LP
Interscope Records (2015) US
On the follow-up to her U.S. debut album Kiss - a 2012 release featuring the Grammy Award-nominated, multi-platinum-selling breakout hit "Call Me Maybe" - singer/songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen brings new depth and dimension to her undeniably hooky but heart-driven breed of pop music. With a sense of pure feeling and passion inspired by classic pop records of the early ‘80s, E·MO·TION finds Jepsen conjuring up pop's most thrilling paradoxes and delivering songs both carefree and introspective, tender and bold, sensitive and self-assured.
The result of years of experimentation and creative soul-searching, E·MO·TION includes lead single "I Really Like You," a Billboard Top 40 hit praised as "pop perfection" by BuzzFeed and "mind-blowing, fantastic, catchy-as-hell pop" by Idolator. Though Jepsen first sketched out many of the album's tracks on the back of her tour bus while traveling the world in support of Kiss, she also teamed up with songwriters like Sia, Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange), and Ariel Rechtshaid (Haim, Madonna, Vampire Weekend) in bringing E·MO·TION to life. When it came time to record, Jepsen journeyed from New York to L.A. to London to Stockholm to join forces with such producers as Mattman & Robin (Tove Lo, Taylor Swift), Greg Kurstin (Charli XCX, Katy Perry), and Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub (Ariana Grande, One Direction).
With its bright and shimmering layers of melody and texture, E·MO·TION gracefully captures both the joy and risk in following your heart. "A lot of the album's about me trying to get some power back," Jepsen says. "I'd recently broken up with someone and moved to New York, so it was a scary new world for me - but at the same time I felt like I was coming into my own." And in naming the album, Jepsen decided to go for a deceptively simple title. "At a photo shoot one day I was looking at the definition of ‘emotion,'" she recalls, "and I loved the example that went along with it: ‘She was attempting to control her emotions.' In some ways that's exactly what I was doing with all these songs."