More Sad Girl Disco!!

Review of Carly Rae Jepsen's "The Loneliest Time"

Carly Rae Jepsen—The Loneliest Time

Released October 21, 2022

By now, we all know Carly Rae Jepsen could have been your favorite artists’ favorite artist, but for reasons beyond her control, she’s been pigeonholed into a corner and has yet to find her way out of it. She’s either the “Call Me Maybe” one hit wonder singer or that artist that’s become an icon amongst a niche group of people. It’s not her fault that those who just get it get it. To the majority of people outside that group, they probably haven’t thought much about Jepsen since “Call Me Maybe” but they really should because now, 10 years after her first major hit, she’s a completely different artist.

When Jepsen first started out in the US with her album KISS, what really hurt that album and led to the lack of hype surrounding it and her was Scooter Braun’s lack of knowing what to do with Jepsen as an artist or how to market her. Her style of '80s inspired pop is the dominant sound in popular music now, but when she was just getting started, she was amongst some of the early artists to bring that sound back into style. With this record, her sixth US-released album (there’s always her Canadian-released debut Tug of War that came out in 2008), she’s implementing some '70s disco into her usual '80s pop mix, which I think is a real strength on this album. Some reviewers called this album a mixed bag or thought that it lacked cohesion, but are '80s pop and '70s disco really all that far removed from one another? As another reviewer points out, Jepsen’s use of disco, which is a “genre that implies the convergence of bodies” serves as “an antidote to loneliness,” the key theme to this album. If decades and styles are going to be mixed, I think a '70s/'80s pop and disco hybrid is a more obvious choice. Besides, '80s pop wouldn’t have sounded like it did without the influence of '70s disco.

With this expanding and combining of styles, too, is a much more actualized sound coming from Jepsen. By this point in her career, it really feels like she knows what her sound is, who her collaborators are, and it’s so fun as a listener to hear her be this confident in who she is as an artist.

Jepsen’s work seems to be overlooked again and again with the reason for this album going largely unnoticed is because it shared a release date with Taylor Swift’s album Midnights. By now, artists know better than to share a release date with Taylor Swift, but unfortunately for Jepsen, this wasn’t the common knowledge in 2021 that it is now. But I really think fans should search out this album and give it another chance, especially those who are loving Chappell Roan’s takeover this summer. Jepsen’s music, particularly on this record, reminds me a lot of Roan’s, so much so that I think had the stars aligned in another way for Jepsen, she might have had the summer Roan did, but a few years earlier.

As much we may be tired of addressing The P Word of 2020, this is so much a pandemic album in the sense that its fun, pop-disco sound is so antithetical to the fear, sadness, and grief we were all feeling during that time. Lyrically, this is Jepsen obviously dealing with the loneliness that came from this time, but also saying in an interview that she was thinking about “What do I do with these feelings I don’t wanna have?”

My favorites are “Far Away,” “Sideways,” “Beach House,” “Bends,” “Go Find Yourself or Whatever,” “Anxious,” and “No Thinking over the Weekend.”

One of the aspects of this album reviewers have lauded it for is that it is a great pop album, and in being such “you have to explore each song individually, rather than being able to discuss its value as a unit.” So in the spirit of that, here are some quick-fire thoughts of the individual songs on their own merit:

Of course I’m always going to draw parallels with other artists from the past that I think modern day singers are drawing inspiration from. “Shooting Star” is Jepsen’s debut-record-era Madonna song. Not only is the title reminiscent of Madonna’s song “Lucky Star,“ as others have pointed out, but the vocal performance is also giving “Holiday” meets Nile Rogers.

“Keep Away” is the ultimate '80s track on the record, sounding more Lionel Ritchie than Donna Summer.

Other reviewers seemed to hate “Beach House,” one even going as far to say “the song chugs along mechanically, as if played by the Chuck E. Cheese house band," but especially for fans of Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, I don’t think that song would seem so outrageous for fans who like that kind of tongue-in-cheek songwriting.

“Bends” sounds like I want to hear it at the end of a coming of age movie with its light, whispery vocal performance, while “Western Wind” likewise has a similar vibe. The lyrics say spring, but I think of it more as like an end of summer song, with all the melancholy sunset vibes knowing the cold is coming to stay.

I’m honestly shocked the girlies who make edits for celebrities haven’t gotten their hands on “So Nice” yet.

“Go Find Yourself or Whatever” is such a killer title and a perfect sad girl ballad to help close out an album of disco hits.

On the title track, featuring Rufus Wainwright, it’s apparent that Carly’s cadence is her gift. Her phrasing and how she pronounces words is so unique to her that even when her style or influences changes, as it does across this album, it’s her unique phrasing that always lets you know it’s a Carly Rae Jepsen record.

“Anxious” is the first bonus track and probably my number one pick if I had to only choose one. It’s a bit flirty, but still honest and a bit vulnerable.

What one review considered a “lack of cohesion” another regarded the very same album as “so different and so cohesive at the same time” which really just goes to show how subjective and personal reviews are—what one finds lacking another might find in abundance. But a few publications mentioned the album needing a bit more definition or sharper focus and if I was going to have any complaint about this album, it would be along those lines. It’s not the cohesion of the music sonically that I have a problem with—to me, it doesn’t sound all over the place, but all fitting nicely together as part of a larger vision. What I would have liked to see is more cohesion in terms of theme and lyrical content. For an album supposedly about loneliness, and specifically the maddening loneliness that so many experienced during lockdown, I’m just not getting that vibe from these lyrics. Instead of a pandemic loneliness album like much of the narrative surrounding this album promised, I’m getting more beach-y disco vibes. I think the juxtaposition between the poppier, upbeat sound and more introspective lyrics could have really hit, I know I love a sad girl disco moment. But had I not already known this album was written against the backdrop of the pandemic, I would have thought this was just another dating album, which isn’t to say it would be bad if it was “just” that, but I do feel like for as good a songwriter as Jepsen is, certainly she has more to say than just more dating mishap songs.

Overall, I’m a sucker for the introspective, sad girl disco vibes and this album has the disco vibe in spades. I can definitely see myself coming back to it in the future. Along with its follow-up The Loveliest Time released in 2023, this album represents the second time in Jepsen’s discography that she has paired releases together—the first being with Dedicated and Dedicated Side B released in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Because in both cases the albums are released in different calendar years and are not labeled as deluxe editions of the preceding album, I will be treating each one on its own stand-alone work and on its own merit. But I’m interested to see how the themes of loneliness and my beloved sad girl disco vibe continues on (or doesn’t) on the follow-up record, The Loveliest Time.