A week ago, critically beloved/strangely polarizing Canadian pop star Carly Rae Jepsen released "I Really Like You", and over the weekend she released the video starring Tom Hanks (from that volleyball movie). The song created some dissent among Pitchfork staffers so now we're going to talk about it.
Jeremy Gordon: To start: “I Really Like You” doesn’t “really” do it for me. I’ve considered it with Zapruder-like precision. The first “really” is catchy. The second “really” is endearing. The third—here’s where I’ve slowed the playback by half—”really” is dicey. Right as the candy-coated harmonies set me afloat, the lizard part of my brain goes “Nope” during the chorus and brings everything back to earth. Obviously, a lot of people hear “unaffected ebullience” where I hear “Kidz Bop-ready syntax.” It’s polarizing, and a testament to the visceral, lizard brain reactions that pop inspires. It’s also novel enough to stick out, regardless of how you feel. When I’ve asked my non-critic friends if they’ve heard the song, the unanimous first answer has been, “You mean the one where she keeps saying ‘really’?” That’s anecdotal, yes, but I’d wager it’s not abnormal.
Like all “one hit wonders,” Jepsen struggled with a follow up. “Call Me Maybe” is the arguable pop song of the decade, but after none of the murderer’s row of should-be hits from Kiss made a chart dent, she was starring as Cinderella on Broadway a short while later. Not a bad gig, at all, but a lateral career move for a pop star in her supposed prime. She reportedly recorded hundreds of new songs for this album; in interviews, she’s also talked about ceding control over her single choices to the team around her, since she didn’t trust her judgment. (She said she wouldn’t have even picked “Call Me Maybe” as a single.) But here we are, talking about her new song, which makes this an unqualified success of a comeback single. She’s got to be really, really, really, really, really, really happy about that.
Gif via the Verge
Jamieson Cox: After spending plenty of time with “I Really Like You", I can’t help but think of it as an unintentional counterweight to Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me", that dominant (and now Grammy-celebrated) piece of gloopy pop-soul. Where Smith leaves his one-night stand more fragile and desperate for affection than ever, Jepsen skips away from hers effervescent and alive with the glory of (really, really...) like. There’s a recognition in both songs that the encounters don’t really matter—“This ain’t love, it’s clear to see” vs. “It’s way too soon, I know this isn’t love”—but Jepsen is the one who manages to take the message to heart and emerge unscathed.
There’s probably an alternative universe where Smith and Jepsen have swapped songs, but it’s hard to imagine a fit better than this one: the former luxuriating in sadness with that voice like a rich pudding, the latter floating on lust like meringue over lemon. And there’s something exciting, even mildly subversive, about the roles the two are playing. Men are allowed to be heartbroken—and over other men to boot; women can keep it casual and revel in the frivolity, and uncertainty, of dating. Even trifles like “I Really Like You” can chip away at the subtle infrastructure that shapes how we think and react. Keep it in your pocket for the next time someone tries to tell you pop lacks substance.
Jessica Hopper: Watching the video, I kept thinking "Does Tom Hanks really just not know the words that well? Wouldn't he have practiced a bunch to be able to do them and emote along?" and then I realized maybe it's just he cannot emote through the Botox mask of his face. Then the whole thing becomes a metatext about Hollywood and ageism, if we are taking Tom Hanks as playing "Tom Hanks". Is the end a throwback to those Gap commercials? OR! What if the end-scene is a sponsored Gap placement that is essentially a non-commercial that supposed to look like an ironic throwback to a commercial? Do you think Tom Hanks has a tight emoji game or is he chronic user of smileyfaces? P.S. I like this song just fine. You stinkers doth protest too much.
Corban Goble: I'm just here to point out the homage to the Godfather, JB, who put "Call Me Maybe" on the damn map. (The initial Biebs/Tisdale/Gomez video has 69 million views and the official "Call Me Maybe" video has 654 million. $$$$$$) I like this song, it's catchy and a super solid return for CRJ, who would absolutely fucking dominate "Show Us Your Songs: Toronto" . One has to think that CRJ has got a full chamber of stuff this good.
#TrueDetectiveSeason2. Am I doing this right?
Jenn Pelly: When I was a tween, first experiencing some semblance of personal taste, this is the kind of radio song that would have made me threaten to jump out the window of a moving vehicle. As an adult, I have a more nuanced understanding of why a song like this—populist to the extreme, the closest thing to industrialized folk music that we have—is worth taking more seriously and attempting to enjoy. Which is to say: the 25-year-old version of me likes this song way more than the 15-year-old version of me would have. My issue with it is not that the sentiment is immature or anything of the sort. In fact, like most sentient beings, I can really really really (really really really) relate to the idea of liking-not-loving someone this much. But despite dozens of plays, I can't get into it in the same way as "Call Me Maybe" (which I LOVED). I can't get past the really really really (really really really) boring hook, and I find its rhythm and syntax to be awkward, irritating, jarring even. Repetition and simplicity are at the core of so much of the greatest music in any genre, but I prefer my pop songs about obsession, infatuation, and uncertainty to have the stomach-twisting enormity of something more like "Out of the Woods".
Philip Sherburne: Pop is not my main musical sustenance, which means two things: A) a pop song has to go out of its way to impress me, or even to get me to notice it, really, and B) a pop song also has to be actively annoying for me to have negative feelings about it. I was predisposed to like Carly Rae Jepsen, since "Call Me Maybe" fell into the first category, and I'm happy to report that what I will henceforth be calling "The Really Really Song" doesn't fall into the latter trap. It'd have to be way more EDM (or, indeed, way more "trap") for that, so congratulations, Jepsen and crew, for resisting the temptation to make a fucking Zedd song.
That said: "The Really Really Song" is also just kinda not very… memorable? It's perfectly serviceable pop; I won't be mad when, some summer day, I'm driving a rental car to the beach and it comes on the radio. But I also don't think it's the kind of song that's going to send me to YouTube to just, like, listen to the thing. Hence my considerable surprise when I discovered that Ariel Rechtshaid was involved in the new album, because if anyone knows how to lure me into playing something over and over just to hear the particularities of an idiosyncratic guitar lick or a nicely gated snare, it's him. (This song, in contrast, was co-written and co-produced by Peter Svensson, the Cardigans' guitarist, whose credits include Justin Bieber's "Love Me", One Direction's "Rock Me", and Ariana Grande's "Love Me Harder". Clearly, he takes the ol' K.I.S.S. maxim to heart.) And, who knows, with Rechtshaid on the boards, maybe he could have coaxed some Haim-like quirk out of the mix—there are hints of it in that million-dollar snare drum, and Jepsen's voice sounds wonderfully human and approachable in the hushed parts. But everything else gets flattened beneath the steamroller of that chorus. It's a road paved with diamonds, no doubt, but the views just aren't that interesting.