Carly Rae Jepsen • The Loneliest Time

This is giving me deja vu to the time Taylor Swift released ME! as the lead single for Lover
(Beach House is better than that, but I was hoping for more of a Warm Blood vibe for this album)

That was disappointing. It doesn't flow - the chorus grinds to a halt with "I'm probably going to hurt your feelings" and then the song seems to start again. It's just irritatingly stop-start. The middle eight doesn't work. It has surprisingly little Carly Rae Jepsen in it.

I enjoyed "I Want You In My Room" because it flowed well, it had some clever chords, and the production was retro without being overpowering. The chorus was like a one-two punch - it came in two parts, with the second part acting like a bonus chorus, a pleasant surprise. In contrast "Beach House" has a weak single-part chorus that just brings the song to a halt.

It has nothing to do with Aqua. It's not in the same league as Aqua. Aqua was genius. You, "Beach House", are no Aqua. If anything this song reminded me of how well-written "Happy Boys and Girls" was. To this day I still can't tell if the melancholic undercurrent running through that song was deliberate was real or exists only inside my head.

I still have faith in Carly Rae Jepsen but I fear she has been led astray. I'm not suggesting she should be kidnapped and forced to work with Mark Ronson. Kidnapped is such a loaded word. Enticed, with cheese.

brad otm about it sounding like jessie j lol

New article.

https://crackmagazine.net/article/profiles/carly-rae-jepsen-new-album-the-loneliest-time-western-wind-beach-house-cover-story/

Despite the more maudlin theme, The Loneliest Time is wide-ranging. While her 2015 hit album Emotion was embedded in 80s synth-pop and its polished follow-up Dedicated mainly took its influence from sultry 70s disco, lately Jepsen has been less conscious of the decades she’s been moving between. “I had the playground of all the eras to jump from, and this was more just writing from the heart, in whatever direction the songs wanted to go,” she explains of the new album. She was also more intentional about the lyrical content not just being about a boy or nursing a crush. Instead, she became more self-reflective and analytical of her own behaviours. “It excited me to have those moments of flirtation on the new album, but also broaden the spectrum of what the subject of a pop song was allowed to be,” she declares.

The Loneliest Time sees the pop star breaking the mould again. Jepsen’s insatiable curiosity is what’s helped her remain a creative force, and on this record, that meant mixing the wistful 80s pop of Belinda Carlisle with horn-flanked funk numbers and victorious disco jaunts. But it was also important for her to not be seen as one-dimensional. For instance, recent single Beach House is the antithesis of the soothing ambience of Western Wind. One of the singer’s most playful tracks, it’s a campy pop anthem that finds Jepsen and her bandmates larping as boys going on bad dates. “This is a song for the girls!” she asserts with a wide grin. It also features some of her most absurd lyrics. “It was the shortest straw-pull for who had to sing, ‘I’ve got a lake house in Canada, I’m going to come harvest your organs,’” she snickers about the song’s lyrics. But while the track veers toward being lighthearted, there are harsh realities within it. “I wanted to highlight that feeling when you’re disenchanted after being on a dating app for a hot minute to be like, ‘That guy’s just going to… he’s going to wreck me.’”

The video has sold the song to me a bit more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLvVbazi0B4

Listening to it again I often wonder what it was like for OG Gary Numan fans circa 1982 or so. I wasn't turned on to Gary Numan's vibe until the late 1990s, just when he finally got his mojo back, but from essentially 1981 until the one-two punch of Sacrifice in 1994 and Exile in 1997 he was a nobody. I have the impression that by the late 1980s his OG fans had moved on, but there was a period post-Telekon when he was in theory a major pop star, albeit only in the UK, but with an increasingly limited mainstream appeal.

And yet his fans stuck with him, because they could remember the first time they saw "Are Friends Electric" on the Old Grey Whistle Test or whatever. They could remember how it made them feel and they wanted to recapture that. Just like the first time I had a Dragonflight and a click frenzy in Cookie Clicker. I will never recapture that feeling, but I remember that I had it. I remember what it was like. I eventually found out I could maximise my clicks by sacrificing grandmas, but it didn't feel the same.

I came to the Carly Rae Jepsen music machine much later in life, but I clearly remember the point in time when it dawned on me that "Call Me Maybe" was one of the greatest pop songs of the early twenty-first century, alongside Death Grips' "I've Seen Footage". I remember exactly where I was. The surroundings. The thing is that while Gary Numan had some good tracks on I, Assassin and even Warriors he then settled into a rut where each album had one good single, one good b-side, and lots of filler, and that's the feeling I have with this new song. It's like "I Still Remember" or "My World Storm" or something.

