Carly Rae Jepsen: "I'm more confident in my weirdness now" | The music



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Wwhile Carly Rae Jepsen had written Call Me Maybe, Billboard's "greatest chorus of the 21st century," she was aiming for a sense of "childlike excitement." That's how she writes much of her music – as she says today: "I want to feel that I'm at the top of a mountain with Beyoncé-wind in my hair and that I can fly a second . "

Jepsen is one of the most intriguing characters in pop. When Call Me Maybe entered the Hot 100 in her home country, Canada, seven years ago, she thought she was there. Then Justin Bieber heard the incredibly catchy song, filmed herself and synchronized her lips with Selena Gomez, tweeted the video, which was viewed 76 million times. The song has mutated in countless times: even Colin Powell has sung a squeaky version on live television. In Jepsen's video, I Really Like You, Tom Hanks' lips synchronize perfectly with his lyrics and they dance together, a couple as absurd as happy like Beauty and the Beast. Follows a mashup version of this track, made of speech by Nick Clegg.

Jepsen has quickly become one of the most famous music stars in the history of social media. There was the tumblr campaign to give her a sword and make her look like Joan of Arc ("I like her and I think she should have one", l & # 39; ; deadpanned poster). There was a tweet about why she was better than Mozart ("Carly: writes her own lyrics / Mozart: no words in the songs"). Less brilliant and stylish than other stars of the Los Angeles singing machine, she is much more attractive than Cyndi Lauper than Katy Perry.

We meet at King's Cross in London. She comes from LA "but I had jet lag in a weirdly wonderful way" – she woke up at 3 am and ran into East London at dusk. Her words resonate – but there is a science in what she says. On the new album, a tropical, sparkling love song follows one another. Ask her how to make a shot and she will say, "Well, there is construction, meadow, anticipation, explosion, impulses, celebration – but it's not necessary to lock this formula in your head. "

Along with the enthusiastic technical interview, she is marked by a certain innocence. When I reread memorable lyrics of the new album about helping a man to fall asleep ("As the pressure points / my love can comfort him in my hand"), she actually blushes. The song is about Popeye, she says; she and her co-authors, all musical theater buffs, discussed the weak points of Robin Williams' 1980 film version. They liked the idea of ​​adapting the song of Olive He needs me. And if they glowed, wrote a pre-chorus around the concept and turned it into a sexy song about the big eater of spinach?





Jepsen performs at the Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago



"My fashion has nothing to do with what is fashionable." Jepsen plays at the Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago, 2018. Photo: Timothy Hiatt / WireImage

His people told him that Disney would never license the track. She went to Disneyland with a false contract for Mickey Mouse, she was signed by the mouse, then she sent a photo to her label who sent it to Disney. It was not the first fake contract she had worked that had worked. At age nine, she wrote one for her parents in Mission, British Columbia, promising to buy them a seaside home when she was tall, which she recently did with the product. of his great success. Jepsen manages with the help of slightly magical methods. She had to face the inevitable pressure of trying to follow Call My Maybe by playing Cinderella on Broadway – just to challenge herself.

His third album, Emotion, did not sell much – but critics liked it. Of course, play your cards well and a big song will bring in enough money to finance the darkest albums. "A stroke gives you artistic freedom," she agrees.

Jepsen wrote his first song at nine o'clock – a "terrible protest song," entitled They Cut Cut Down The Big Trees. His first love song, Dear You, arrived at the age of 17. She began with a letter, but when she re-read it herself, she heard a cadence and a melody: "We were younger than our age, very shy." said. "We were slow. It was a big problem to go out, share songs and kiss each other.

Even the way she talks about it now is romantic. She has the gift of grasping the beginnings of love – like young Taylor Swift, she can sell a teenage feeling to a nine-year-old child or a jaded adult. But there is a science to love too. "The butterfly phase does not stop when you get older," she says. "In fact, it intensifies as you realize how much you should be, because his will not last. You are more awake for that. Which makes it sweet and sour.

Watch the video from Now that I found you from Carly Rae Jepsen's Dedicated album.

Her parents, both teachers, divorced when she was a child and moved in with new partners. "I began to be fascinated by the houses where I grew up, the different homes of my father and mother, and the testimony of these couples," she says. "I've always been extremely aware of the feelings of these households: four unique people, all strong in their own identity."

Love and music have become closely related. "When I listened to songs, I ended up feeling the artists to such an extent that it would make me cry if I imagined too much of them," she says. Her parents, who remain friendly, always share a love for James Taylor – so she listens to him. Her mother took her with a small glass of wine full of juice and asked her what she thought of Leonard Cohen's song, Famous Blue Raincoat. "We had all these conspiracies: Jane was definitely in love with this guy, not this guy." They always play the game of words when she returns home.

You have the impression that one of the biggest challenges she has had to face is to overcome natural shyness, whether with her image or with industry policy. She claimed not to appear in close-up on the cover of her new album, Devotedwho returns it instead.

"I do not like the way pop music makes your body and your face appear as an important selling point," she says. "I told them: I'm 33 years old, I spent years putting my face on business. I want it to be useful. I do not want to hide, but the image can be everything for some artists, and I thought, God, that I can not compete with that. I feel more confident in my age and strangeness now, and the fact that my fashion really has nothing to do with what is fashionable. Now I could make a bad choice of equipment, but at least it's up to me to make the decision. "

The other day, someone was trying to call her like Marilyn Monroe, and she ended up looking like a "torn Annie" so she objected. His point of view is: "There is a way to always be kind and defend what I am."

I suggest that it is unusual to meet a popstar anxious to be kind. "I think it would be unfortunate to travel with a team of people who secretly hate you," she says. "What solitude in an already lonely business. Jenna is my assistant, but that does not mean I'm going to call her at four in the morning.

When Jepsen hit public opinion in 2012, the main debate in pop music was the excessive sexualization of female singers. "The power is in your hands [now]as a woman, in a different way than she was, "she says. "The days when the guys were telling women what they should look like are gone. When I first came into Los Angeles offices, the momentum was felt, but I did not have the words to say it.

"That's what younger generations do for us," she says: restoring momentum, defending oneself. "Set up with less shit."





Carly Rae Jepsen



Carly Rae Jepsen. Photography: Steve Jennings / WireImage

She learned to avoid too much "LA-ish" producers, especially those who deal with collaboration in song writing as therapy sessions for the artist. "I hate that shit," she says. "I do not need it you write about my life! I have it! I managed to slowly but surely move these people away from me. This does not mean that I have not met many of them. "

She continues to go to Disney World: loves rides, puts her head back and feels her stomach drop. His buddy, James Flannigan, songwriter and "medium multi-instrumentalist" (according to his Instagram) who worked with Dua Lipa and Kodaline, co-wrote a track Devoted called true love. Does she believe it? "The idea that two people commit each other for life, my mother and my father-in-law are a good example. I'm not more than two and a half years old, so I would not be expert enough to say it. But there is not a box checked for a correct life. I am dedicated – but I may still have questions. "

Dedicated is available May 17 (Interscope Records). Kate Mossman is editor-in-chief of the New Statesman

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