Appreciating Carly Rae Jepsen: "All That"

Copyright © 2015 Universal Music Group
Written by Carly Rae Jepsen, Devonté Hynes, and Ariel Rechtshaid

Carly Rae Jepsen was a hard sell for me, especially during "Call Me Maybe" and its near-ubiquitous overplay. It seemed like only the asshole kids--like Justin Bieber or a lot of folks from my youth church--liked her, and only for that one song. And anyways, growing up, I was a soul and rock kid, listening to my Smokey Robinsons and Led Zeppelins with equal measure. I wasn't ready for something like the pop songwriting that Carly Rae Jepsen provided.

E•MO•TION changed that for me. I mean, to be fair, I was a different person when I heard it. There was an openness to listening to modern pop music, and indie pop shifted to the direction where they were paying homage to the 1980s with their synths and 808s. But Carly Rae Jepsen was also different. She wasn't being this pure adolescent daydream with her whimsy and bubblegum. Her songs started to snap with pure energy, glowering with sexual tension for the first time. She could still do bubblegum if she wanted to, but E•MO•TION is a maturation of her style, and I think it was this song that sold this new image to me.

Fucking shit, do you hear those 808s? Those glittering synth lines? The bass just wobbling in and out of the track like it was a coy lover just slowly touching your body all over? Musically, it's reminiscent of a lot of slow jams from the 1980s--the kind that Kanye and Twista would reference in their 2004 No. 1 hit "Slow Jamz"--that Janet Jackson or Whitney Houston would release. It's all yearning and soft caresses, ceaselessly creating this intimate environment that can make someone quiver with delight.

The chorus indicates that Carly Rae Jepsen just wants to be friends, but her voice, the music, and the actual lyrics suggest something more intimate, more...sensual. (I've sung this to someone, and the effect was anything but friendly.) The lyrics talks of weakness, loneliness, and sadness, while promising that you can count on Carly's character like you can count on lighthouses, candles in the dark, and home.

It's definitely a seductive, if vague, vision, but she sells it thoroughly, her near-whisper transitioning to this roaring, emotional climax of a chorus where she just belts. And while she doesn't have a Mariah Carey-level vocals where she can do a whistle register, it actually makes it feel more grounded: Carly sounds like she's singing to you, and she sounds extraordinary while projecting a sense of desperate normalcy. She just wants to be your friend, because (and this is more implication now) she can't get anywhere else, so she'd rather settle for that than anything else. It works better than if she was belting impossibly like in "Your Type".

I haven't heard Carly Rae Jepsen sound so vulnerable before or ever since. I still remember hearing this the first time, in the darkness of my room, unsure of my future at college as an Economics major and of my life in general. This was just one of the many new songs out then, but this is the one that stuck with me, even throughout my personal turmoil and my changing tastes in music. It's not even my favorite song off E•MO•TION, but it's definitely one that feels important to me, something of a fundamental text as to how and why I am like I am. At the time, I thought music couldn't get any better than this.

Haha, how wrong I was.

Score: 10/10