Carly Rae Jepsen, widely known for her hit “Call Me Maybe,” has recently released an album that will get stuck in your head just as much as “Hey, I just met you,” but definitely not in a good way.
Jepsen’s album, Kiss, is everything you can imagine from her: hyperactive and repetitive. The album does not feature any diversity. Each song is like the next with meaningless, cliché lyrics.
“I definitely wanted to make a pop album,” Jepsen said on her website. “My love affair with pop music has been growing stronger and stronger each year. I’m a bit of a hippy at heart, so it’s kind of like flower-child pop. My intention was to make an album that really felt like me and shows what I have to offer the music world.”
Unfortunately, if Kiss is what Jepsen has to offer to the world of music, well, the world of music can live without her.
Jepsen’s songs, such as “Call Me Maybe,” are the type to get stuck in one’s head. Even if one hates the song, one will find, unfortunately at some point in time, the song on repeat in one’s head. Unfortunately, artists like Jepsen do not realize there is a difference between a song that is catchy and a song that is good. Her songs tend to be one more the former than the latter.
“I think Carly Rae Jepsen’s songs are more catchy than anything. I find myself singing to them at random times just because they’re so hard to get out of your head,” Laura Messerschmidt, junior, said.
There are 12 ‘catchy’ songs on Kiss. Many of the songs have titles, which, like the song itself, are over-used and, quite frankly, are meaningless. “Hurt so Good” and “Your Heart is a Muscle” are a perfect display of how her pointless titles match her redundant songs.
In Jepsen’s song, “Tiny Little Bows,” she repeats the same unoriginal lyrics over and over. The words “You’re the one I know/ and everywhere you are/ is a place I wanna go” have been in pop love songs for years now – these songs offer no variety lyrically. Additionally, the melody simulates something straight out of a Ke$ha or Selena Gomez album.
But unlike Ke$ha and Selena Gomez, Jepsen began her career when she finished in third place on Canadian Idol, however, she did not become well-known right away. It wasn’t until well after the release of “Call Me Maybe” that the U.S. took notice of her.
Her second big hit, “Good Time” featuring Owl City, is also on the album. Although not as annoying as “Call me Maybe,” the song is lyrically dull and offers nothing to the listener except a beat to move to.
“Starting off on Canadian Idol is probably not the career she imagined,” Messerschmidt said. “I would think she has a pretty decent voice to be able to get on the show, but her career turned out to produce synthy-pop, not necessarily bad, but it’d be interesting to see if she ever puts out a personal song that shows off her voice.”