Posted on 21 August 2015

I’ve been riding the Carly Rae Jepsen bandwagon pretty hard, and this review by Tom Breihan on Stereogum is the best explanation of why:

“There’s this new narrative in which would-be pop stars find their voices by venturing outside the studio system, working with indie auteurs and finding themselves whole new audiences on the festival circuit. And that setup has produced some truly great music, like Solange’s True and Sky Ferreira’s Night Time, My Time. But E•MO•TION isn’t that. From a distance, it seems like it should be that. Jepsen worked with Dev Hynes and Ariel Rechtshaid on the shimmery, quick-dissolve ballad “All That” and with Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij on the burbling “Warm Blood.” But E•MO•TION doesn’t play like critic-bait — or, for that matter, like festival-bait. Instead, it plays like gleaming mall-pop turned way up past 11.”

I’ve listened to the Japanese leak of this album pretty consistently since it came out and unless something dramatic happens (like Kanye West) this is going to be my album of the year. Highly recommend.

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