Switched on Pop - Carly Rae Jepsen – I Really Like You

Episode Date: April 15, 2015

Carly Rae Jepsen might be the patron saint of Switched on Pop, the show first hatched by Charlie and Nate on a trip down CA-1 while the stereo blasted “Call Me Maybe.” So when we heard she had a new single out we knew we had to stop everything, put off our taxes for one more day, and dig into “I Really Like You” to see if Saint Jepsen could ward off the beguiling sophomore slump. You’ll really really really really really really like this one. Special thanks to the high school students from Nate’s “Why Music Matters” course at Stanford University Summer Institutes, who helped develop the analysis of “Call Me Maybe.” FEATURING Carly Rae Jepsen – I Really Like You Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe The Cardigans – Lovefool Don Henley – The Boys of Summer  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Carly Ray Jepson, who has created one of the most perfect pop songs of our generation, Call Me Maybe, has come out with a sequel. It's called I Really Like You and very quietly rose to number 43 on the pop charts and has been dropping down ever since. Yeah. We need to listen to this song. We need to figure out, okay, are people missing the sequel to the greatest pop song of our generation? Or are they rightly turning their cheek to what is a pale imitation of a possible one-hit wonder?

Welcome to Switchdown Pop, where we can't figure out what our tagline is yet, but we think that we decode the meaning in pop music. I'm your co-host, Charlie Harding. It works for me. I'm Nate Sloan. And I think the question that we need to ask, our. ourselves as we proceed is how do you follow up a massive, unexpected pop smash like Call Me Maybe, which spent nine consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot 100 in the summer of 2012. Oh, Carly Ray, she basically ruled the entire summer of 2012.

It ruled my summer. I think you're right. There is a self-awareness that, okay, we have got a sophomore song. Yeah. We're putting it out there. It has got to be successful. What are the five steps that we can take to make sure this will be the most successful sophomore hit?

Let's be, okay, so try it. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to, first we're just going to listen to this song. And then to answer your question, I want us to break, I want to try and break down, what was the strategy here? And then the question I think we need to ask ourselves is, did it work or not? Cool. So let's listen to you. I really, really, really, really, really, really like you. I really like you, too, Charlie.

All right. Now having listened to this for the third time, I just have to say, it's not, call me maybe, but it's pretty great. This is a really interesting moment to explore. Winning third in Canadian Idol. And then all of the sudden, having, having. nine weeks at number one over the summer of 2012. How do you follow that up? And so let's try and break down their strategy. Actually, I do have to interrupt you for one second. Yeah. You totally blew my mind with the Canadian Idol thing because not only did I,

I was completely unaware that she came in third place, but I had no idea that there was a Canadian Idol. But congratulations to Carly Wright. That's very good for her. So what's very clear is that step one is, is to copy your original number one hit almost exactly. I definitely noticed that the song's structure feels very similar to Call Me Baby. Oh yeah.

Sparse A section that builds into a thicker A section. It's sort of a pre-chorus. That then launches into a really long chorus. Right. that gets to repeat the hook again and again, so it gets stuck in your head. It's the same hook. It's the same words over and over. Yeah.

And then even musically, they're pretty different, but also the lyrical content of her as kind of shy and then coming out of her shell in the chorus. Right. With an admission, a confession of attraction. There's sort of this vernacular chorus. that both call me maybe and I really, really, really, really like you sort of sound like something a teenager in high school would say? Total teen speak. Okay, what else do you do if you want to have a pop hit?

You need a super Swedish producer, right? Right, absolutely. Rule of thumb. And Carly Ray acquired one. How do you acquire a Swedish producer? Is there some sort of online auction website for this? Yeah, there's a Craigslist. Craigslist for Swedish DJs.

Yeah. it's called Sven's list. So in this case, the super Swedish producer is a guy named Peter Sfen. And we're all familiar with him, right? Well, you may not know his name, but if I bet if we play just half a second of a certain song, you'll know him immediately. Oh, yeah. That's going back to some middle school for me, I think.

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So much of this song to me sounded really close to what we're hearing on Taylor's 1989. Yeah, starting the second those drums come in. I mean, those are Taylor drums. Those are T. Swift drums. No, no, hold on. Hold on. They are definitely all over Taylor Swift's last album. which is trying to bring back a particular pop sound from the 80s. And you hear those huge snare drums with the reverb on them.

It reminds me of Boys of Summer. Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean, this is this Fleetwood Mac filtered through Haim filtered through Taylor Swift into St. Jepson. It's the sound of the moment. Yeah, exactly. Those massive 80s drums are the sound of 2015, as weird as that is. Do you sometimes wonder whether or not Don Henley is actually playing drums on all of them?

And I really like you, capitalizes on that from the beginning. So, okay, so three for three. And then this one isn't necessary, but it doesn't hurt to have some star power. And sure enough, the music video for this song features not only National Treasure Tom Hanks, but a cameo from another Canadian teen phenom, Justin D. Bieber. And we don't need to say anything more about that, but it's definitely worth a look. I feel like the record company is just pulling out all the stops. Absolutely. A lot of time, effort, and money went into this. And the question is, did it work? And the answer is a resounding,

uh, ish. Yeah. Well, for me, one of the first things is it's so, as we were saying, the song is so self-aware. Right. The currency that she's trading in. is this teen vernacular. In the first time that she did it with Call Me Maybe, it felt authentic. Yeah. And now that she's doing it again, it's kind of like you just hired a very fancy photographer and then took these beautiful photos with all this backlighting and then uploaded it to Instagram. So there is possibly part of what turns it off is turns us off is the sense of this being

kind of contrived in the first place and not emerging from. an organic place like Call Me Maybe did. So what do you think? Well, I think it's all about the chorus for me. Okay. And I really, really, really, really, really, really, really like you. It gets pretty close, but doesn't quite land in the sweet spot that Call Me Maybe does. Because I think Call Me Maybe for my money has one, has just such a crystalline pop chorus.

It's immediately burrows into your skull. It's so much fun to sing along with. And you never seem to get tired of it. I think it's because the content and the form of the song really worked together well. Which is over and over one of the things that really makes great pop songs. Yes. We talk a lot about that when content and form come together. Absolutely.

When the music matches the message, magic happens. The lyrics just feel so natural. That phrase, hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number. So call me maybe. I mean, that's sublime. That's just beautiful. It's so casual. It feels so real.

Yeah. A big part of what makes this chorus pop is the fact that it starts on the second beat of the measure. Okay. And again, I think this makes it feel very natural. because what's so compelling about the song is the contrast between the verse and the chorus and the verse she's talking to herself. She's trying to build up her confidence

to talk to this person for the first time, which is something that we've all experienced, I think. And then the verse builds as she gets more and more confident and then explodes into the chorus in a moment of real time of actually, like doing the most, maybe one of the boldest things you can do in life, which is to go up to someone and say, hey, will you go out with me? I mean, that is terrifying and a pretty, you know, a relatively universal experience.

But it's great because as confidence as she is, she doesn't say, hey, on the downbeat. She waits. She pauses for a moment. She's still gaining her confidence. And then she's in it. And then we're in it with her. and then all the words start tumbling out. And part of what propels the chorus forward

as she's making her way through this nerve-wracking, exciting moment is the syncopation in these synthesized strings that are backing her up. How's that go? If you just take away the drums, the strings are just going, bum, bum, bum-bum, bum-bum,

bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum. bum bum bum it's unsettled it keeps everything up in the air so it keeps this moment just moving forward as she's getting through call me maybe and it's i mean i just it's i think it's perfect right okay and then and you were saying so she comes in on the second beat and what it's so how are her words filling in between those strings there it's a call and response oh between her vocal and the strings i'm waxing a little bit now but you can almost imagine Go on, go on. The strings are sort of the other side of the conversation. It's someone looking back at you. You say, hey, I just met you. And then they're paused. And the strings speak to you.

And this is crazy. Gage their reaction. But here's my number. Gage the reaction. Call me maybe. Ooh, and in between each one, the strings jump in. Yeah. Interesting.

I love this. So it's just a perfectly constructed chorus. And I have to say Unlike I really really really really really really like you Which doesn't have a lot of syncopation doesn't have a lot of rhythmic interest Doesn't have this kind of Liveness and this this drama and urgency that call me maybe was able to capture Even though it does a lot of this a lot of similar to things

In fact my favorite part of this song is the little section in between the second and third time that's she She says, I really like you. Okay, what does she do? She goes, did I say too much? I'm so in my head. We were out of touch. And to me, that's actually the moment where she kind of captures the magic of Call Me Maybe. I love those three lines because they, again, they feel like something that you would just say.

It feels so natural. Yeah, there's an illusion to her earlier song. I was in my head and out of touch. It feels like the same psychological state as calls. Me Maybe. But what about the rest of the chorus? Well, the rest of the chorus is, uh, it's, it just, it's, it feels a little more formulaic and it doesn't really grab you by the lapels the way Call Me maybe does. It feels a little more forced. It does. I mean, again, thinking about the marriage of, of content and form music and lyrics.

Okay. Like in Call Me Maybe, I can't imagine her saying anything except what she says, but in really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really like you, I could see her saying, for instance, If you seely, silly, silly, silly, silly, silly, sioux, and mushroom barata lasagna, too. That sounds good. And it wouldn't really make much of a difference. It might be tastier. Maybe it would be. Yeah, maybe she could have had.

Maybe she would have gone to number one if she had just used some Italian food in there. When you look at the secret of how to create a pop song smash. Yeah. Over and over, I feel like there are dozens of music executives and labels. This is all they think about. Sure. And they did a really. good job thinking down to the smallest detail.

Make sure Justin Bieber has a cameo. Make an amazing music video starring Tom Hanks, which is wonderful, by the way. It really is. Create a dance to encourage its viral success with on dance floors and copy the latest sound of the moment. They have thought of everything. And don't forget to also make an allusion to your last song so that people will remember who you are.

Check, check, check, check. Okay, we've checked, check, check, okay, we've checked all the boxes. Why isn't it working? I think that it goes back to the number one thing that people connect with in pop music. Uh-huh. Gotta be real. Got to be real. Got to be real.

Gotta be 100% real. I mean, you think about the genesis of Call Me Maybe, which was very kind of haphazard in a way. It started as a folk song, actually. Really? Yeah. It started as a kind of a kind of. folk song that she wrote. And then a producer heard it and said,

hey, let's kind of take this, take this into it in a more dancey direction and added that all the accompaniment. And then out of nowhere you had nine weeks at number one. It wasn't, it wasn't telegraphed like this one is. Maybe that's part of its success is that we want something

that feels authentic and, as you said, real. I don't know if we can all go back to that moment in 2012 when we first heard Call Me Maybe, but I think I do recall feeling a little off center when I first heard the song. I was like, yeah, this is strange. What is this doing on the radio? Who thought this was a good idea? Yeah. And then it just gets in your head. Nate, so do you have any closing words on your thoughts between I really, really like you, the creation of a sophomore success.

Yeah. What have we learned? Well, I think we learned that we, well, we really, really, really, really, really like this song. We don't love it. Burn. And like isn't going to take you to number one. Thanks, everyone for listening.

This has been Switched on Pop. I'm your host, Charlie Harding. And I'm your host, Nate Sloan. And if you want to hear more Switched on Pop, you can subscribe to us on the Apple Podcast app, Stitcher Radio, SoundCloud, or find episodes at www. www.w.witch on Pop.com. Thanks for listening. You know,