Call Me Maybe’s Jepsen atop pop world, for sure

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/10/2012 (5085 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FRESNO, Calif. — You would have a hard time finding someone in the music industry who has had a better eight months than Carly Rae Jepsen.

In February, she was a fairly unknown singer who released a song called Call Me Maybe. Today, she’s on tour with Justin Bieber (she’ll be opening his sold-out show tonight at the MTS Centre; see story on page 8).

Along the way we were inundated with Call Me Maybe covers and parodies, from sources as varied as the Harvard baseball team to Cookie Monster. The song became the inescapable jam of the summer, spending nine weeks as the No. 1 single in America.

Now, Jepsen’s released her second album, Kiss.

We chatted with the singer to talk Call Me Maybe and more.

Q: At what point was nobody allowed to tell you a Call Me Maybe joke?

A: Not yet, believe it or not. My friends are often throwing them back at me on a regular basis and it’s still kind of adorable.

Q: You’re only a couple shows in, but how’s the tour so far?

A: Great. Really great. I kinda feel like there’s something about having the first two under your belt that now it’s just fun. You worry. How’s it going to go? Are my heels going to get caught? Now I just get to enjoy it. It’s a really satisfying reward of working late nights and losing sleep over getting Kiss done.” Now I get to perform it every night.

Q: How do you deal with the expectations post Call Me Maybe? You can have a successful career and still never have a hit that big ever again. Does it stress you out?

A: No, not really. I had a lot of people ask me that question. I hadn’t even really thought about it until interviewer No. 50 was like, “How are you going to do a followup?” I was like, “Whoa, should I be concerned about this?” I hadn’t really thought about it. Writing music is just something that I’ve done for forever. It happened before Call Me Maybe and it’s going to happen after Call Me Maybe.

What was fun with the record Kiss, was right around the time that I was getting asked that a lot, was right at the beginning stages of writing it. I remember making the conscious decision to go for a little bit of a walk and shake off any concern about that. I didn’t want to be paralyzed by it. I wanted it to feel like what it is — the opportunity of a lifetime.

Q: Out of all the parodies, tributes and covers, do you have a favourite one?

A: I have a few favourites. There’s one that these macho football player guys do. It’s called Obsessed with Call Me Maybe. That one, and, of course, the Justin one because it totally sparked it for me. And the Cookie Monster, because I am a longtime Sesame Street fan.

— The Fresno (Calif.) Bee