10 Years Ago, Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION Heralded a Future That Never Came to Pass

The Canadian pop star’s third album is a missive from a better past, an era when the future still seemed bright with possibility.

By Clare Martin  |  July 9, 2025 | 9:00am
Music Features Carly Rae Jepsen
10 Years Ago, Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION Heralded a Future That Never Came to Pass
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Picture this: The year is 2015 and, no matter where you go, “Uptown Funk” is assailing you from the speakers. You’re excited for the Star Wars franchise to return with The Force Awakens and everyone is waxing lyrical about Kendrick Lamar’s tour-de-force new album To Pimp A Butterfly. The idea of Donald Trump becoming president seems laughable and hardly worth a second thought. You have an opinion on the dress (personally, I can see it either way), Left Shark jokes abound, and the Mad Men finale has left us speechless.

And then, before the summer is out, Canada’s own Carly Rae Jepsen ascends from a one-hit wonder best known for “Call Me Maybe” to cult pop icon with her seminal third album E•MO•TION. The future sprawls ahead with limitless, dazzling opportunities, and Jepsen captures that feeling of fecundity in the space of a dozen (or 15, if you went deluxe) synth-pop tracks. (Does this romantic view of the album have anything to do with the fact that I was still in college in 2015 and my young soul had not yet been crushed by the unfeeling boot of capitalism? That’s between me and my therapist.)

Listening back now, as fascists take over our country and original thought withers on the vine, E•MO•TION feels like a missive from a better past, an era when the future still seemed bright with possibility. This album is a time capsule reminding us how life was rosier a decade ago both musically (specifically in the pop arena) and socio-politically. With E•MO•TION, Carly Rae Jepsen elevated her sound, crafting pop that boasted the irresistible, candy-coated sheen of her earlier releases, but with a mature edge and a retro-inspired synth pop aesthetic. Collaborating with the likes of Rostam Batmanglij, Dev Hynes, and Mattman & Robin (of Taylor Swift’s 1989 fame), she showed how pop could channel the influences of the yesteryear while remaining fresh.

From the first blast of saxophone on opener “Run Away with Me,” it’s clear that Jepsen and company are taking inspiration from the neon sonic palette of the ‘80s. The powerful thwack of drum machine and throbbing synth on “Your Type” make the song so much more than your average lovesick ballad, while Jepsen’s playful yells and echoed lyrics on “When I Needed You” recall the endearing sass of ‘80s pop divas like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. There’s a sophistication to the songwriting here; under every hooky line are layers of funky bass, buoyant synth, and backing vocals that weave together elegantly. There’s a reason it ranked 230th on our list of the greatest albums of all time. Listening to E•MO•TION is like watching ballet—it looks so graceful and effortless on the surface, but that sublime ease only comes with years of practice (and some natural talent doesn’t hurt, either).

Compare that with the tired, clunky reliance on samples and interpolation in pop music in the Year of Our Lord 2025. Neither are new phenomena on the charts, but it seems like most of the biggest songs these days have to contain a well-known melody already to appeal to your typical listener whose attention span has been decimated by years of short-form content (this is not shade, by the way—my attention span is also fucked). Benson Boone’s song “Mystical Magical,” off his popular sophomore album American Heart, borrows the tune of the late Olivia Newton John’s “Physical” for its chorus. “I Don’t Wanna Wait” by David Guetta and OneRepublic takes its melody from O-Zone’s “Dragostea din tei” (more commonly known as the “Numa Numa Song”). Shaboozey’s 2024 hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” interpolates J-Kwon’s track “Tipsy,” and the former has since gone platinum five times in the United States. K-pop star Rosé and Bruno Mars’ chart-topping single “Apt.” incorporates parts of Tony Basil’s new wave tune “Mickey.” In short, familiarity is prized over originality. Jepsen, on the other hand, showed on E•MO•TION that artists can take cues from songs of the past, yet still deliver refreshingly novel music.

You might not think of Carly Rae Jepsen as an overtly political artist, because her subject matter is so personal—it’s all feelings or, forgive me, E•MO•TIONS. But what is a crush (like the one she sings about in “I Really Like You,” or “Gimmie Love,” or “All That,” or…) if not hope for a better future, albeit on a smaller scale? As a pre-Trump release, E•MO•TION was rooted in a time of hope, when it felt like humanity was progressing. Consider the glittery, lush “Boy Problems” music video (dir. Petra Collins), which features trans artist and model Torraine Futurum, plus-size model Barbie Ferreira (pre-Euphoria), and Rookie founder and editor-in-chief Tavi Gevinson. I remember watching the video at the time and admiring these women—this was where we were headed! The future was glamorous, erudite, inclusive. But all that seems to have fallen away. Consider the current attacks on trans rights, from the UK’s Supreme Court ruling that legal womanhood is determined by biological sex to the Trump administration’s continued targeting of trans people (though thankfully some judges are pushing back). The rise of Ozempic and other weight loss drugs, as well as the Y2K aesthetic and all of the anti-fat bias that comes with it, signals a stalling—if not a complete backslide—in the body neutrality movement.

Media is in a dire state these days. Not only are we having to deal with the proliferation of AI-generated articles, but independent outlets are dwindling. Forget boy problems—these are everyone’s problems. As a society, we have been fed the myth of progress—the Eurocentric idea that the world has, on the whole, been improving since the dawn of time. Of course, recent years have revealed to us that this is a fabrication meant to gloss over the inherent thorniness of history. There is no overarching narrative to humankind’s time on earth that will unfold in a predictable pattern; the universe is indifferent to us.

In the ten years since E•MO•TION’s release, Carly Rae Jepsen has shared four albums: Dedicated (2019), Dedicated Side B (2020), The Loneliest Time (2022), and The Loveliest Time (2023). While these records garnered critical acclaim, Jepsen has remained somewhat in the same position post-E•MO•TION—fervently beloved by her fans, but not a pop “it” girl in the traditional sense. It’s a nearly flawless album, but it didn’t end up having the macro-level effect on pop that one would expect from such an impressive work. On the other hand, before even breaking into the mainstream with her BRAT era, Charli XCX had that cool girl buzz. Then there’s Lana Del Rey, whose Americana-infused, iconoclast persona has endeared her to fans since “Video Games.” And we can’t forget newcomer Chappell Roan, who’s queering the face of pop and making it look effortless.

Comparing the music “it” girls I just mentioned—as well as others, like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and SZA—with Jepsen, the main difference I see is a visual one: These are artists with a distinctive image, whether it be the winking pin-up, à la Carpenter, or the borderline nihilistic party girl, like Charli XCX. Jepsen, on the other hand, just makes really brilliant pop music, and unfortunately that’s not enough in the era of the “personal brand.” You can’t simply be talented—you must be an easily pitched package. If I had to label Jepsen with such an epithet, it would be escaped-Disney-princess-turned-pop-idol—and given the fact that Disney has their very own pipeline to create such stars, that’s not necessarily the best selling point.

We have the capacity to change the course of history—and I’m not just speaking in terms of making Carly Jepsen a more mainstream superstar. Listening to E•MO•TION sometimes feels like an exercise in fantasy—again, she has a glittering, borderline-Disney sheen to her—though I hope it can galvanize myself and other fans to implement the utopia she’s created in her music. We are not passive observers; any positive change requires decisive action. Or, as Jepsen tells us on “Run Away with Me”: “We could turn the world to gold.”

Clare Martin is a writer and cemetery enthusiast. She works in a library in Dublin, which involves less shushing than you’d think.

 
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