Dedicated

What happens when the reigning queen of bubblegum pop goes through a break-up? Exactly what you’d think: She turns around and creates her most romantic, wholehearted, blissed-out work yet. Written with various pop producers in LA (Captain Cuts), New York (Jack Antonoff) and Sweden, as well as on a particularly formative soul-searching trip to the Italian coast, Jepsen’s fourth album <i>Dedicated</i> is poptimism at its finest: joyous and glitzy, rhythmic and euphoric, with an extra layer of kitsch. It’s never sad—that just isn’t Jepsen—but the “Call Me Maybe” star <i>does</i> get more in her feelings; songs like “No Drug Like Me” and “Right Words Wrong Time” aren't about fleeing pain so much as running to it. As Jepsen puts it on the synth ballad “Too Much”, she’d do anything to get the rush of being in love, even if it means risking heartache again and again. “Party for One”, the album’s standout single, is an infectious, shriek-worthy celebration of being alone that also acknowledges just how difficult that can be: “Tried to let it go and say I’m over you/I’m not over you/But I’m trying.”