Carly Rae Jepsen • Kiss

It makes total sense as a long-term strategy; in the general public's mind she's a classic one hit wonder at this point. She doesn't have and is uninterested in building a tabloid profile to keep herself in headlines without hit music; and Call Me Maybe is unduplicable. So a well crafted pure pop album for the heads will at least maintain niche loyalty until a potential comeback. Of course what's surprising is a major label taking a long term approach at all...

Nothing on this album sounds like a hit and it's only v superficially comparable to 1989

I think "I Really Like You" sounds even more like a hit than "Call Me Maybe" but maybe bubblegum sometimes works against you. "Emotion" sounds like a massive hit record to me, too.

was "I Really Like You" not a hit?

Looks to have been in some countries. Yet to hear it once on the radio in the U.S.

#39 in the States.

Nothing on this album sounds like a hit

I will never understand what keeps stuff like "Run Away With Me" or "Gimmie Love" from connecting with people or radio or w/ever

I Really Like You was #3 in the UK and it was released in a tough week (same as Cheerleader and See You Again iirc).

In my head there are faint traces of genealogy b/w Run Away With Me and Pray To God and given that Tayvin Swarris is a thing we'll probably be subjected to in 2016 these sorts of songs should theoretically be hits or are otherwise simply ahead of their time.

i feel like maybe she could, like, un-crossover and have the same sort of fanbase career as robyn or charli xcx. sorta feel like her working with people like dev hynes, ariel rechtshaid, rostam etc on this record is the first step in building that bridge.

that said maybe she'll end up in this weird stasis where she's too one hit wonder to ever be taken seriously by both the general pop audience of america *and* the types of people who think robyn is the only acceptable pop star

Kind of ironic that the big pop stars are wanting to work with or sound like The Weeknd whereas making bubblegum codes as chasing that Robyn stanbase.

Robyn's stuff recently suggests she is straying from Body Talk-esque material so that sort of lane is open to her, but yeah it's essentially dependent on "the types of people who think robyn is the only acceptable pop star" being open minded enough to embrace her.

The way EMOTION is reviewed will have a lot to do with this I think.

The points of difference between 1989 and Emotion are pretty much all the reasons that none of the excellent pop songs on the latter sound like a 2k15 hit. And tbh it doesn't sound like CRJ's playing that personality game anyway

The failure of "22" might be a prototype for the Jepsen songs if they don't come up big in the U.S. Again, if that means that these songs *don't sound like a 2k15 hit*, that's only because they code as bubblegum. One Direction often ends up in the same boat.

"What Makes You Beautiful" and Justin Bieber's "Baby" might suggest that breakthroughs can still happen, though.

iunno how viable the robyn NPR para-pop career path is for major label artists

iirc robyn is fully independent and a big hard ticket live draw so she's in a great position to shape the career she wants from the larger share of the income her independence guarantees

seems like when people on the mainstream side of the line get seduced by the idea of a thinking person's quality-not-quantity pop career it's usually followed pretty quickly by an abrupt "WAIT, GUYS, DON'T LEAVE! I WAS JUST KIDDING! OF COURSE I WANT TO BE ON THE RADIO" about-face once the paychecks reveal how small that audience actually is

the robyn lane is also incredibly crowded, full of people who want to cross over the non-reverse way, and increasingly full of people who do both at the same time (see: alessia cara)

I guess it depends how they want to work it. Robyn gets afaict absolutely zero airplay in the US, despite lots loving her. For those accustomed to success via the the radio-sales-tour model, that throws things off. Throws off perspective, too. Like, is Haim popular? By what metric? Sky Ferreira? What happened to Annie from Norway?

I Really Like You was like the highest selling #3 single in the UK in quite some time and iirc only lost the #1 spot due to the inclusion of streaming on the chart. It also did really well in Japan (with respect to how foreign artists typically do over there). Focusing on critical success makes sense if she can still build a fanbase in other big non-US markets.

