1. i wrote about the pink and carly rae jepsen albums for slate. →

    two great albums, two fantastic pop stars, tons of truth bombs.

  2. The video was, of course, not quite what had been advertised (it never is, is it?); it was actually a mashup of clips from the president’s speeches strung along to the instrumental. It boggles the mind why anyone would want to create such a thing (never mind take the time to do so), but the clip was, in fact, pretty amusing. Yet, something about its release felt somehow… suffocating, thanks to what had preceded it. First there was the business card. Then the lip-dubs. The covers. The memes. A profoundly amazing mash-up with Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life.” Type “Call Me Maybe Parody” into YouTube’s search bar, and you run the risk of having your eyes melt out of your face,Raiders of the Lost Ark-style. It had some rightfully crowing, “Enough already.”

    Most recently, Jimmy Fallon hosted the 26-year-old ex-Canadian Idol finalist on Late Night last Thursday, and as a little internet-only aside, he, Jepsen and the Roots performed the song using only toy classroom instruments. Again, pretty amusing little video, but there seemed to be a distinct scent of “What the fuck do we do with this thing now?” swirling around that tiny dressing room. I mean, classroom instruments? What could possibly be next? Two xenomorphs jamming to it in the Prometheus cargo bay? Alia Shawkat reprising her Arrested Development role on Funny or Die? It chills the blood.

    In the past, the worst thing that could happen to the Song of the Summer was it being played to death. But in the digital age, the pitfalls are boundless. As “Call Me Maybe” is increasingly meme-ified, it runs the risk of becoming completely mummified. This is how the seemingly un-killable is ultimately undone.

    Zach Kelly on “Call Me Maybe” and why we can’t have nice things. 

  3.

    chamberlain:

    Chambaland - “Semi Charmed Call” (Carly Ray Jepsen vs. Third Eye Blind)

    THERE WAS NO OTHER WAY FOR THIS WEEK TO END. 

  4. Part of its appeal might lie in the way that it hooks the listener quickly: Over some plucked strings, Jepsen, her voice sounding delicate yet conspiratorial, sings about throwing a wish in a well and spotting an attractive guy clad in ripped jeans (“skin was showin’”) who just happens to be staring at her. And then—29 seconds in—the strings soar into a bowed crescendo and Jepsen lays down her pickup line: “Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy/But here’s my number, so call me maybe?” She belts this—and an assertion that there are, in fact, other “boys” after her—out in the sort of singsong way associated with clusters of kids gathering on the playground to sing taunts, making it easy for anyone to join in. (One of the women across the aisle sang the hook idly long after she and her friend had detached their mutual earbuds, as if trying to extract it from her brain via speech.) The quick path to infatuation outlined by the lyrics is replicated musically by the rapid progression to its triumphant, string-laden chorus—it’s the sonic equivalent of a cartoon character’s eyes turning into big pink hearts immediately upon seeing someone who came out of their dreams.

    — I really really like “Call Me Maybe.” And lots of other people do too.

  5. shitty:

    I rarely post any music I make myself here but I’m pretty stoked about this: a synth-and-found-sounds cover of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” I did for a pop-gone-experimental comp coming out this summer. I guarantee it is nowhere near as phenomenal as the original article, maybe unless you just took a Percoset. 

    This is so so so so so good.