“Cut to the Feeling” by Carly Rae Jepsen, Sunday, July 21, 2024

Carly Rae Jepsen became an overnight success with “Call Me Maybe.” Nobody expected the juvenile Kiss to be followed up by E-MO-TION, a pop album praised by critics and fans alike. The standard edition of E-MO-TION has twelve songs, but there were many other songs on deluxe editions of the album. Jepsen wrote over 250 songs in three years while working on E-MO-TION. She released eight extra songs Emotion Side B a year after releasing her third album. In Japan, Jepsen released Emotion Side B+, including “Cut to the Feeling,” a song she gave to the American version of a French/ Canadian film called Ballerina (Leap! in the United States) Jepsen also starred as one of the main voice actors in the film. The anthemic one-off single bridged Carly’s 2015 critical darling with her more experimental 2019 album, Dedicated.

I HAD A DREAM, OR WAS IT REAL? Carly Rae Jepsen’s last Billboard Hot 100 entry was the lead single from E-MO-TION, “I Really Like You.” Competition for the chart positions was fierce in an oversaturated market. Manager Scooter Braun pushed Jepsen to include the hook-filled (but often memeified at the time) “I Really Like You” on E-MO-TION; however, no other single from the album charted, despite the album’s stellar reviews and cult following. Jepsen took control of her own career which didn’t translate to the massive success of her breakthrough hit in the streaming era; however, despite not being a mega superstar, Jepsen became one of the biggest indie pop stars, a sort of B-list of pop stars who may not have the commercial recognition but who are fervently supported by their fans. And Jepsen’s fans are quite diverse, spanning from pop lovers to hipsters to the LGBTQ+ community. In any other era of pop music, “Cut to the Feeling” would have had at least a top 40 hit. Jepsen cut the song from her third album because it sounded “too cinematic and theatrical.” I wonder what the song would have done as a proper single on E-MO-TION, but Jepsen’s fidelity to her musical vision has made her the outstanding artist that she is.

NO MORE IN-BETWEEN, NOW GIVE YOUR EVERYTHING TO ME. In December 2016, Ballerina was released in France and the U.K. The French-language film was released in Quebec in February and the rest of Canada in March of 2017. The Weinstein Company acquired the rights to distribute the film in America. The company edited the film and rewrote the script in English, casting Elle Fanning, Nat Wolff, and Carly Rae Jepsen in the main roles, and Mel Brooks and Kate McKinnon also voicing roles in the film. The French version of the film was praised by critics for its animation and storytelling, but the American version was mostly panned because the story failed to stick out among many other all-ages animated films. Leap! was an example of Hollywood ruining films just because Americans are too lazy to read subtitles or learn a second language, or in the case of the American IT Crowd, listen to non-American accents. The film did feature three original songs including Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Cut to the Feeling.” Two of the songs Sia’s “Suitcase” and another song Jepsen contributed to the film “Runaways” are not available on Spotify or Apple Music, but can be found on YouTube. “Cut to the Feeling” is a celebratory song and a staple in Jepsen’s catalog. She still performs it with an inflatable sword, which many fans also wield during the performance. The song is bigger than the animated film in which Jepsen voice-acted and released the song. But thanks to Leap! we got one more of the 250+ songs from E-MO-TION’s writing sessions.