It’s been eleven years since Carly Rae Jepsen reinvented herself as a different kind of pop star. Three years before, the one time Canadian Idol contestant had one of the biggest hits in the world with “Call Me Maybe”, and she was following it up with Emotion, a collection of fizzy disco bangers. The album didn’t set the charts on fire, but it earned widespread acclaimed and accrued her a cult following that has sustained her over the next decade.
A new trajectory for a pop musician
Jepsen is what the great podcast Pop Pantheon calls a “niche legend“, that is, “folks who never really broke through as pop stars in the traditional sense beyond perhaps 1-2 hit songs, but are widely-known and respected critically and amongst pop fans and have sustained a credible, quietly influential, small-scale career.” Her discography includes things like B-sides albums full of songs that didn’t make the main album, or one-off singles that count among her most loved songs. She’s the kind of artist who can get audiences to cheer for a Target exclusive bonus track in concert.
Now, a decade after Emotion and longer still after “Call Me Maybe”, Jepsen has returned with her eighth (her sixth? It’s hard to tell with those b-sides in the mix) album Day and Night. The album is informed by Jepsen’s marriage to her collaborator Cole MGN, and the record is full of the dizzy love songs you’d expect from this significant change in her life. Jepsen also became a mother shortly before the album’s release, although aside from “Motivation”, that is not a core part of the album’s themes. The album is a distinct double album, with a “day” disc of psychedelic pop and a “night” disc of disco and house songs. Some of the songs on each record don’t exactly hit those genre lines, but they still feel thematically appropriate for their respective side.
A day of psychedelic pop
The bouncy sophsti-pop song “After All” opens the record, and is one of several songs on here that won’t leave you’re head for a few days. It has a strong chorus, and has a bit of a chillwave vibe to it. Jepsen’s music has had hints of the smooth, psychedelic synthpop genre before on past tracks like “Now I Don’t Hate California After All”, but on Day and Night it’s one of the core sounds of the record. Tracks like the highlight “Habits of Creatures” and the yacht rock-esque “Blue Skies” continue in this chilled out psych-pop vein.
“Versailles” on the other hand, is a completely different musical ground for Jepsen to cover. More of a psychedelic switch than the song she literally named “Psychedelic Switch” on an earlier album, “Versailles” features some head-spinning beat and tempo changes from the verses into the choruses. The song feels like two different songs bolted together, and yet the 180 the song takes never feels awkward or out of place.
Mixing experimental touches with pop hooks
“On Wires”, the album’s lead single, features a similar trick that isn’t quite as head-turning but is still welcome. The song’s calmer verses segue into an explosive, dream-pop chorus buoyed by some impressive drumming. “On Wires” was the first hint that Jepsen was going to do something different with Day and Night. She’s never written or recorded a song this big and alternative before. While it felt unusual for her when it came out, it feels right at home on the track list of this album, particularly right after “Versailles”.
The best track on either album is “Burning Heart”, a windswept song that recalls something that Christine McVie would’ve written for Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night. It’s a propulsive piece of West Coast studio pop, led by keyboards, strumming guitar and one of Carly’s best ever vocal tracks.
Other songs on the “Day” album are quieter than you’d expect from Jepsen. “Wild Child”, for instance, recalls her forgotten debut album, the folk pop set Tug of War, more than anything she’s made since “Call Me Maybe”. “Just a Little Walk on the Moon” is just Jepsen and Cole MGN, the only two writers on the track, as she sings about new love accompanied by her new husband. It’s sparse and romantic, and a great way to close out the album.
A night of adventurous dance music
The second album in the set, “Night”, is mostly a euphoric house record that lets Jepsen fully embrace club dance music. “Never Let a Good Thing Die” is a solid introduction to what fans will get out of this side of the album. Some songs like “Amalfi Coast” and “Patience Power Passion” have a chillwave influence like some of the “Day” psych-pop songs. Other songs like the single “Don’t Leave Me on the Dance Floor” recall the globe trotting dancefloor fillers of ABBA.
The dancefloor focus on “Night” does not mean that Jepsen doesn’t put her lyrics to the forefront. “Motivation”‘s repetitive “We go hard in this family” chorus masks some of her most personal lyrics about her life. “Diver”, co-written with longtime collaborator Tavish Crowe, feels like something could’ve been on a previous album and is a good thing to have for fans of her previous music on this very different Night album
Not all of Night is dance pop either, and there’s plenty of songs here that feel at home on Night rather than Day. “That’s Not Me” is one of them, a song that is stylistic more similar to something on Day, but is propulsive italo disco-esque sound makes more sense near the end night
Jepsen’s boldest album in over a decade
Night and Day is Carly Rae Jepsen’s best album since Emotion, which is saying something considering how strong the records between are. The two album set highlights Jepsen’s songwriting prowess and her ability to make pop jams out of both arty psychedelia and deep house disco. It’s an album that her devoted fans will return to for years.
-
"Day and Night" - Carly Rae Jepsen - 9/10
9/10
