Carly Rae Jepsen keeps on rollin’
Carly Rae Jepsen knew she would lose fans after the success of “Call Me Maybe” wore off.
This is the natural order of things: “Call Me Maybe,” the Canadian singer-songwriter’s first big song, wasn’t just a monster hit, it was a cultural tsunami, a pitiless earworm that sold over 18 million copies and went to No. 1 in at least 19 countries. This kind of popularity, she realized, was unsustainable.
But Jepsen didn’t know she would lose so many fans so quickly. During the song’s peak from late 2012 to early 2013, she opened a sold-out arena tour for Justin Bieber, an early backer with whom she has occasionally collaborated. On her own, promoting her follow-up album, “Emotion,” she played clubs. “It was a severe change,” Jepsen says. “It was actually really shocking to us. I think before, opening for Bieber, you kind of get those sort of fans, and you wonder if they’re yours, or if you’re holding them for a little while.”
“Kiss,” the 2012 release that housed “Call Me Maybe,” was a sugary, tweeny pop album that sold tolerably well. “Emotion,” released last summer, is a grown-up pop album with indie inclinations. It has done less well, so far birthing one modest hit (“I Really Like You”). The absence of a “Call Me Maybe”-size smash is intentional, Jepsen says. “I don’t think there’s too many people who want to keep creating the same music over and over. It was a great time of my life, and it took me on this wild adventure that I never would have imagined for myself, but I didn’t want to be stuck in a place where I was expected to deliver the same thing over and over.”
Jepsen’s unlikely career trajectory, has run from 2007 “Canadian Idol” also-ran to pop sensation to cool-kid-beloved Serious Artist.
“It’s been a strange career that I’ve had, but I much prefer the attention that we’ve gotten from this album versus not really being able to go anywhere, the way it was with the last album,” she says. “I feel much more comfortable. When I was at the height (of my fame) with ‘Call Me Maybe,’ it was a little bit too much, almost. This feels better. And also, to be recognized for something that feels more authentically you is the best feeling.” Jepsen was on the verge of turning 30 when she made “Emotion,” middleaged in pop-star years, and she had little idea who her audience was. When she finally began playing shows to support her new album, she discovered that her new fan base was big enough to fill large clubs and old enough to drink. This was strange, but “it wasn’t scary,” she says.
In recent months, she has also had to re-examine her relationship to “Call Me Maybe,” which had been bound up in anxiety and pressure and a familiarity that bred contempt.
“It’s been a changing thing. I think before we had this album out, there was a frustration. I was definitely tired (of playing it), but it was always one of those songs the crowd would kind of pick up and sing for me. It just became this kind of singalong number. Now I quite enjoy it.”