Carly Rae Jepsen – E·MO·TION Interscope UICS-1296 (2015)
Well-crafted synth pop. A decade or so ago this is exactly the sort of thing Kylie Minogue was doing. Jepsen’s producers actually gravitate more toward the sound of classic Michael Jackson recordings though. That is a wise move. Admittedly, I didn’t get all the way through this one. While it does what it does well, it is necessary to question what it tries to do. This album is all about reinforcement of gender roles: men are supposed to be athletic, aggressive, competitive; women are supposed to be emotional, meek, nurturing. This sort of stuff needs to be identified and called out for what it is, which is a regressive distraction.