Queen of Song Theories: The Jepsen Pattern

About a month ago, screenwriter and director Max Landis introduced “A Scar No One Else Can See,” his foray into musical criticism on Carly Rae Jepsen’s songs. Currently standing at 149 pages, he has referred to it as a “living document” and indicated that he plans to update it as he learns more.

In a nutshell, Mr. Landis argues (although he doesn’t use that word) that Carly Rae Jepsen’s songs all revolve around the same themes, and are all about one thing, succinctly summarized as: “Carly Rae Jepsen is in Hell.”

Seeing as he took the time to type up 149 pages (so far), brought people in to shoot a promo video, create motion graphics, and build a website, and then shot update videos, I think it’s fair to say that some effort certainly was spent on it.

Now, I’ve said elsewhere in passing that I thought “Emotion” was the best pop album of 2015, but I’m not intimately familiar with Carly Rae Jepsen’s work— not in the way that Max Landis seems to be. I enjoy her work, but don’t really fall into the “fan” camp just yet. I simply thought it was an interesting idea, although I have a number of questions.

My aim isn’t to counter the Jepsen theory; neither is it to convince people to found a Center for Carly Rae Jepsen Studies. Instead my aim is simply to ask questions and throw out ideas, in the hope of learning something new and just for fun.

Shall we begin? 🙂