Hello, everyone! Before I talk about this new album, I want to give a quick update on my other upcoming posts. Yes, I’m still planning to post my top 100 favourite songs of 2022 … honestly, I thought I was going to get that post done in July, and that didn’t happen, but I still feel confident about posting it in August, and I have very slowly been making some progress on it. Also, I’ve got more mini reviews coming up soon.

Alright, so now I want to talk about this new Carly Rae Jepsen album, The Loveliest Time.

This is studio album number seven from Carly Rae Jepsen, and it comes less than a year after her previous album, The Loneliest Time, which came out in October of last year.

Recently I decided to familiarize myself with more of Carly Rae Jepsen’s discography, and … well, I mostly find her albums consistently solid but not particularly great—that is, with the exception of E•MO•TION, as even though when I went back to that album recently for the first time in a while it wasn’t quite as great as I remembered it being, it’s still a great pop album with lots of great hooks and melodies, and fantastic production!

And I think the production is part of the reason her other albums haven’t clicked for me quite as much. That’s not to say I think the production is bad—I even highlighted the production as a positive on The Loneliest Time—but I don’t think there’s another Carly Rae Jepsen album where the production goes off nearly as much as it does on E•MO•TION … and it doesn’t lead to bad albums, but it has led to albums that I don’t find consistently great, even if I do mostly like them.

Her debut album, Tug of War, as well as Dedicated, Dedicated Side B, and The Loneliest Time are all albums that I like, and they all at least have a couple great songs, but as full albums they don’t fully click for me. And then there’s also Kiss which is my least favourite, also not a bad album in my opinion but a more inconsistent one if you ask me.

But I saw The Loveliest Time getting a lot of critical acclaim—even compared to most Carly Rae Jepsen albums—so that brought up my expectations. So, did Carly Rae Jepsen make her best album since E•MO•TION?

To be totally honest here … I thought I was going to like this more than I do. It’s not that I was expecting to love this as much as E•MO•TION, but the album we got is probably my least favourite of her albums since Kiss. And it might be my least favourite album of her career.

Now I do want to make it clear that I don’t dislike this album. In fact, I mostly do still like it, at least a little bit, but it was definitely quite a disappointing album for me. There are still a couple moments that really stand out to me in a positive way, but as a whole it doesn’t really interest me that much.

The opening track features some nice percussion, and I mostly like the production here, but the chorus doesn’t really hit as hard as I’d like.

“Kamikaze” might be my favourite song on this album, with its excellent groovy instrumental and synths that sound fantastic in the mix, adding some subtle flair to the track, leading to a really smooth, groovy bop! And the bassline here is really good, too!

I like the kind of glitchy percussion on the next track, “After Last Night”, but the vocal melodies mostly bore me, and the production doesn’t feel as smooth as the previous track, with the bass feeling overpowering at points.

The snare feels kind of awkward in “Aeroplanes”, and the bassline is kind of interesting but also feels kind of meandering, and there’s not a ton in the vocal melodies that really grabs my attention … it is mixed really well, but I just don’t see why I’d personally want to go back to this track.

“Shy Boy”, the album’s lead single, has a chorus that sounds like it might go off at a party, and the bassline is pretty good, and I really like the snare … but that being said, I feel like I’d like this a lot more if there was more firepower in the instrumental, like maybe some distorted electric guitar. I mostly like this track, but it’s far from one of her better pop songs.

“Kollage” has some of the better vocal melodies on the album if you ask me, and the bassline is pretty good. I really like the production here, but for some reason it feels like a song I should like way more than I do, and I’m not sure what it is that’s missing for me. Maybe it’s just feeling like I’ve heard Carly do mellow songs with a similar musical vibe way better, like “Gimme Love” and “All That” from E•MO•TION.

“Shadow” features a really punchy, groovy drumbeat that fits really well with the bass, and while the hook doesn’t really explode as much as the best hooks from E•MO•TION, it’s still a pretty great song with a pretty catchy chorus regardless!

I feel kind of similarly about the chorus of the next track, “Psychedelic Switch”, a song which features a really awesome clicking beat that adds a bit more punch to this otherwise kind of laid-back pop song! And I think it still works as a nice, laid-back pop song, and I really like the chorus!

So, up until this point on the album, I don’t think it’s amazing or anything, but there are some strong standout highlights for me, and I mostly like it! But then toward the end of the album, I start to like it less.

“So Right” is a decent song in my opinion, but I’m not a huge fan of the watery bass or the watery synth. The song does have a bit of a groove to it, though.

But the next two tracks I like less, starting with “Come Over”, which kind of sounds to me like a weaker version of “Joshua Tree”, a song from The Loneliest Time, and the percussion in this song feels overpowering in the mix. And I don’t find the vocal melodies very interesting at all personally.

And then there’s “Put It To Rest”, which features an instrumental that, to me, sounds quite generic, and the kind of shuffling-like percussion feels distracting. And once again, I don’t find the vocal melodies very interesting.

I really like how the bass is mixed in “Stadium Love”, and overall I like the production on this track, but once again the vocal melodies feel kind of underwhelming.

And then there’s the closing track, “Weekend Love” which does pretty much nothing for me at all, and it sounds quite messy with so many different sounds in the instrumentation, a lot of which, to me, don’t complement each other at all.

So, overall … well, this just didn’t really click for me, outside of some moments here and there. And it’s not like the lyrics really save it for me—the lyrics aren’t bad, but they’re pretty much what you’d expect for a Carly Rae Jepsen album, which works when I like the production, melodies, etc. In other words, Carly Rae Jepsen is one of those artists whose music is very much about the combination of the lyrics with the sound of the songs, and if the songs don’t sound all that interesting to me, the lyrics aren’t usually going to save it for me.

But again, this is still a mostly enjoyable album, but it might be my least favourite album of hers to date. Personally, I find the production inconsistent, and I often don’t like the vocal melodies. Carly is a great singer, and at times the instrumentation and production really clicks for me, but when the vocal melodies bore me this much and the hooks are often underwhelming to me, it leads to this album being quite a big disappointment.

For me, The Loveliest Time is getting a 6/10. Even though I don’t dislike anything here as much as “Beach House”, I also don’t think anything here is quite as great as the title track from The Loneliest Time, and I find that album more consistent and overall more enjoyable as a whole. I had high expectations for this album and it didn’t quite click for me as much as I thought it would, but feel free to let me know what you think in the comment section. I know this is getting a ton of critical acclaim, and if you love it, I’m happy for you, but I can’t say I love the album personally.

Feel free to recommend albums for me to review (preferably from 2023 but I’m open to doing throwback reviews as well) … it doesn’t guarantee I’ll review it, but I appreciate recommendations.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

Final Thoughts
Rating: 6/10
Favourite Tracks: “Kamikaze”, “Shadow”, “Psychedelic Switch”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Weekend Love”