Emotion (Carly Rae Jepsen album)
Emotion is the third studio album by Canadian singer and songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen. It was initially released on June 24, 2015 in Japan, and later was released internationally on August 21. Looking to transition from the bubblegum pop-oriented nature of her second studio album, Kiss, Jepsen found inspiration in 1980s music and alternative styles. She enlisted a team of mainstream and indie collaborators, including Sia, Mattman & Robin, Dev Hynes, Ariel Rechtshaid, Rostam Batmanglij, Greg Kurstin, and Peter Svensson of the Cardigans, culminating in a largely synth-pop-centric effort.
Emotion received favourable reviews from music critics, who praised its pop escapism. The album debuted at number sixteen on the US Billboard 200 with 16,153 units. In Canada, it became her third top ten, peaking at number eight in Canada with 2,600 copies. The album fared better in Japan, debuting at number eight with 12,189 physical copies sold and subsequently being certified Gold by RIAJ for shipments exceeding 100,000 copies.
The album was preceded by the release of its lead single, "I Really Like You", which reached top five in several territories including the United Kingdom and Japan. It was followed by "Run Away with Me" and "Your Type". Jepsen embarked on the Gimmie Love Tour in support of the album in November 2015, with a second leg commencing in February 2016. In April 2016, she toured Canada in support of the album as the opening act for Hedley on their Hello World Tour.
Emotion reinvigorated Jepsen's career as an "indie darling", garnering her a cult following. Rolling Stone and Paste ranked among "The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far" in 2025 at number 112 and 58, respectively. The album was shortlisted for the 2016 Polaris Music Prize. A companion extended play entitled Emotion: Side B was released on its first anniversary, featuring eight songs that were cut from the original project. To celebrate the album's tenth anniversary, it was re-released on October 17, 2025, and contains four additional songs not included on the initial release.
Background
Following the sudden worldwide success of "Call Me Maybe" in 2012, Jepsen found that the song had become " huge, ginormous thing that really overshadowed the rest of our project" and further singles issued from Kiss failed to gain traction. Jepsen viewed her predicament as an opportunity to withdraw from the spotlight and contemplate the direction of her next album. She met with her record label and management after the Summer Kiss Tour wrapped up in late 2013, stating: I want you to put your faith in me that I'll come back when it's ready,' and they did and I'm very lucky to have a team that wasn't about trying to mass-produce things and was really more looking at the quality of it."While determining her next direction, Jepsen looked for a "detour" which turned out to be a role on Broadway. "I thought, how amazing would it be to take a left turn, somehow, and still come back to this? but 'left turn'—I didn't know what that meant." She was approached by the producers of Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella to audition for the titular character, and was formally offered the part after auditioning in Los Angeles and passing callbacks in New York. Jepsen assumed the role for twelve weeks from February to June 2014, and during this time handled her own A&R. With help from guitarist Tavish Crowe, Jepsen began reaching out to artists she admired to see if they were interested in collaborating, including Tegan and Sara, Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend and Shellback.
Under pressure to match the success of "Call Me Maybe", Jepsen recorded an entire indie-folk album during her run on Cinderella as an act of "rebellion". Feeling that the demo project was developed for the wrong reasons, Jepsen ultimately scrapped it: "I think there is a natural rebellion when you have success in one area to completely rebel against that. I needed to get that out of my system, I think. I made really weird music." Jepsen's work on Cinderella provided valuable perspective in terms of being defined by a single attribute, particularly from her costar Fran Drescher: "Everyone still calls her 'the Nanny'. I realized you can't give in to other people's perception of you. Everyone's gonna be known for something."
" had to not be about trying to prove something. I feel like if you're writing music just to have a different identity in the public's eye, it's sort of the wrong motive. It's gotta be coming from a place of what you love and what you're passionate about."
Writing and development
Due to her dissatisfaction with Kisss constrained timeframe of two months, Jepsen went into Emotion with the intent of crafting a project that was authentic and allowed her to approach different avenues. Whereas Kiss was developed in an acquiescent manner, as Jepsen was simply grateful for the opportunity, Emotion was spurred by her desire to take more creative control. Jepsen commented that much of the album is about "trying to get some power back" after exiting a relationship and subsequently settling down in New York. She sought to channel a "heart-on-your-sleeve sensibility" reminiscent of 1980s pop music after attending a Cyndi Lauper concert in Japan. These themes were further explored through "old-school" Prince and Madonna records on morning runs before Cinderella rehearsals: "What I loved was how potent some of those lyrics were—how heart wrenching, how everyone's tea leaves are just right there on their sleeve. In music today, everything is a little more coy, but I wanted that romance and that fantasy, and I think that a lot of people age do."An epiphany came to Jepsen after finishing "Emotion", the album's title track, where she found that a 1980s pop sound, combined with a more "alternative" production, was what she had been seeking. This fashioned the album's direction entirely–Emotion developed as a midway point between the "pure" pop she recorded in Los Angeles and the indie-folk effort that was scrapped in New York.
Jepsen combed through Dev Hynes' discography after becoming infatuated with "Losing You" by Solange, to which she found his name listed in its production credits. Jepsen sought to collaborate, stating she was a fan, which Hynes hesitated to believe. He was eventually "won over" by Jepsen's demonstration of her vocal ability and work ethic, and credited her with genuine intentions of " a new aesthetic". The pair worked in a Chelsea studio between Jepsen's Cinderella performances. Hynes sent a demo of what would become "All That", where Jepsen wrote the bridge and produced the vocals herself. Ariel Rechtshaid was brought in for additional work on the song. In a similar affair, Jepsen's admiration of Sky Ferreira's work led her to Rechtshaid and the pair began meeting for coffee dates, figuring out a session date as he was in the midst of producing with Brandon Flowers. Rechtshaid further contributed to Emotion by aiding in the selection process of its track list and finalizing the production on its closer, "When I Needed You".
