Carly Rae Jepsen drops release “The Loneliest Time”; a sad bitch disco anthem in time for the holidays

Carly Rae Jepsen has fried out her hair, and is back with her sixth studio album. Yep. Dedication Side B counts as a studio album.

Carly’s songs thus from her album The Loneliest Time have been pretty cooky and quirky, which isn’t out of the ordinary for Carly at all. But it feels like Carly is leaning further into than she has before, and that there’s more of a carefree attitude in her approach to her image and her sound.

The success of “Call Me Maybe” was so fucking huge, that it was always going to loom over the album which came next - that album being Em-o-tion. And then when Em-o-tion dropped it became this cult classic that seemed to deliver what fans wanted, and already had them wanting more - so Em-o-tion ended up looming over Dedication too. Dedication kinda...came and went. And whilst the reception may have been quiet, at least its success wasn’t so large as to cast a shadow over whatever came next. And I think that’s what we’re witnessing with Carly’s approach here.

Carly’s album title track “The Loneliest Time” features Rufus Wainright, who like Carly Rae is also a Canadian. And he also happens to be a gay.

Carly Rae Jepsen exists in this strange place as a pop star. She has a big and very vocal fanbase. The gays ride for her...and *Turns and looks into the camera* to her. *Cue “Run Away with Me”*.

When news breaks that Carly Rae is releasing something, or she’s holding a gig,, it’s big news in the pop world. She’s unproblematic. The critics like her stuff. She’s not part of the pop machine as we know it. She tours. And yet, she’s not a big seller. You’d probabaly assume that she was, but she really isn’t. She’s smack bang in the middle of being a commercial sensation and a cult hit.

It’s interesting to me, because for the longest time I assumed everything of hers released to big numbers, because of how much commotion there was whenever Carly announced a music release or put something out - but none of it really has. It’s a reminder that measures of success in music is more than just sales, and that you can still enjoy a lengthy career and success on your own terms without being a multi platinum selling artist. Of course it’s nice to sell a shit load of albums, because it makes for a good sound byte that you’ve sound millions of albums, and albums selling in the millions means money. But it is certainly not the defining measure of success. And as we’ve seen since the beginning of time, you can go multi platinum one year and then be a flop with no career the next. Carly may not push Taylor Swift numbers, but she has managed to maintain longevity for over a decade and continues to have a career where people still look forward to her albums, and I think that’s a great place to be, because she’s still in the game to put out an album that could sell by the truck load.

Whatever Carly Rae Jepsen has been doing, is doing, and how she’s doing it, it’s the right things.