Turns out that I Really Like You is the weakest track? I don't enjoy it as much as the others. Nevermind that, it might be my favorite pop record released this decade.

robyn is legit popular in scandinavia, i wonder if it would be harder to maintain a career as a critically acclaimed but not actually popular pop musician without that

Was listening to some pop for kids with my kid today, and first came across Rachel Platton's "Fight Song," which couldn't be more of a rip of nu-Taylor style. Then I heard "Dumb" by Heydaze, which I'm about to post to the worst songs thread. But then I heard Demi Lovato's "Cool for the Summer," and that song is dope.

then I heard Demi Lovato's "Cool for the Summer," and that song is dope.

At this point, I feel like the only person left who thinks this song is nbd.

I think it's because the first time the guitar faded in it really caught me by surprise, and added a sonic component I hadn't heard in one of these summer pop songs in some time.

Was listening to some pop for kids with my kid today, and first came across Rachel Platton's "Fight Song," which couldn't be more of a rip of nu-Taylor style.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, August 3, 2015 1:31 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

uh what

Did I miss something? I just thought it sounded a lot like the singles from the latest Taylor. Is that inaccurate? I'd never heard it or heard of her before.

Huh, so I guess they're buddies?

inaccurate in the sense that it sounds nothing like any of the taylor singles (accurate in the sense that apparently they're touring together, though)

At this point, I feel like the only person left who thinks this song is nbd.

I agree tbh

I suspect artists are telling producers and writers they want a song "like Taylor Swift" w/out pinning down what the hell this means.

xpost I thought it echoed a vibe, not that I would actually confuse it with the singles. Though it would fit right on one of her recent records regardless, imo.

it sounds more like "A Hundred Years" than anything taylor's ever released

or snow patrol, etc. even something like "Roar"

Hmm. I guess I'm thinking less of the tinkling piano bits and more when it gets rousing? The chorus? I'm not sure what A Hundred Years is, but didn't think Snow Patrol sounded like this. Aren't they more Coldplay?

maybe you weren't in high school when this came out but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR-qQcNT_fY

this shit was in every talent show, homecoming show, musical revue, a cappella repertoire, etc.

Ha ha, no, I was 10 (or 100) years out out of high school. So, yeah, I guess I have heard that M20/proto-Train crud, but that never pops out of Vanessa Carlton (100 Years/1000 Miles) MOR mode like that "Fight Song" does. "Fight Song" is pretty tailored (pun intended?) for top 40, or at least this type of top 40. I find it a funny coincidence that the song I thought was a Taylor rip (right or wrong) was sung by a freshly minted Swift BFF.

the recent echosmith song is sung exactly like an older taylor swift song, however it is v mediocre lyrically

Haha I first head "cool kids" on the radio right before the new Taylor album dropped and I was like "ohhhhh girl has gone downhill".

also unpopular opinion: "cool kids" is great and I preferred the saving jane single to the taylor anyway >:)

Oh Katherine no

Cool Kids is an okay song imo.

So is "Bright" and I don't see how it's worse lyrically than any of the recent T. Swift hits but I realize people have different opinions about astrology.

"bright" unforgivable for the "you/moon/neptune" rhyme.

the song sorta sounds like og taylor but the chorus is overstuffed, like it's trying to communicate an understated feeling in fifteen different ways.

of course taylor's choruses are also crowded but the velocity of words tends to match the feelings she's trying to communicate, so they never feel as interminable or like an exercise

"cool kids" is hideous ofc, it sounds so empty

was listening to 'making the most of the night' today and realised i'd never once considered it could be read as neutral friendship jam, like every time before i'd just thought it was some sort of revoltingly calculated sad boy fantasy (ie as the song before 'your type' rather than the one after 'boy problems' iykwim)

Cool For The Summer is better than anything on the CRJ album imo

I just died. I am dead now.

for the record, also not a "cool for the summer" fan

Cool For The Summer is better than anything on the CRJ album imo

i love "cool for the summer" and no. "cool for the summer" is like nearly as overcooked as "i really like you"

I just listened to Cool For The Summer for the first time. It sucks. Really quite obnoxious

CRJ well on her way to winning that robyn fanbase of ppl who find actual pop obnoxious then!

http://res.cloudinary.com/thefader/image/upload/s--TdJktfx---/w_720,c_limit/re8nqblwabkex8adxbl0.gif