Listen, before you discount this entire thing and @ me on Twitter like “Jeez, Morgan your taste in music SUCKS,” just know that Carly Rae Jepsen has come a long way since “Call Me Maybe.” Most recently she released a Target ad with Lil Yachty, but two years ago she bestowed E•MO•TION upon this cursed earth. A.K.A. THE BEST POP ALBUM EVER. I know nothing about music, but I love this album. I made my boyfriend listen to it during a seven-hour drive from South Carolina to Cincinnati. I’ll make a devotee of him yet, and I’ll make one of everyone else, too, if my uninformed and entirely opinion-based review of Ms. Jepsen’s masterpiece is at all convincing. Here are all fifteen songs on the deluxe album, ranked from bottom to top in order of how much I personally like listening to them. Enjoy!
15. I Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance
This song feels like being in Forever 21 on a Saturday night. You walk in and they’re blaring a…techno? song that you’ve never heard in your life and immediately regret leaving your apartment. You miss your cat. It’s already dark outside but this place is a fluorescent hell. The lights are too hot, your bag keeps falling off your shoulder because you’re still wearing your coat, and after looping around the store three times you barely know what’s even in the pile of Instagram trends you have draped over your arm. It’s crowded, and you have to step over approximately twenty boyfriends sitting with their phones on your way upstairs. You feel bad for them. They don’t want to be here. Neither do you, really, but you chose this. You’re stuck in this liminal hell right along with the boyfriends. This song is just short of four minutes but plays for what feels like ten because time passes so slowly in here.
14. Black Heart
I can only describe this track by comparing it to the noises made by PacMan. So, retro?
13. LA Hallucinations
“I remember being naked / We were young freaks just fresh to LA.” Scandalous! Carly giggles because she knows it. On this track, she sings about how fame and the culture of La La Land can change you. Also, spending a little too much time thinking about a guy you hooked up with once. I have never been to LA, and have yet to become famous, so I’ll just have to take Carly’s word on all that. No comment on the latter.
12. Favourite Colour
I was going to take away points just for these words being spelled with a ‘u,’ but Carly is Canadian. The beginning has this kind of electronic echoey effect on the vocals. It reminds me of “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap, which you may recognize as the featured sample on Jason Derulo’s “Whatcha Say.” This is the inevitable slow song that every album ends with. Carly sings “When I’m close to you / We blend into my favourite color / I’m bright baby blue / Fallin’ into you, falling’ for each other.” Describing yourself as baby blue is cute. Actually, this song is cute.
11. All That
This is a straight-up eighties BALLAD, or at least I think of it as one–I was born in ‘96. (However, this is not a piece about my credibility. I have none.) It could easily play during the prom scene in Napoleon Dynamite and fit right in. As all ballads should be, and as most of the songs on this album are, “All That” is about L-O-V-E. But she also sings “I will be your friend” over and over in the chorus. Mixed messages much, Carly?
10. Making the Most of the Night
Of the two songs on this album co-written by Sia (the other being “Boy Problems”), her influence is most easily recognized on this one. It’s quick, upbeat, and super fun. It basically says that things sucked before, but, hey, now they’re not going to! It’s a good track to listen to when you need to get out of a funk.
9. Warm Blood
I’ll be honest. I don’t really connect to this one. But like most of these songs, the chorus is fun! It reminds me a little bit of something I might hear from Disclosure or Flume. Points for fun-ness.
8. Gimmie Love
“Gimmie Love” is so dreamy. The first verse makes you feel like you’re floating, or maybe standing in Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room, except with base. This song is about pining after someone who is also so dreamy. (You probably guessed this from the title and did not need me to tell you. Intuitive, you.) Fittingly, it’s the perfect thing to listen to while thinking about a crush. Just like the subject of this song, they have “eyes so bright!” They make you shy! You want to feel like this forever–perpetually in (maybe) love with them! Sure, you’re looking at them through rose-colored glasses, but you don’t care!. “Love me!” you exclaim, as you scroll 85 weeks back on their Instagram page. You two would be perfect together. You listen to “Gimmie Love” to confirm this. Carly so gets you.
7. When I Needed You
This is perfect radio pop. It even starts with an enthusiastic “hey!” that’s repeated throughout the track. If “Gimmie Love” is dreamy, “When I Needed You” is sparkly. There’s a lot going on, but it works. Plus, it’s about recognizing that you used to want someone but now you realize they suck and you’re totally better off without them. That’s a message I can get behind.
6. I Really Like You
Firstly, Tom. Hanks. is the star of the music video for this song–the highlight of his career, obviously. Justin Bieber is also in it, but that’s not nearly as important as freaking Forrest Gump. Secondly, there is a group dance sequence in said video. Thirdly, this is a very fitting song for a dance mob. Watch the video. Dance along. Love this song like I do.
5. Let’s Get Lost
This one is actually an unexpected favorite. It’s a sweet and hopeful track about someone who could really be the one. The first verse is a little unassuming, but the chorus is what really got me. This song makes you think that maybe it will really work out between and your crush from “Gimmie Love.” No–not think–know. One listen to “Let’s Get Lost” will turn even the most cynical hearts into soft, lovey-dovey mush.
4. E•MO•TION
Here’s the deal: You just ended it with someone. You’re kind of over them, but you kind of don’t want them to be over you. Selfish? A little. Relatable? Most definitely. “Be tormented by me babe / Wonder, wonder how I do / How’s the weather, am I better? / Better now that there’s no you?” Yes. Yes, you are doing much better without them. Thriving! You post a few thirst traps to make them sorry for what they lost and channel your post-breakup energy into learning all the words to this song.
3. Run Away with Me
The saxophone! The build to the chorus! The background vocals that sound suspiciously like Charli XCX even though I know they’re not! This is a good song to blast from the speakers of your high school best friend’s car even though she wants to listen to “Bad and Boujee” a third time. You don’t care. You have the aux and you are going to listen to Carly Rae Jepsen.
2. Boy Problems
A million yeses to “Boy Problems,” as well as to any other song about dumping a dumb guy and living your best life with your BFFs. Carly rocks–and I mean it–a cute little mullet in the video as she has a Petra Collins directed dance party. I won’t lie, I definitely counted Carly among the one-hit-wonders of pop music when she came out with “Call Me Maybe,” but this is the song that made me shamefully realize just how wrong I was. Plus, it sent me down the rabbit hole of this amazing album. Carly, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. I love you. Please invite me to your next dance party. Bottom line: I’m obsessed with this song. But it’s still not even the best one.
1. Your Type
THIS IS THE BEST ONE. If you don’t believe that Carly Rae Jepsen is straight-up queen of pop perfection, you will after watching this video. It is straight up technicolor beauty. There are metallic streamers and disco dresses and a freaking bubble machine. “Your Type” is about love lost and being in the friend zone. Hence, “I’m not type of girl for you / And I’m not going to pretend / I’m the type of girl you call more than a friend.” On the other hand, it’s a song you can listen to and say “Screw you and screw my stupid broken heart!” The catharsis is comparable to that of MisterWives’ “Reflections” or CHVRCHES’ “Leave a Trace.” This is the ultimate anthem to lip-synch to in your bedroom mirror. You are fake-belting your heart out right now and you are loving it. The tiny drum solo before the chorus? Are serious right now, Carly? You’re dancing and flipping your hair around and probably putting on lipstick or something. I know this because I’ve done it. Just try to be in a bad mood after that.