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Carly Rae Jepsen

Photo: Matthew Welch

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carly-rae-jepsen-masters-emotion

Carly Rae Jepsen Masters Emotion

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GRAMMY-nominated singer/songwriter talks new album, her songwriting process and '80s influence
THE GRAMMYs
GRAMMYs
Aug 18, 2015 - 10:14 am

Ahead of the Aug. 21 release of her new album, E•mo•tion, GRAMMY-nominated singer/songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen visited The Recording Academy's headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., to participate in an exclusive GRAMMY.com interview. Jepsen discussed the making of her new album, E•mo•tion, how ideas spark her songwriting process and the allure of '80s-inspired music, among other topics.

 

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Carly Rae Jepsen: How The '80s Really Inspired Emotion | GRAMMYs

"I didn't want to rush it," said Jepsen. "I didn't want to feel like I was just putting [E•mo•tion] out to put it out, but that it was something that was really right and that I'd be proud of, and kind of marks the new era of what I want to do."

After placing third on "Canadian Idol" in 2007, Jepsen released her full-length debut album, 2008's Tug Of War. She followed with 2012's, Kiss, which featured the breakout hit "Call Me Maybe." The single climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Billboard's 2012 Song of the Summer and the best-selling single of the year. "Call Me Maybe" earned Jepsen GRAMMY nominations for Song Of The Year and Best Pop Solo Performance for 2012.

E•mo•tion features 12 tracks co-written by Jepsen, including "Run Away With Me," "Warm Blood," "Your Type," and "I Really Like You," with the latter's music video featuring Tom Hanks and Justin Bieber, among others.

Jepsen is currently on an international tour with select dates scheduled through October.

GRAMMYs

 Ariel Rechtshaid

Photo by Ryan Hunter

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Ariel Rechtshaid Stays Winning more-decade-songwriter-producer-ariel-rechtshaid-stays-winning

More Than A Decade In, Songwriter & Producer Ariel Rechtshaid Stays Winning

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With another HAIM album under his belt and a Hot 100 hit from a member of his Heavy Duty Music roster, the Los Angeles-based hitmaker is having yet another banner year in a string of banner years
Brennan Carley
GRAMMYs
Sep 18, 2020 - 8:38 am

In late June, Ariel Rechtshaid scored a Hot 100 Number One in the unlikeliest of ways, he says. "It was another random phenomenon in a series of random phenomena that I've witnessed in my life—and another thing you couldn't possibly control or cook up."

The 41-year-old songwriter and producer is talking about "Trollz," a splashy chart-topping collaboration by New York meme-turned-rapper 6ix9ine and actual New York legend Nicki Minaj, which was co-written and produced by Jeremiah Raisen, who’s signed to Rechtshaid’s Heavy Duty Music. While it’s not a direct Hot 100 credit to Rechtshaid himself, it’s one in a string of massive successes the company has racked up this year. In 2020 alone, acts like HAIM, Charli XCX, Bon Iver, Yves Tumor, and Francis & the Lights have enlisted Heavy Duty Music’s stacked roster to assist on their recent projects. "When you're able to take a step back and forget about all the bullshit, when you see the impact that you've made on people's lives, that's really the thing you're most proud of," he says.

And that’s not even taking into account Rechtshaid’s own massive accomplishments over the last decade. Long considered one of the most thoughtful voices in pop music, he’s likely contributed to at least one of your favorite artist’s projects, helming hits for Madonna, Sky Ferreira, Carly Rae Jepsen, Blood Orange, U2, Vampire Weekend, The Chicks, HAIM, Adele, Beyoncé and more (many, many more).

Rechtshaid, a GRAMMY winner (for Usher's "Climax" and Vampire Weekend’s Father Of The Bride), carved an hour of his afternoon in early August to walk GRAMMY.com through his massive 2020, his equally staggering career and the ways in which he’s been able to get business back to usual after the pandemic hit Los Angeles earlier this year.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You're someone who likes to get in the studio with artists for full projects. So how has this pandemic changed the way that you work?

It made me feel like I'm between jobs. I haven't had that in a long time. Everything's been one thing after another. I've taken breaks, but I've never been at home in my studio during that break.

My version of working in this world is not [stacking up sessions with] loads of different people every day. It's just not the groove I landed in. So once we were able to have access to testing, which we're fortunate to have in L.A.—and if it's somebody you know well enough that you feel like you can trust them, and there's transparency—then I was able to start getting back in the studio and do things the same way I'd ever done it. There’s fewer people hanging around, though, and it’s a little bit more focused.

At least a couple of the pandemic months have been occupied by surprise live recordings for artists that I have been working with. I did some work with The Killers on their new album. I did obviously a lot of work with HAIM on their last record. That's been the version of touring or promoting.

Why do you prefer working with fewer artists on longer projects?

I came into it from more of a conceptual, full album state of mind. At first, there wasn't even really an option beyond that.  Nobody I knew was even thinking about the idea of working with multiple producers or multiple co-writers. I don't think anyone would be able to afford that. It wasn't an option.

On top of that, the most influential music on me was always made that way too, whether it was hip-hop and a producer like J-Swift doing the whole Pharcyde record, or Dr. Dre doing full records too. