Carly Rae Jepsen: Dedicated review – Bruised affairs with a killer pop heart

It’s been four years since Carly Rae Jepsen released the perfect Emotion. Once fans accept that Dedicated isn’t Emotion 2.0, they’ll fall head over heels for the Canadian pop queen as if it’s the first time.

This new era of Jeppo was brought in by the sublime Party for One. On this jumpy little banger, she quits worrying about unrequited love to enjoy her own company instead. A champion of self-love – the repetition of “back on my beat” diffuses the veil of confusion – she’s still a sucker for heart-wrenching love. The wonky-tonk bounce of Everything He Needs backs that sentiment up.

On the breathless Too Much, she explores every avenue of excess. Loving too much, partying too much; you name it, she feels it.

Right Words Wrong Time, her most illustrative song to date, is a weary reminder that love doesn’t always conquer all. Despite her bruised affairs of the heart, Jepsen forever swirls in a glittering cloud of feelgood 1980s synths.

Lifting our sorrows while addressing her own, Jepsen grants us salvation through pop. Committed? No. Dedicated.