Ladies and gentlemen, the time for #JUSTICE4JEPSEN is now.
You already know Carly Rae Jepsen for “Call Me Maybe.”
Some of you know her for “Good Time” with Owl City too, and fewer of you know that the Canadian singer-songstress released one of the better sugary pop records of the past decade in 2012’s Kiss.
Almost exactly three years (and an album’s worth of woefully overlooked pop smashes) later, Miss Jepsen has returned at last with her really, really relentlessly teased “I Really Like You,” written by Jacob Kasher (Kesha, Kylie Minogue) and Peter Svensson of The Cardigans.
And she really (X6) nailed it.
Sure, “Really” might not be as immediately meme-able as “Call Me Maybe” — scientifically, I’m not sure that’s possible — but it really, really is “on the level” of her global smash: It’s a super cute, flirty fit of joy; sparkly and sweet like the bulk of Kiss, and the very definition of a “guilty pleasure.” (Y’know, the kind you’ll be turning all the way up when you’re alone in the car.)
The crisp, shimmering production bursts like the sweet sound of Diana Vickers’ Music To Make The Boys Cry and the brightest, most thunderous bits of Taylor Swift‘s 1989…which is partially a knock-off of Kiss, anyway.
Carly’s as girlishly head-over-heels in “like” as ever, and she sounds really, really great. (I hear you belting those bits at the end, Carly!) The lyrics are the stuff of nostalgic teenage dreams, and that whispered bridge is especially a treat: “Who gave you eyes like that? Said you could keep ’em? I gotta tell you somethin’…”
“I Really Like You” is the very essence of pop: Unapologetic, unpretentious, wonderfully, embarrassingly earnest pop — a dying art form in an industry drowning in sarcasm, cynicism and #trendiness.
From the press release:
Peter Svensson wrote one of my all-time favorite songs, ‘Lovefool,’ and working with him made me rediscover the joy of writing something that’s just pure pop,” Jepsen says. “Lyrically, it’s about that time in a relationship when it’s too soon to say ‘I love you,’ but you’re well past, ‘I like you’ and you’re at the ‘I really, really like you’ stage.
Carly is, in fact, a Rae of sunshine…and she deserves to win once again. Really.
I really, really, really, really, really, really like you…