Rostam Batmanglij was a prior fan of Jepsen's work when he reached out to her in the summer of 2014, after learning that she was in Los Angeles writing with various people. Jepsen was "over the moon" and the pair developed "Warm Blood" over the next year, the first verse recorded as Jepsen sat on the carpet of Batmanglij's home studio. Batmanglij announced the track's existence via Twitter on April 29, 2015.
Jepsen spent a month in Sweden recording for the album, per her label's suggestion. These sessions materialized in its lead single "I Really Like You", written with Peter Svensson of the Cardigans, "Your Type" with Rami Yacoub and Carl Falk, and the Mattman & Robin-produced "Run Away with Me" which developed over two separate trips to the country. The duo flew to Los Angeles for one last session with Jepsen, finishing "Gimmie Love" in a day.
Prior to starting full-fledged work on Emotion, Jepsen had sketched several of its demos on her tour bus as she supported Kiss back in 2013. Of these, "Boy Problems" would eventually finalize its form with Sia and Greg Kurstin. Sia wrote the bridge to "Boy Problems", and contributed the outside cut "Making the Most of the Night", which Sia originally developed with the members of Haim. "I Didn't Just Come Here to Dance" existed as early as 2011 according to matching lyrics on a tweet authored by Jepsen. It would eventually be presented to Max Martin after the pair finished work on "Tonight I'm Getting Over You" in 2012; intending to cease their session at midnight, the song compelled Martin to stay for two extra hours. It was confirmed that she had worked with Josh Ramsay, Ryan Stewart, Benny Blanco and Stargate, though none of these producers appeared on the finalized project. A total of 250 songs were composed over the course of the album's development. Speaking to The Herald, Jepsen stated that she worked on Emotion past deadline and finished right before its Japan release date on June 24, 2015.
Composition
Emotion is a pop, dance-pop, synth-pop, and disco album that contains elements of new wave. Consequence summed the record up as a "more mature, sophisticated version of her hyperpop", Jepsen elaborating: "I wanted to kind of blur the lines of what needed to be." She found it a challenge to repurpose the album's 80s influences into a modern context without delving into "empty nostalgia", stating that the album is not strictly a "period piece", but is "tinted with shades of that era". The lyrics on Emotion "shade her old ebullience with darker, more complex feelings", and it is sonically grounded with "earthier textures" from 80s R&B–cleansing herself of the Cinderella performances during the record's production. Elsewhere, Jepsen explores funk and disco on "Boy Problems", and house music on "I Didn't Just Come Here to Dance".Jepsen singled "All That" out as most representative of the goals she sought to accomplish with Emotion. Lyrically: " holds a special place in my heart because it is so revealing: It's talking about the desire for intimacy with somebody. And I think with songs like 'Call Me Maybe', that can be quite light and a little bit more surfacey, it's fun to get a little deeper." Jepsen penned "Your Type" with Rami Yacoub and Carl Falk at four in the morning when she was "losing her mind": "They got me hooked for a week on those little fake cigarettes that taste of strawberries. You can hear it in my voice, I sound all gritty. It's because I was vaping for a week."
"Warm Blood" was produced by Rostam Batmanglij and co-written with Tino Zolfo and Joe Cruz. It initially held the hook "warm love feels good" to which Batmanglij misheard as "warm blood", sticking as its main motif as he was drawn to its physical rather than abstract connotations. Jepsen explained: "The more we chipped away at it, we couldn't get away from how much better 'blood' felt and how realer it was. It's almost like that warm skin or that feeling of intimacy." The song has been noted for its experimental vocal effects, with Batmanglij scattering distorted vocal cuts throughout, a "creepy" quality that the pair immediately liked. Elsewhere, sections of "Warm Blood" were sung in a lower pitch; Jepsen was to re-record these parts as she came to the session with "shot vocals", however its "smokier" quality abandoned these plans. Brad Nelson of The Guardian compared Jepsen's performance to that of Ezra Koenig's "machine-produced flexibility" on the Vampire Weekend song, "Diane Young".
In a session with Tavish Crowe, the closer "When I Needed You" was written to process a break up where Jepsen realizes the faults of her seemingly "perfect" relationship: " but in order to stay in it, I would have to be quite a different person than who I naturally am and that sacrifice didn't seem worth it in the end." Dan Nigro and Nate Campany composed the "happier-sounding" instrumental, to which Jepsen felt a sense of catharsis in concealing a "very serious" emotion. Ariel Rechsthaid reworked the chord progression in order to invoke a sense of "desperation", droning through it with a series of bell notes that made the composition sound "a little bit more somber". The "five-string, funk-R&B" bass line was played by Ethan Farmer, and the drum fill, "an 80s kind-of snare with a big reverb on it," was inspired by John Mellencamp's "Jack & Diane".
"When I'm Alone", a song written and co-composed by Jepsen during sessions for Emotion, was eventually purchased by SM Entertainment and given to K-pop girl group f for their album 4 Walls. "Cut to the Feeling" and "Runaways", both written by Jepsen during sessions for Emotion, were recorded for the soundtrack of the 2016 film Ballerina. "Wildflowers", a song written during the sessions for Emotion which leaked online in 2016, was covered by Elle Fanning for the soundtrack of the film Teen Spirit.