Review Summary: The premier pop songstress of the 21st century is back with a double album that starts with exploration and ends with tedium.
Carly Rae Jepsen's artistic and commercial trajectory is as fascinating as her music. She'll always be remembered as the flirty upstart who exploded on the scene in 2012 with the Diamond-certified "Call Me Maybe", failed to repeat that song's gargantuan success, but maintained a fairly strong presence in the pop landscape as something of an indie darling. While it can be argued that she got such a raw deal, one can't really fuss with how things turned out. And I think that speaks to her brilliance as a pop artist. Stylistically, her music can be dreamy and subdued, but adventurous at other times. As a vocalist, she's charming, even if she's not the most eye-popping interpreter in the world. Groan because it dominated radio all you want, but "Call Me Maybe" is a f*cking classic, and a banger of a pop tune. Few pop hits in history are as exceptionally produced and performed. As Jepsen's career has progressed, she's fleshed out a pretty comfortable electropop territory. It's in her personal life where change and metamorphosis has really occurred. In the last two years, she's gotten married and given birth to a son. Undoubtedly, these events, namely her nuptials, have influenced her songwriting process, and that brings us to
Day and Night, album #8 for the Canadian pop legend.
Day and Night is, by design, a tale of two halves, each comprising of twelve songs.
Day is supposed to be psychedelic, while
Night aims to be more danceable and club-ready. In total, we have almost an hour of a half of material to skim through. Right off the bat, this can be a turn-off for some. I know I find it tedious, and even a bit pretentious sometimes, when artists (
cough Morgan Wallen) cram an absurd number of songs onto an album. For Jepsen's part, though, it definitely isn't an exercise in ego, nor is it even anything completely new for her. The recording sessions for her killer 2022 album
The Loneliest Time reportedly generated dozens of B-sides, some of which later found a home in a companion set called
The Loveliest Time. Carly has been generous with her artistic goods before, so I'm diving into this one pretty excited.
We glide into humble beginnings via "After All," one of the album's preceding singles. It's immediately apparent that Carly is in love and eager to show it, and while it's nothing new from her at this juncture in her career, it is still nice to think about how far she's come, both professionally and personally, with prior hits like "Maybe" and 2015's "I Really Like You" still so fresh in my mind. Those songs addressed themes of romantic attraction with healthy boundaries, which made them optimally palatable for their teen audience. Now that Jepsen is 41 and hitched, there's absolutely no cause for her to be sexually withdrawn. And as is one of her trademarks, she manages to enchant with a decidedly hushed and quaint presentation. She means every word, but there's no need to oversell it. Gentle drum fills buoy us through the first verse as Jepsen seduces her partner in her quietly unruly way, before we land into an ethereal chorus that's carried primarily by Jepsen's vocals. Even with no instruments going for a moment, her knack for an earwormy melody is unparalleled, even if her Bee Gees-esque falsetto runs on a beat or two long. Glassy guitars and bouncy keys take the reins from there, and the rest of the track is a tepidly enthralling opening stanza, though the backing vocals that come in on the second chorus disrupt the immersion just a bit.
"Habits of Creatures," which immediately follows, boasts of verses that actually interest me more than the main hook. The main refrain is enjoyable, if slightly undercooked. Fear not, though, because lead single "On Wires" swoops in to remind us who the f*ck Carly Rae Jepsen is. Leaning somewhat into some welcome rock influences, Carly's breathy verses give way to a stratospheric display of emotion on the chorus. I would
love to see this one performed in a massive arena, because this is demanding to rattle a five-digit number of bones. With "Blue Skies" right on its tail, we are straight up soaring through the air by now, friends. You can almost picture yourself passing through the clouds as sterling string arrangements dial up the euphoria. At less than two and a half minutes in length, this little nugget of a gem is criminally too short. At least its utterly magnificent for what it is, and the guitar riffs are cool, too. I had to replay this one a few times before trekking forward. It's that good.