The video is delightful. I didn't think much of the song as a song, but as a comedy sketch it's great.

Sorry but I don’t think Carly has it in her to make as many godawful album covers as Numan, which if you ask me was half the experience

Ok, music video is great. Almost makes me like the song.

I didn't think much of the song as a song, but as a comedy sketch it's great.

The Lonely Island Effect!

New song “Talking To Yourself” sounds like something from Kiss? It’s good but I’m starting to think “Western Wind” was a giant red herring.

it's so much better than the other two, very kiss yeah

oh my GOD

all of the interviews i've read with crj around this record suggest she didn't drift toward any one sound with this record, there's apparently a real range, of which "beach house" and "western wind" represent the poles

"talking to yourself" has plunged me in a perfectly-synesthetically-recreated sense memory of 2012 when i was depressed and listening to crj's kiss daily, this should be horrible but for whatever reason i am really enjoying timecrushed "th1s k1ss 2.0" complete with wormhole-dilated crj vocal fx

FINALLY a good song

i sure hope "western wind" and "beach house" are both outliers

New song “Talking To Yourself” sounds like something from Kiss?

Doesn't sound much like Kiss to me. Maybe a little like their disco phase?

This new song is amazing, can't wait for the album

I can't tell if Keyes is joking or not.

i sure hope "western wind" and "beach house" are both outliers

same here, not feeling these singles at all sadly..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwZjjiD8eoE

lol i really do not like the way their voices go together, but the track is fine otherwise

v classy like "julien," love it

the coda ("and in the morning...") is fucking amazing basically

"bends" ;_;

Good song, this album is going to be great.

this is very solid, i like the generally chill vibe. the only thing i don't like is "beach house". "western wind" was an odd single but works better in context of the album's vibe. "bends" and "bad thing twice" are especially great

"keep away"!!!!!

this album settles into such a gorgeous, relaxed groove from "bends" onwards

big fan of this record even though it is obv her most varied offering yet. simultaneously it's also the one that hits the most yacht rock/sophistipop notes in a row tho

yeah the sophisti- vibes on this are wonderful

Where/how is this album already available?

it leaked so soulseek or wherever else

wtf I love "Beach House" now

It really fits as part of that opening run of sub-3-minute songs

it kind of fits with the vibe but not really, easily the worst thing on here

last time I tried to find an early leak of one of her albums I downloaded a false-labelled hour of a man shouting "I am Carly Rae Jepsen I like to sing the songs" so the bar for me trying to find this is quite low

i'm
feeling dramatic
i like the moon and the magic of this
oh i oh i i i i

I'M
FEELING DRAMATIC
I LIKE THE MOON AND THE MAGIC OF THIS
OH I OH I I I I

last time I tried to find an early leak of one of her albums I downloaded a false-labelled hour of a man shouting "I am Carly Rae Jepsen I like to sing the songs" so the bar for me trying to find this is quite low

― boxedjoy,

I would pay for this.

"shooting star" has me completely delirious

there are so many amazing outros on this album

"bad thing twice" => "shooting star" => "go find yourself or whatever" => "the loneliest time" is cinema

Was alerted to this by sample of video with Rufus Wainwright that will appear in full tomorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy0A0pQmGPM

wonderful video imo

and in the morning
sun hits the water
is this nirvana?

wonderful video imo

and in the morning
sun hits the water
is this nirvana?

Is this some kind of sly tribute to Rufus and Carla Thomas?

The early singles work really well in the context of the album. Loving the sophisti-pop vibes on a few of these tracks. On my second run through now and it's hitting the spot.

Far Away is great. Love the Scritti Politti-esque synth bassline in the chorus.

Ok so Beach House still misses. But Western Wind does work much better in the album context. Still not a great single, but it adds some nice mid-album atmosphere.

The last two singles (Talking to Yourself, Three Loneliest Time) both slay on the record.

Lol the*

Are y'all too busy listening to Taylor?

This album is really good, much better than Dedicated. Much more variety.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho8NDNapmd4

listening through the ILM albums of 2023 and Kollage popped up, genuinely surprised that Men I Trust weren't involved with that track, it sounds just like them

Revisiting this today and think I absolutely underrated it. Never noticed this before but "So Nice" seems to recall Daft Punk's "Something About Us" (specifically the bass but also the la-las remind me of the electric guitar (?) that enters at about 1 min. in).