{"id":774441,"date":"2026-09-18T06:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774441\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T06:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:46:09","slug":"carly-rae-jepsen-day-and-night-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774441\/","title":{"rendered":"Carly Rae Jepsen: Day and Night Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Carly Rae Jepsen<\/a> record must be in want of its other half. A year after the Canadian pop star released her breakthrough record, 2015\u2019s E\u2022MO\u2022TION<\/a>, she returned with E\u2022MO\u2022TION Side B<\/a>. 2019\u2019s Dedicated<\/a> received similar treatment<\/a>. By the time Jepsen released the companion album<\/a> to 2022\u2019s The Loneliest Time<\/a>, the \u201csurprise\u201d drop hardly registered.<\/p>\n

This brand of excess is key to Jepsen\u2019s charm. Here is a singer who\u2019ll repeat the word \u201creally\u201d six times in a row in a song\u2019s chorus, just to make sure you really get the message; who claimed she wrote 200 songs for one 12-track record, then another hundred for her next one. Her latest album, Day and Night, tweaks her formula of abundance slightly, offering\u2014in a CRJ first\u2014a full double album upfront. As its title suggests, the record comprises two distinct themes: sweet, sunny tracks for Day; sleeker, dancier songs for Night. Working with a familiar stable of producers and co-writers, she turns out a sprawling album filled with loose, breezy tracks offset by the occasional pop gem and charming left-field details.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

Day hews mostly to the windswept ballads and disco-inflected pop that Jepsen moved toward on her previous set of records: \u201cAfter All\u201d and \u201cSomething Tragic\u201d are lightly psychedelic, her voice all breathy and urgent; there\u2019s a little chillwave on \u201cHabits of Creatures,\u201d a little folk on \u201cWild Child.\u201d Night is more strictly synth-pop: \u201cDon\u2019t Leave Me on the Dancefloor\u201d is the cleanest ABBA<\/a> homage she\u2019s ever managed, and I wouldn\u2019t have been surprised to hear the ultra-yearning \u201cThat\u2019s Just Me\u201d as a deep-cut E\u2022MO\u2022TION castoff.<\/p>\n

Day and Night\u2019s sprawl is a double-edged sword. Though the production is usually layered and finely detailed, most songs don\u2019t contain the razor-sharp hooks that usually make Jepsen\u2019s work so indelible. In their absence, each side becomes a little unwieldy, and both Day and Night sag in their second halves. Only a fool would doubt that the prolific Jepsen could write 24 full tracks for a vaguely conceptual double album\u2014but one wonders if a more focused, refined concept would better sustain its momentum.<\/p>\n

But perhaps a pared-back version of this record wouldn\u2019t allow for the strange, quasi-experimental detours that populate it. She sneaks in a few bars of understated bossa nova on Day\u2019s closing track and a sitar-like solo toward the end of \u201cSoft.\u201d The clubby production in the middle stretch of Night is entrancing, and it\u2019s exhilarating when she introduces delightfully discordant synth stabs on \u201cNear or Far\u201d and a quick, frenetic breakdown at the end of \u201cHold Me to the Light.\u201d A decade ago, Jepsen\u2019s main concern was hammering perfect \u201980s synth-pop from a dozen different angles; Day and Night makes it clear she\u2019s now reaching for new ambitions, with a broader, bolder palette.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Carly Rae Jepsen record must be in want of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[375,96,128,56,54,55,307],"class_list":["post-774441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-albums","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}