Carly Rae Jepsen - “I Really Like You”

In middle school I developed an interest in critical media and the concept of “reviewing” things like movies, TV and music. I didn’t really get it, though. A lot of my analysis was pretty shallow and more like a teacher reviewing their student’s homework rather than fully engaging with the art and recognizing its craft. In fact, when it came to the music I heard on the radio, it meant I mostly used it as an excuse to classify the overplayed songs I didn’t like as “objectively” bad. One of those was Carly Rae Jepsen’s overly girly, annoying, inexplicably massive hit, “Call Me Maybe”. I HAAAATED “Call Me Maybe” at the time. The radio played it incessantly, the chorus was annoyingly twee and the subject of many bad Facebook memes, seeing it everywhere and so beloved by the whole world drove little me nuts. The only song I hated as much was Drake and Rihanna’s “Take Care”, a song I mostly hated because my particular radio station also played it at nauseam (funny enough the sampled producer on that song was Jamie xx who went on to make my favorite album of all time. Who knew?). 

Cut to 2015 where I’ve mostly outgrown my disdain for “Call Me Maybe”, but was still just prideful enough to not like it. Suddenly, I’m hearing that Carly Rae Jepsen is back, and she has a new song with a video of Tom Hanks singing along to it. Sure, I thought, arms crossed and already irritated. Another round of annoying pop music for the radio to overplay. Whatever. Let’s see the damage. Unfortunately for my stubborn head and fragile opinionated stances, I listened to this new song, titled “I Really Like You”, and something in me… changed. Well, a lot of things about me changed in that time. Namely, I got to experience romantic feelings for someone for the first time (Can you tell this year was a big hormonal shift year for me?). So suddenly those annoying twee lyrics about falling in love and wanting someone to notice you started hitting a little differently. On top of that, I found the chorus to be… quite nice, actually. Very vibrant and fun without being overbearing. The pre-chorus had a nice, loose swell to it that built up to a big explosion of infatuation. Clashing cymbals and fun multitracking in Carly’s vocals, who herself truly sounded like she was deeply in love with this guy and mustering her strength to get those feelings out and shoot her shot. I tried that at the end of the previous year. Didn’t work out. But those butterflies were still fresh in my stomach when I was listening to this song, and I found myself more attached to the song’s innocent, joyous atmosphere. The answer is never given, but the question of “Do you want me too?” lets you live in that moment of joy for just a moment, whether or not the feelings are reciprocated or not. Embarrassingly for my 16-year old self, I loved this song. Very dearly.

2015 turned out to be the exact year to turn around on Carly Rae Jepsen, as she eventually released one of the most acclaimed pop albums of that decade, EM-O-TION. It turned out to be a stellar album, one with even better songs like “Run Away With Me” and “LA Hallucinations”. But “I Really Like You” was more of a turning point for me as I started coming to terms that the way I approached pop music before might not be ideal for every song (Also some gender stuff but we don’t have to get into that). “I Really Like You” didn’t get nearly as overplayed as “Call Me Maybe”, but even if it did I would have been delighted to hear it. It got me in a vulnerable moment where my mind was going all over the place, and the one thing that could keep it calm was a fun pop song about confessing your feelings. Eventually, I came around on “Call Me Maybe” too. Guess I became a fan of its writer or something.

Twenty One Pilots - “Heavydirtysoul”

I never know how to talk about Blurryface these days. My colleagues tend to treat the album with a lot of disdain and mockery, and it’s not like I don’t get it. This was never meant to be a flagpole album of the 2010s. It was, by design, an album for Tyler Joseph and The Clique who were in tune to Tyler’s story of anxiety and isolation. Which took the form of a strange amalgamation that wasn’t quite pop, but not quite rock or hip-hop. Tyler says so in the very lyrics to this song, “Heavydirtysoul”. “This is not rap, this is not hip-hop/Just another attempt to make the voices stop”. My friends often make fun of this line, as well as other groaners throughout the album like the frankly embarrassing “I wasn’t raised in the hood, but I know a thing or two about pain and darkness” on “Lane Boy” or the proclamation of “Yo, this song will never be on the radio/Even if my clique were to pick and the people were to vote, it’s the few, the proud, and the emotional” on “Fairly Local”. These are lyrics coming from a suburban white kid inspired by black music, but not necessarily learning from it. The album in general is very stuck in this “weird kid” force field that deeply believes in what it’s selling, no matter how strange and off-putting it’d be to people not within his circle. And the band has proven to not only grow as people, but as musicians as Trench improved their production chops, Scaled and Icy showed a growth in maturity and hindsight, Clancy melded the two together to bring everything to the ultimate conclusion in Breach, which I’d call their best album since Blurryface. This has been very rewarding for those who’ve tuned in this whole time, whether they liked Blurryface or not.

