A comprehensive ranking of every song on Carly Rae Jepsen’s “EMOTION”
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Emotion was far and away my favorite album of 2015, and arguably the best pop album of the past 10 years. Emotion is a perfectly constructed mix of synth-pop, funk, and R&B. Each one of its 17 tracks are practically bulletproof, and so in the interest of internet list-nerdery, I have taken upon myself the Sisyphean task of ranking all of them. God help me.
17. Favourite Colour
It’s a testament to Emotion’s brilliance that a song as great as this is the worst track on the album. “Favourite Colour” is pure balladry, complete with a soaring chorus that would make Toto jealous. However, it’s a pretty standard song on an otherwise extremely distinctive album, and the vocoder effect is a little janky.
I get the feeling that this song could have been a lot more. The instrumental is primarily built on a wobbling bass that suggests a darkness that never really materializes. Instead, we are left with an impeccably crafted love song with an earworm of a hook. I’m not complaining.
15. Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance
“Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance” is up there with Lady GaGa’s “Just Dance” in the pantheon of mixing European techno with American pop. I can practically smell the shirtless dudes with construction hats and glowsticks chanting along to its chorus. Speaking of the chorus, those piano keys? Brilliant.
14. Making the Most of the Night
This song packs way too many syllables into way too small a space. And yet, it works. Perfectly. This song’s secret weapon is the epic ascending war drums on the bridge. Only Carly Rae Jepsen has the power to turn the dancefloor into Braveheart.
13. Love Again
“Love Again” is way too good to be quarantined on the Japanese edition of the album. Sticky synths, Aphex Twin-lite percussion, and what sounds like a police siren on the hook? “Love Again” has it all. Also, it shares a name with my favorite Run The Jewels song.
12. Let’s Get Lost
Were we living in a world with any justice, “Let’s Get Lost” would soundtrack every montage in every teen romance movie ever. While literally every song on Emotion perfectly encapsulates love, “Let’s Get Lost,” moreso than any other, perfectly encapsulates young love, that overwhelming feeling of wanting to spend every waking minute with someone.
11. Black Heart
“Black Heart” is one of the weirder songs on Emotion. The instrumental leans closer to industrial than the rest of the album’s standard synth-pop, yet Jepsen turns the song into an impossibly infectious funk jam. I just don’t know how she does it. If “Black Heart” isn’t the best song on Emotion, it’s certainly the most inventive.
10. Gimme Love
Carly Rae Jepsen does cinematic longing better than practically anyone else, and “Gimme Love” is a prime example of that talent in action. The verses build up with vulnerability and awkwardness, until the chorus explodes with pent-up desire. In the hands of anyone else, “Gimme Love” would be cloying and melodramatic, yet with subtly brilliant vocal inflections and a genuinely expressive performance, Carly Rae Jepsen elevates it to perfection.
When “I Really Like You” was released as Emotion’s first single, cynics were quick to dismiss it as “Call Me Maybe 2.0”. I hope they can rest easy knowing that they are on the wrong side of history. People were so eager to dismiss Jepsen as a one-hit-wonder that they missed the explosive brilliance that is “I Really Like You”. It’s annoying and infectious in all the right ways, it’s self-aware without being ironic, it’s the rare mainstream pop song with genuine personality in it. Plus, the music video has Tom Hanks in it. Tom fucking Hanks. How can you hate on that?
8. Warm Blood
Produced by ex-Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij, “Warm Blood” is the most low-key track on Emotion. The instrumental never rises above a simmer, and some freaky vocal manipulation on the hook makes “Warm Blood” really stand out.
7. All That
The first time I heard the slap bass on “All That,” I saw Jesus. The song is basically an entire course in the art of the ballad. Much of the critical discussion surrounding Emotion was about its overt 80’s influence, and nowhere is that more evident than on “All That”. The song is practically bursting at the brim with longing, longing which builds and builds until the final chorus, which would have fit perfectly in that one scene from Say Anything. It encompasses everything great about the 80s without any of the Reaganomics or rampant cocaine addiction.
6. E·MO·TION
There’s not much I can say about “E·MO·TION”. It’s simply an absolutely perfect pop song. The fact that it didn’t make a dent on the charts is a crime on par with human trafficking. I think this anecdote illustrate’s the song’s power better than anything I could ever write: after this single was released, I would listen to it on repeat. For hours at a time. Over the span of multiple weeks. And not once did I get bored of it. That’s how perfect “E·MO·TION” is.
“LA Hallucinations” is a perfect marriage of music and lyrics. The instrumental is built on twitchy drum patterns and synths that are equal parts glitzy and glitchy, perfectly complementing the lyrics, which deal in the contrast between the glamorized ideal of fame and the more paranoid reality of it. It’s a very subtly weird song, and is catchy enough to forgive the use of the phrase “Buzzfeed buzzards”.
4. Your Type
The ultimate friendzone anthem, “Your Type” is equal parts “I Will Survive” and “You Oughta Know”. The pulsing synths on the verses taunt Jepsen, getting her to admit she still loves the unnamed subject of the song. She bares her heart on the chorus, and her voice seems to be on the verge of breaking. It’s the one moment on the album where she sounds anything less than godlike, and it works perfectly.
Most of Emotion is characterized by longing and vulnerability. “When I Needed You” has no time for that emo shit. Bombastic and self-assured, “When I Needed You” is possibly the most polite kiss-off in the history of pop music. There are so many great things about Emotion, but possibly the greatest is Carly Rae Jepsen’s vocal performances, and this song features her best on the album. Her vocals on the hook burst out with power and confidence, and that confidence is contagious. If any song from Emotion will become a future karaoke standard, “When I Needed You” is a pretty good bet.
2. Boy Problems
I can’t say enough good things about the bass on this song. It’s so funky. It’s like if Quincy Jones took time out of the Off The Wall sessions to make a song from a teenage girl’s diary. “Boy Problems” is beautifully sassy, and is ultimately more about female friendship than actual boy problems. Being a white male, I am absolutely not at all qualified to make this claim, but “Boy Problems” is lowkey a feminist anthem.
That. Fucking. Sax. If I could preserve any one piece of human achievement to last for all of eternity, it wouldn’t be the Mona Lisa. It wouldn’t be Citizen Kane. It would be the corny-ass synthesized saxophone that introduces Carly Rae Jepsen’s magnum opus. Whoever decided to make “Run Away With Me” the opening track of Emotion deserves a Nobel Peace prize. Not only is it the best song on the album, it’s also a perfect summary of everything that makes Carly Rae Jepsen great. Carly Rae Jepsen has a unique talent of taking things that shouldn’t work and placing them into songs that make them work perfectly. Think of the cheesy GarageBand preset strings on “Call Me Maybe”. “Run Away With Me” takes the saxophone, the objective least cool instrument, and turns it into a fucking rallying cry. Jepsen sings as if the concept of irony had never been invented. It’s such a genuine outpouring of excitment and joy that if anyone else had done it it would have come across as a pretentious tounge-in-cheek joke. And yet, Carly Rae Jepsen takes all of this silliness and turns it into something undeniably great. If that’s not a perfect pop song, I don’t know what is
