Music Review: Carly Rae Jepsen's "Emotion" & "Emotion B"

By Reginald Kaigler (DEMCAD)

Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift are the best pop acts in the world, but most people only know about the latter. The former produced one of the best pop albums of 2015: Emotion. Carly Rae Jepsen’s Emotion was a fusion of sophisticated contemporary pop and a 80′s influenced pop. It was an 80′s album that managed to provide the audience with music that perfectly utilized what we loved about the 80′s, while giving us a fresh and unique sound.

I’ve listened to “Emotion” for months and I still love every song on the album. Frankly, any song on the album is better than anything I’m hearing on pop mainstream radio. Now, there are some standouts that I must mention.

“Run Away With Me” is a catchy, rhythmic and incredibly fun confession of love. Much of the album projects a theme of a young woman who isn’t afraid of reaching for love. Sometimes it complicated, some times its simple, sometimes its messy, but it’s a raw look at relationships and love. “

Songs like “Boy Problems” and “I Didn’t Just Come Here To Dance” are the kinds of songs I can dance to all night. The albums strike s a great balance of dance pop songs with clever lyrics and chill ballads.

The song “All That” represents everything that I love about ballads. The song is honest and beautiful. The song makes me feel like I’m watching a women strip down and bare her soul.

What’s fascinating is how naturally and authentic the music comes across. Many singers pipe out love songs, but it’s obvious that the songs were entirely written by someone else.

“Emotion Side B” continues where “Emotion” left off. Actually, it expands the range of “Emotion” without deviating too far from the themes of A side albums. The song “Store” incorporates the beautiful melodic comtempory/80′s sound of sounds like “All That”, but switches up the sound with a more high energy tempo.

The brilliance of the song is that it tells the story of a woman who clearly cares for her lover, but also includes lyrics such as “I’m just goin’ to the store. You might not see me anymore, anymore. I’m just goin’ to the store”. The is playful, soulful and funny.

I’m not going to discuss every song on the album. But I will tell you that both “Emotion” and Emotion B” are some of the very best pop creations that I’ve heard in years. I highly recommend both “Emotion” and “Emotion Side B”.