15 Best Carly Rae Jepsen Songs

Canadian pop treasure Carly Rae Jepsen achieved peak cultural saturation in 2012 with the inescapable hit ‘Call Me Maybe’. ‘Call Me Maybe’ started as an acoustic song, but with synth strings and a Justin Bieber endorsement, it became wildly successful. It showcased Jepsen as a bubblegum-pop girl-next-door and made her the most famous graduate of Canadian Idol.

In 2015, Jepsen returned with the more mature Emotion, mixing big hooks with alternative production. The album didn’t perform well enough commercially to displace Jepsen’s one-hit-wonder reputation, but it earned her unexpected support from critics and music geeks. She’s continued to release excellent material; perhaps at this point, no one’s made more great pop songs than Jepsen.

15 Best Carly Rae Jepsen Songs

#15 Emotion

from Emotion, 2015
The title track for Emotion defined Jepsen’s post-‘Call Me Maybe’ career. She discovered the sound she’d been searching for – 1980s-style pop with alternative production.

The result’s like an early Madonna record, updated for the 21st century and injected with seemingly limitless enthusiasm.

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#14 Want You In My Room

from Dedicated, 2019
Dedicated is often more restrained and mature than Emotion, but ‘Want You In My Room’ is three minutes of high-octane pop bliss. Backed by producer Jack Antonoff, Jepsen is overwhelmed by lust, calling out endearingly quirky lyrics like “I got you covered, under covers”.

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#13 Don’t Leave Me on the Dancefloor

from Day and Night, 2026
The second disc of Day and Night is filled with dancefloor tracks, often sophisticated house music. ‘Don’t Leave Me on the Dancefloor’ recalls the bittersweetness of ABBA’s big hits, sadness in a room of joy.

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#12 Cut To The Feeling

from the movie Ballerina, 2016, and Emotion: Side B+, 2017
‘Cut to the Feeling’ was cut from Emotion because it was considered too “cinematic and theatrical”.

It was intended for Emotion: Side B, but was gifted to the animated movie Ballerina. Jepsen voices the mentor figure, Odette, in the movie. ‘Cut to the Feeling’ is featured at the climax of the movie. Its dynamic chorus and theme of getting straight to the emotion is essentially Jepsen’s modus operandi.

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#11 Now That I Found You

from Dedicated, 2019
Much of 2019’s excellent Dedicated concentrated on calmer fare than the vibrant pop of Emotion. But ‘Now That I Found You’ has the same euphoric lift as the best songs from her previous record, with a huge chorus.

But her lyrical focus is different. While her previous songs were about crushes and bad breakups, ‘Now That I Found You’ appears to be about an actual relationship.

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#10 Burning Heart

from Day and Night, 2026
The 32-track double album Day and Night (Continued) is a treasure trove for Jepsen fans. My favourite deep cut is ‘Burning Heart’, both jangly and sophisticated, with a great IV-V-IV-V-IV-V chord vamp in the last line of the chorus.

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#9 Western Wind

from The Loneliest Time, 2022
The moody ‘Western Wind’ heralded the promotion cycle for Jepsen’s fifth album, The Loneliest Time.

‘Western Wind’ isn’t the buoyant lead single you’d expect from Jepsen; more James Taylor than Spice Girls. It portrays her grief at being apart from her family when her grandmother passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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#8 Call Me Maybe

from Kiss, 2012
While Jepsen has more to offer than her enormous 2012 breakthrough hit, it’s undeniably an infectious earworm. It benefited from Justin Bieber’s promotion – Bieber tweeted that ‘Call Me Maybe’ “is possibly the catchiest song I’ve ever heard”.

The arrangement’s sophistication, notably the strings on the chorus, inspired a podcast, Switched On Pop, where a music professor and music major examine pop hits.

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#7 Boy Problems

from Emotion, 2015
The danceable bassline of ‘Boy Problems’ isn’t far from disco, and the introduction is perfectly low-key yet dramatic. But the vocal arrangement makes this song work – the “nah nah nah nahs”.

And is it just me, or does Jepsen gives out some Goblin King Bowie vibes with her mullet, sparkly outfit and occasional intense stares into the camera?

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#6 Solo

from Dedicated: Side B, 2020
Dedicated: Side B was another high-quality release from Jepsen, brightening the world during lock-down, but its highlight was buried toward the end.

‘Solo’ is a typically explosive Jepsen pop banger, launching into a euphoric chorus. As befitting her more adult Dedicated era, there’s some double meaning hidden in “solo/so low”.

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#5 Surrender My Heart

from The Loneliest Time, 2022
‘Surrender My Heart’ opens The Loneliest Time. It’s one of Jepsen’s most personal tracks, a public declaration of opening herself up to love. Jepsen’s an undervalued lyricist – “I paid to toughen up in therapy/She said to me, “Soften Up”.

Like her best songs, it just keeps building and building, from the simmering opening chords to the huge, excitable chorus.

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#4 on Wires

from Day and Night, 2026
Jepsen describes the lead single from Day and Night as a real “come hither” song. There’s a hint of jazzy sophistication in the verse before the chorus launches heavenward, backed by gorgeous reverb.

Jepsen had to rethink her initial plans for the music video. “I pictured chasing this man through the streets of New York but then, by the time we shot the video I was like, ‘How do I chase a man through the streets when I’m six months pregnant?’ It would look like I’m looking for child support!”

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#3 Fever

from Emotion: Side B, 2016
‘Fever’ is from Jepsen’s 2016’s excellent outtakes mini-album Emotion: Side B.

Filmmaker Max Landis wrote a 150-page essay about how Jepsen’s songs are written about longing and infatuation rather than actual relationships. ‘Fever’ is an excellent example. Jepsen remains suspended in infatuation after a relationship. The build into the middle eight (“And my lights stay up/But your city sleeps”) is beautiful.

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#2 When I Needed You

from Emotion, 2015
‘When I Needed You’ was the closing kiss-off from 2015’s Emotion. Like ‘Boy Problems’, it boasts a killer bassline courtesy of session musician Ethan Farmer.

It’s a sign of the strength of the material on Emotion that Jepsen could hold back this irresistible pop song until the final track. The way that Jepsen enunciates ‘together, forever” is a great focal point.

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#1 Run Away With Me

from Emotion, 2015
The opener from Emotion has earned a place in internet folklore with its seal and saxophone Vine. It would have been a better choice as lead single than ‘I Really Like You’, which was a little too close to a ‘Call Me Maybe’ redux.

The entire Emotion album has a 1980s vibe, but it’s especially pronounced here with the saxophone riff and cinematic feel. My theory is that ‘Run Away With Me’ will one day feature in a pivotal scene in an iconic movie, and it will become a beloved standard.

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