The prominent guitars and rock soundscapes continue on "Burning Heart," which is another masterpiece in its own right. Here, Carly's appreciation for her husband forms the emotional bedrock of the lyric. "Your love is all I've ever known," she gratefully exhales, before inviting him to join her on further adventures. Then we get a f*cking
saxophone solo on the bridge, y'all! This is the musical equivalent of an out-of-body experience, one that will be most resonant for people head over heels in love, and a fantasy to vicariously escape to for the rest of us. Its appeal is still universal, but damn, will it make you want to get married just so you can truly know what Carly is feeling in this moment. The more stripped down "Wild Child" exemplifies Jepsen's improved capabilities as a vocalist. She truly doesn't get enough credit in my estimation for being able to inject as much humanity into a track as she can, and she especially does here. A bit later on, "Just a Little Walk on the Moon" brings the album's
Day chapter to a close with a lyric that is as wide in scope as the composition is pleasantly withdrawn, throwaway lines about 'flying fish' notwithstanding.
The
Night segment kicks off with the purposeful pulse of "Never Let a Good Thing Die," with a beat-heavy soundscape ready to propel you onto the dancefloor at a moment's notice. Though we are already drifting from the rock-adjacent flourishes we saw so much of in the album's first half, we maintain a consistent throughline with Jepsen's playfully promiscuous songwriting. "Patience Power Passion" conjures up subtle reminders of Jepsen's landmark 2015 album
Emotion, at least due to its buzzing production that crackles with ample electricity. It's another technical triumph, even if its chorus is another that relies on a small swath of ideas like a crutch to keep it moving. Jepsen's vocals ostensibly get run through a cheese grater on the single "Motivation," and if not for the cushy keys and synth washes that pervade on most of the track, this might have been the project's first and only serious misfire. Those vocal affectations on the intro are just not my cup of tea.
By the time we reach the searching "You Don't Know How It Feels," we're still looking at really good stuff musically, but we run into one of this album's few pitfalls. We know that Carly's heart is in every word, every time the protagonist she portrays is demonstrating romantic or sexual satisfaction. I think what dispenses of some of my attachment is the fact that while Carly is good at finding new ways to say the same thing, she is still essentially saying the same thing. After a while, you wonder if she'll zoom out, observe something beyond the confines of the relationship, or at least be introspective in a way that doesn't allude singularly to the relationship. I don't deny she's her own women, with plenty of autonomy, but you as a listener do start to rack your head for visions of divergent songwriting after the tenth or eleventh proclamation of love in a row.
The rest of
Night is pretty uniform. The dancepop stylings are smooth and assured, but we really don't see any parity. It's all tame, never elevating to a crescendo or bombast that might threaten to eschew the vibe or the intimacy, but eventually you almost kind of hope you'll see a U-turn. It's here that the album length we talked about earlier reenters the fray as a point of contention. The entire affair reaches its curtain call with "Super Sage," and its yet another electro waltz that seems to have more inertia yearning to be unlocked than what we see. Again, it's all in Jepsen's wheelhouse, but where such oomph is expected, given the track's place as the definitive bookend, it's not found. We reach the conclusion of
Day and Night, having thoroughly enjoyed nearly ninety minutes of premium pop, while still feeling not 100% satiated.
Day and Night, keeping with its billing and innate structure, truly is a tale of two halves. Unquestionably,
Day is the stronger and superior batch of songs. Jepsen takes way more risks and toys with a wider bevy of influences and ideas. You spend as much time longing to return to it as you do wafting through the innocuous club fodder that dominates much of
Night's portion of the album. Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for blurry, danceable goodness, but such material is dime-a-dozen in Jepsen's catalog at this point in her career. Suffice to say, this otherwise outstanding collection of tunes does suffer from its bloated runtime, and sags under its own weight about three quarters of the way through. I think Jepsen could turn in another magnum opus next time out, if she compacts the tracklist and expands upon the creative nuances she hints at in the early phase and then promptly leaves behind. Even with all of this said, though,
Day and Night is still a pretty damn
superb offering.
