Carly Rae Jepsen — Dedicated: how to show growth as an artist while living up the cheesiest of legacies
Internet proclaimed Queen pretty of much anything you can think of, Carly Rae Jepsen returns with her first full-length release in 4 years. Since the release of E•MO•TION (the record that earned her both massive critical acclaim and a cult following), the Canadian singer has released several singles and a collection of album outtakes, toured the world and even received a sword while performing on stage! Her latest effort, aptly titled Dedicated, sees her trying to hone in her musical strengths into refreshing her own sound, and even if early listens of the album might make it seem like this one isn’t as impactful as E•MO•TION, it still is able to showcase Jepsen’s drive to grow as a pop songwriter.
Opening with the hyper-polished Julien, Dedicated wastes no time in presenting its listeners with what will be the album’s main musical landscape: stylish and bright pop melodies that shape up to create a continuous feeling of being in the liveliest of parties. While this is a predominantly electro-pop record, the album also holds merit for the way it incorporates surprisingly organic instrumental sections into the mix, such as the percussions in For Sure. Between its more 80’s flavored numbers, like Want You In My Room or Feels Right, and its more modern-sounding cuts, Dedicated makes it clear that the singer’s main goal was to create an album that felt focused on the idea of having the best time possible. All this is nicely built around Jepsen’s presence, whose charming vocal performance adds an extra layer of glossiness to an album already feels polished and sparkly.
Music-wise, the album sounds great, but sound by itself isn’t the thing that makes the Canadian singer stand out as a pop act, and lyrics are probably the aspect of Dedicated that make it the most evident how much she has evolved as a musician. Still fixated with love as a concept, Jepsen keeps exploring different sides of this subject through her lyrics. This time, however, there’s a newfound confidence to her lyrics, and the album finds Carly drifting away from lyrics about longing and unrequited love to her playfully going back and forth between simultaneously wanting to embrace love (both from herself, and from idealized romantic interests) and being giddy yet terrified by the possibility of heartbreak. Turning her lyrics into both an exercise in self-commentary and a healing device to her followers, Carly now seems to be able to turn heartbreak into purposeful self-assurance, adding an extra dash of humanity to the glossy and lively sound of the album.
Detractors of Carly Rae Jepsen and her music often comment on her lack of a unique identity or “brand” to attach to her music. And even if Dedicated might not give its listeners a visual quirk — say, a ponytail and an extreme tan — to attach to the singer’s image, the album does show part of her identity as a prolific pop song making machine, someone who seems to be aiming to put a personal spin of the genre’s formulas in order to offer music that not only is fun and catchy but also feels genuine. It might be a bit too early to predict whether or not Dedicated will garner Jepsen the same levels of adoration her previous full-length did, but the record still checks a lot of the boxes needed to make it qualify as a great musical effort. Its biggest merit, however, is the way it does a great job at showing that growth as a musician doesn’t necessarily come at the expense of having fun.
