CARLY RAE JEPSON
Prolific songwriter Jepson brings power pop to new album
Haters love to say pop stars don’t write their own songs. Not only is this untrue (see Aretha Franklin to Lady Gaga, George Michael to Beyonce), but it’s usually a swipe at women — notice how few men point out how little songwriting Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Joe Cocker did. The haters need to hear this: Carly Rae Jepsen wrote 200 songs for her new album, “Dedicated.” No, every one wasn’t amazing. Yes, she penned many of them with co-writers. But the number is still astounding. Even Jepsen, who plays a sold-out House of Blues on Tuesday, chuckles
when confronted with the number. “I’m laughing because every time I hear it out loud I have to,” she said. “But, yes, I wrote 200 songs for this album. And that’s pretty normal for me.” “I am lucky to say that I love songwriting,” she added. “But I also really wanted to figure out where I was going with this album and part of that was workshopping and experimenting and trying new things.” If you know one thing about Jepsen, it’s she’s behind 2012 mega-monster-ginormous smash “Call Me Maybe.” But since then she’s carved out a shocking niche: pop star that’s barely a star. Her last album, “Emotion” — full of delicious modern beats that wink at corny Belinda Carlisle confections and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis masterpieces — didn’t spawn a big hit. Now “Dedicated” has also failed to spin off a chart-buster. And yet, her cult has the numbers to tally tens of millions of streams for her new songs on YouTube and Spotify and pack 3,000-seat clubs. How? Her pop is, well, perfect. While it skips the politics of Madonna, Gaga and Beyonce, it sharpens the hooks. “Dedicated” retains the ’80s fetish of “Emotion,” but it amplifies the catchiness of the choruses, pumps up the volume on the dance beats and — in a world in love with Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande minimalism — goes big. Over months, Jepsen selected the smartest, sassiest, more sublime songs from those 200 rough drafts. “It’s a chip-away project,” she said. “Just last night I was working on a B-sides project and it felt the same as the album. I stayed up late last night just listening and saying, ‘God, this part is hard.’” She loves her songs, but she’s not too broken up about not generating another No. 1 hit. “I am really lucky that I got to experience what ‘Call Me Maybe’ was for my life, but it didn’t save a ton of room for the lifestyle I wanted,” she said. “It was an adrenaline rush all day, every day. And I much prefer feeling more connected to myself and making music that the right people get. It won’t be for everybody, but I’m loving my shows and the career path I am on now.” With both “Emotion” and “Dedicated,” Jepsen proved a pop artist can succeed without much support from radio or the stadium tours. She’s on a major label, but her career looks a lot more like an indie act with a long, solid future. “The scary thing about this career is that I was on the hustle for so long thinking, ‘OK, I probably have two years left, OK, I probably have a year left, then what am I going to do?’” she said. “I would love to say one day, ‘I got to do what Cyndi Lauper did.’ To have a career like that. It’s a crazy, crazy industry and you’ve got to, as an artist, find a place in it that feels normal to you.”