Carly Rae Jepsen

One Liner: Call Me Maybe!  And more pop action since then apparently!

Wikipedia Genre: Pop, disco, pop rock, folk
Home: Canada!

Poster Position: 6
Weekend One Only.  Friday.

Thoughts: The "Call Me Maybe" lady!  She's still out there!  An unstoppable pop banger.  851.2 million streams.

Reminds me of my daughters, when they were tiny girls.  I clearly remember my now-14 year old jamming it a decade ago.  What are those guys with guitar and bass doing in that video?  They are entirely not involved in this song.  Also, over 1.4 BILLION streams for that video.  Damn.

Hey, she sang the Fuller House theme!  My kids have also wormed that into my ears a good three billion times.  If you don't recall Carly, she's a Canadian who came close to winning Canadian Idol in 2007, then released a chilled out folk/pop album in 2008.  Which is really odd when compared to her final form of pop starlet juggernaut.  "Tug of War" had the most streams from that at 6.3 million.

But after that album, she broke out in a big way with 2012's "Call Me Maybe" - it was the best selling single of that entire year.  Her album with that song - Kiss - has collaborations with Bieber and Owl City (shockingly, the latter is the bigger hit) and went Gold in many countries.

2015's follow-up Emotion sold a lot fewer copies, but was lauded by critics anyway.  Cosmo named it the best album of 2015.  Rolling Stone and Pitchfork had it in the top 50 for the year.  Multiple publications had it in their top albums of the 2010s.  The top track is the extra-repetitive "I Really Like You."  408.6 million streams.

I'm sorry, what the hell?  Tom Hanks is the star of a Carly Rae Jepson video?  I would not have predicted that in 500 million years.  So weird, just mouthing the words as he goes about his day in NYC.  Just one of the best actors ever, goofing around with a pop tune.  Oh, hey, and Bieber is in that video at the end too.  WHAT IS HAPPENING?

2019 brought us Dedicated, and 2020 brought us Dedicated Side B - and no new albums since then.  Some of these songs very much remind me of the Taylor Swift music that she made with Jack Antonoff.  It still has pop sensibility, but its more subdued (and has much lower stream counts).  "Too Much" is the top streamer, from the Side A album, with 31.7 million streams.

Don't you hear some of those recently TayTay songs in there?

During all of her time as a famous pop star, she's also done some TV, Broadway, and film work.  She was Rizzo in the Grease:Live thing on TV in 2016, and played Cinderella on Broadway.  After reading more about her, it seems that she has created an impact bigger than just her hit songs - like P!nk, it seems like she has created a fandom who is rabidly devoted and overly excited about her.  In 2019, Insider called Jepsen an "Artist of the Decade" because her "impact extends far beyond music, as she's often celebrated as a queer icon".

I haven't hated listening to these tunes for a day or two, honestly.  Usually not on board with pure pop, but most of this is pretty fun music.  I kind of doubt I'd do the show, but maybe could be wandering that way if the people against her are lame.