Carly Rae Jepsen
Nationals Park, Washington DC, July 19, 2024
Carly Rae Jepsen is not a serious musical artist. That should be straightforward to assert, and it's not necessarily a slight. She is a purely froth-driven pop singer, who has somehow distilled in three-minute songs the endorphin rush of a crush and the fear of a denial. Never was that more so evident than her globe-conquering hit “Call Me Maybe,” which came out during the height of Obama-era poptimism and was sufficiently dominant that in
Tom Breihan’s Number Ones column on Stereogum, he notes that it was number one on the American charts for over two months, while going to Number One in dozens of other countries. It’s arguably one of the biggest pop songs of the century. I distinctly recall it being sung by astronauts aboard the International Space Station. So technically, it conquered even more than the globe.
But even so, Carly Rae Jepsen is still a niche artist. Since “Call Me Maybe,” she’s basically been a grade-B cult pop star, reliably popular in certain niches (gay men, young white women, Pitchfork writers) who revels in the love of a weird sliver of the mainstream. She hasn’t had a Billboard Top 100 hit in almost ten years. But as Breihan wrote, with someone like Carly Rae or Robyn, “you could be a pop star who didn’t interact with the mainstream at all.” So it’s a complete bafflement that the Washington Nationals brought her in for a free post-game concert after their game against the Cincinnati Reds, and it resulted in a delirious culture clash of muscled gay men in form-fitting Carly Rae t-shirts, teen girls with CRJ tiaras waving inflatable swords, and tens of thousands of normie baseball fans in curly-W ballcaps. As
the Washington Post wrote, it was a delightful if unlikely pairing.
My son and I are baseball fans, and also pop music fans, so we were among the normies there for the show too, after the Nats won an unnecessarily close 8-5 contest (they led 8-1 going into the 9th inning). And it was a massive crowd, nearly 40,000, a significant percentage of whom were likely bored or confused by the baseball and there for Carly Rae.
I think it’s safe to say that everyone who made it through the long transition between the ballgame and the setup of the stage and sound system ended up happy with the unlikely marriage of cultures. It’s not a small matter to assemble a stage, demarcate the field to allow fans onto the base paths without damaging the grass, and do a soundcheck in front of tens of thousands of impatient people. It took over an hour from Kyle Finnegan’s final out (his 26th save of the year!) to get the show underway. But once it did, it was pure silly delight. Carly Rae Jepsen has a lot of classic pop songs in addition to “Call Me Maybe” — which was mostly shout-sung by the audience, although she and her backup singers provided support. “Run Away With Me” and “You Really Like Me,” both from
E*Mo*Tion, are all deliriously giddy crush anthems, and while I dislike the studio version of “You Really Like Me,” with its nagging “really really really” chorus, I have to admit it’s fun in a stadium.
Despite this set of would-be-global-smashes, none of these songs were really pop hits, although they sound like they were, if that makes sense. A lot of the Carly Rae set came from records I don’t know, including the recent
The Loveliest Time and
The Loneliest Time, which were a bit more singer-songwritery for the audience, like “Western Wind,” but it was the
E*Mo*Tion tracks that mostly seized the crowd’s attention and energy. And it was the
E*Mo*Tion b-side, “Cut to the Feeling,” originally released for a French-Canadian cartoon, on which she closed the set. As Breihan wrote, “Cut to the Feeling” somehow emerged over time as perhaps the central song in the Carly Rae Jepsen discography. “At this point, I think it’s Jepsen’s best song — better than “Call Me Maybe,” even. Jepsen might agree with me….“Cut To The Feeling” was just an
E*Mo*Tion castoff, and it never charted, but the song has endured. At this point, I think it’s Jepsen’s best song — better than “Call Me Maybe,” even. Jepsen might agree with me.” I happen to agree, it’s her best song and my all-time favorite, and it was a rousing conclusion to the modest 15-song postgame setlist.
By the way, I might have imagined this as some kind of Super Bowl halftime show thing scripted to the millisecond, and while this was a pop show, I want to to be clear: She had a band, wearing Nationals jerseys and playing instruments, and real human backup singers, and Carly Rae was absolutely singing (and yes, sometimes she was a bit flat). She and her band engaged with the audience, goofed to the crowd, and seemed to be having a genuinely good time. Even for no-cost post-game entertainment, they took it all very seriously, and it was seriously fun.
Carly Rae Jepsen Setlist:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/carly-rae-jepsen/2024/nationals-park-washington-dc-3566d1b.html
And you really need to read
Breihan’s Number Ones column on “Call Me Maybe.” It’s one of his best.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2024 07:10PM by zwirnm.
