MUSIC
Carly Rae
JEPSEN FROM POP PRINCESS TO FULL-BLOWN QUEEN The voice at the other end of the line is calm and bubbly. Despite her crazy schedule, Carly Rae Jepsen has taken some time to update us on her latest projects and on how her life has been since the release of her most recent album, Dedicated.
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By Marie-Eve Venne
est known for her hit “Call Me Maybe,” which became the world’s best-selling single in 2012, Jepsen has spent the last few years emerging from her image of a tween pop star to fully embracing a more mature pop queen persona. Showcasing a modern and sophisticated sound, her fourth full-length album comes after the release of Emotion in 2015, an album that was raved about by critics but slipped under the top charts radar. On Dedicated, she delivers breathy pop songs that reveal her sexier side, while walking us through an upbeat disco romance. She sounds more like herself, or at least like what a woman of
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33 years that has spent the last few trying to rise from her mega-hit should sound like. All these tracks are unmistakably Carly, and all have a common trend: they go for the feelings. Through her whole evolution, Jepsen’s most ardent fans continued to defend her magic beyond a doubt. Her fandom has reached its peaked in 2018 when a Tumblr user created a post calling for a “Petition to give Carly Rae Jepsen a sword,” and then continuing to say, “I like her and think she should have one.” From this, the Canadian pop star’s fans launched a social media campaign that culminated at Lollapalooza last summer, when someone hurled an inflatable sword onstage during Jepsen’s performance of “Cut to the Feeling.”