Carly Rae Jepsen turns motherhood and desire into a double-album world
On Day and Night, Jepsen brings marriage, motherhood and a widening pop vocabulary into focus while embracing a smaller, more committed audience.
Carly Rae Jepsen’s forthcoming double album, Day and Night, marks a new chapter for an artist once defined by global pop ubiquity. In an interview with The Guardian, Jepsen describes the record as a cohesive world shaped by marriage, motherhood, desire and a broad palette of pop influences.
Jepsen says she and musician and producer Cole MGN fell in love while making the album. The couple married last year, and Jepsen became a mother in March — experiences she says have brought both happiness and an acute sense of vulnerability.
The album’s sound moves between soul, jazz, house, chillwave and ABBA-inspired pop. Jepsen’s ambition is to make the double set expansive without losing its sense of unity: a record with distinct moods that still feels as though it “lived in a home”.
That instinct reflects a career increasingly built around creative permission. After Call Me Maybe made her a global star, with reported sales of more than 18 million copies and No 1 chart positions in 19 countries, Jepsen moved through albums including Emotion, Dedicated, The Loneliest Time and The Loveliest Time. She now sees greater value in a smaller, committed fan base than in trying to satisfy the broadest possible audience.
Her path has also included theatre. Jepsen made her Broadway debut in Cinderella in 2014 and is now collaborating with Lena Dunham, Ethan Gruska and Jessica Huang on a stage adaptation of 10 Things I Hate About You, reportedly due to open next August. The project extends her interest in writing music for characters, stories and feelings that demand more than a conventional pop song.
