 2015 album EMOTION, but from the follow-up EP, EMOTION Side B. It ended up finding a home in the French-Canadian animated film Ballerina, which will be released as Leap! in the United States. Jepsen plays a character in the film as well.
Meet Me In Montauk 