So why am I so defensive of this album? It’s not like I need to be, it’s hugely influential and iconic. For every former Clique member who laughs at the person who used to connect to that album, there’s an even bigger number of people who hold songs like “Stressed Out” and “Doubt” very close to their hearts. I think the answer lies in the very opening of this album, “Heavydirtysoul”. The one that is not rap, is not hip-hop. I remember how exhilarating it was hearing the album open with this. The distant sirens that echo in the back as Josh Dunn’s terrific drumwork accelerates the song into Tyler Joseph’s quick flows. The pianos offer a light amidst the darker rumbles and Tyler’s very frantic delivery. He says some corny things in there, but you get the impression it’s mostly to cope with the chaos swarming in his mind, representative of the titular Blurryface and his torture of Tyler’s psyche. If nothing else, the song sounds awesome. Tyler screams on the chorus “Can you save! Can you save my! Can you save my heavy dirty soul!” as the production burns around him. It gives an otherwise straightforward rock song the energy and ferocity to make it sound apocalyptic and urgent. The album just started, and the stakes are already high. 

A lot of Blurryface doesn’t hold up, but I don’t think it needs to. It’s a snapshot in time as to where Tyler Joseph was, fighting with his insecurities and anxieties and feeling himself thrown around all over the place. It’s very imperfect and eclectic, which is why I think it picked up a greater resonance beyond The Clique. I know I was mesmerized by the album going from a frenetic rap rock banger to a straightforward pop jams in “Stressed Out” and “Tear In My Heart”. “Ride” may be a bit “white boy does reggae”, but its nervous energy and explosive hook kept me hooked anyway. Songs like “Doubt” and “Polarize” have such strong melodic foundations that are made all the more unique with their stuttering synths and unstable production. And the reckoning that comes with the stretch of “Hometown”, “Not Today” and “Goner” provides a resolution that feels earned and all the more powerful when the final piano ballad explodes into a blast of catharsis. The whole album was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Now it may seem quaint and outdated, but when you were there? Nothing else was like it.

Marianas Trench - “Wildfire”

Hey, so remember when I said I really hated “Call Me Maybe”? Yeah, so that song was written and produced by Carly and her fellow Canadian songwriter, Josh Ramsay. You can see him break down how he made “Call Me Maybe” here, in fact! Josh Ramsay is also the lead singer and mastermind behind the band Marianas Trench, which longtime readers recognize as one of my all-time favorite artists/bands. Funny how he makes the song I hated the most and now he’s one of my artistic beacons. Anyway, I was introduced to Marianas Trench via their 2015 album, Astoria. An adventurous, melodramatic concept album centered around the end of a tumultuous relationship. A lot of things aligned for this album to become one of the pillars of my music fandom- I was still deep in the trenches (heh) of teenage love and all the messy emotions that came with it, I had become integrated into my school’s theatre circle after being in the ensemble of their production of Les Miserables, and I was starting to develop a deeper interest in pop music than ever before. So this album was very much what I needed during this formative year of my life, and as such, it’s become my favorite pop album of all time.

So many incredible hooks, incredible scales, quote-worthy lyrics that perfectly echoed the storm of emotions I was going through at the time, it’s a complete package and massive theatrical experience that became exactly what I look for in pop music. So much so that it’s hard to narrow down a favorite. A lot of these songs have become a permanent part of my psyche, from the cinematic opening title track to the infectious earworms of “Burning Up” and “Yesterday”. Songs that revel in the melodrama and romance like “This Means War” and “Shut Up And Kiss Me”. As I went back and listened to more of Mariana’s Trench, I came to realize what an unbelievable centerpiece “Dearly Departed” is, based on a romance that spanned several albums that had suddenly collapsed and the metatext of how those songs feel different now is utterly devastating. And I remember being so blown away by the ending of this album, “End Of An Era”, which was so resonant and magnificent to me that the final set of lyrics became my senior quote in high school. “Always will love you still, but Astoria must end”.

But I think since the beginning “Wildfire” was the one that struck me the most. After Josh Ramsay has seemingly accepted the circumstances and begins to move on from his ex, his ex suddenly comes back and wants to start again. You’d think getting another shot with the love of his life would elate Josh, but the song is unmistakably somber. Soft piano chords and rumbling drums fill the air as Ramsay hears these words and panics. It’s too soon, the wounds are too fresh. Ramsay can’t help but feel like she’s only getting back with him because she’s afraid of being alone. Their love was so passionate and intense, much like a wildfire that devastates everything in its path. Then again, that devastation could mean that sparking it again will only do more damage. The song swells with these huge string arrangements and explosive drums. Ramsay’s voice bellows to the skies, fighting between his desire to fall back in love and his fear of losing her all over again. You get the impression he’s just desperate enough to start it again, but if he does, it doesn’t feel like a victory so much as impending doom. By the end of the album, Ramsay recognizes that this will only hurt them more and he lets her go, but in “Wildfire”, the emotions are so new and ferocious that you feel the tension in every word and the careful steps that lead to Ramsay’s decision. That kind of emotionally intense situation is so engaging for me, and it hits harder than if Ramsay just jumped back into her arms or even turned her down outright. Is it love? Desperation? Maybe both.

Tomorrow: Brett Eldredge - “Lose My Mind”, Brothers Osborne - “Stay A Little Longer”, Keith Urban - “Break On Me”