Reviews

Carly Rae Jepsen “The Loneliest Time” Album Review

The Loneliest Time

Carly Rae Jepsen

    • Genre: Pop
    • Date: 21 Oct, 2022
    • Content: explicit
    • Region: USA
    • Track(s): 16
  • ℗ 2022 School Boy/Interscope Records

With her seamless transitions between dance pop and synth-pop on The Loneliest Time, Carly Rae Jepsen is given the opportunity to experiment. A few heartening instances notwithstanding, Jepsen primarily sings about love and relationships. This 13-track collection is a nice display for her range within the genre even though her sound is still a work in progress. The Loneliest Time is an unmistakably pop album, complete with upbeat tunes and memorable songs.

Jepsen once again expertly condenses emotion into alluring melodies in “The Loneliest Time,” but this time she draws inspiration from a wide range of genres that are on the periphery of her sound. ‘The Loneliest Time’ transforms Carly Rae Jepsen’s joyful bravado into pensive pop, anxious to reconnect bodies to their reality, from folk to disco. However, the record is more than a lockdown diary.

Album Cover Art

Carly Rae Jepsen &Quot;The Loneliest Time&Quot; Album Review, Yours Truly, Reviews, March 28, 2024

Blonde Carly, in a slightly transparent net top, has her right hand on the table as she gently tilts her head backward to look into the cam. Judging from her countenance and the scattered artificial flowers and fruits on the table, it doesn’t take time to tell she could really use a hug even though she maintains a charming poise.

Tracks and Features

The album’s first track, “Surrender My Heart,” is a catchy declaration of love for a lover. A few more songs follow, most of which continue Jepsen’s tradition of expressing ecstatic love. But getting to the fourth song, “Far Away,” something changed. In a song about reuniting with an old love, Jepsen declares her intention to take things slow while pleading with the other person to “give this love a second try.” Synthetic chimes play notes of surprising bittersweetness in the background.

On the sweet and independent-minded song “Go Find Yourself or Whatever,” Jepsen returns to the folk and roots-rock of her 2008 debut. Since this is Jepsen, saying goodbye to a partner who is moving on to consider other choices is disguised by (in a rather irksome manner) pledges to wait for him. She is aware that he won’t be returning, though, as evidenced by the elegiac howling-at-the-moon of the song’s acoustic guitar and banjo.

The bonus track “Keep Away,” a more forcefully boundary-setting echo of “Far Away,” is where Jepsen’s efforts to (partially) cast off her idealism touchingly culminate. Even while she longs for physical contact, Jepsen acknowledges in the quiet, contemplative song that she needs to move on from a relationship that isn’t healthy for her. It’s a very remarkable song that the album builds to without fanfare or self-importance; its thematic relevance is secondary to its feat of sequencing.

Songs like “Joshua Tree,” “Western Wind,” and “Bends” casually use analogies from the natural world to express the artist’s amorousness, while “Shooting Star” successfully conveys the superstitious love passion through constellations of synthesizers and a wide range of guitar pedals and effects.

The Loneliest Time features a lot of guitars, although some of the funkier songs, like “Bad Thing Twice,” have a canned sound to them. And while many of the songs on this album (especially those in the first half) are brief, others, like the lovely, upbeat song “Sideways,” beg to be extended in order to realize their full melodic potential.

“Beach House” is a successful confection that lasts just long enough to get through the broken promises and shoddy statements of a cast of very poisonous guys. The song perfectly captures Jepsen’s distinctive charm while also being shrewd enough to see through BS and give certain men a good skewering.

Tracklist / Songs

NO

TITLE

TIME

1 Surrender My Heart 2:48
2 Joshua Tree 2:29
3 Talking to Yourself 2:53
4 Far Away 2:59
5 Sideways 2:16
6 Beach House 2:29
7 Bends 3:15
8 Western Wind 3:45
9 So Nice 3:39
10 Bad Thing Twice 3:13
11 Shooting Star 3:19
12 Go Find Yourself or Whatever 4:44
13 The Loneliest Time (feat. Rufus Wainwright) 4:34
14 Anxious 2:57
15 No Thinking Over the Weekend 4:42
16 Keep Away 4:02

Album Theme

With the wisdom she amusingly garnered from loneliness, Jepsen gives a reintroduction to relationships on this album. The album usually includes slow, reflective periods.

Production Credits

Alex Hope, alexmaax, Bullion, Captain Cuts, Imad Royal, John Hill and a couple of others are among the producers that worked on the album.

Stream

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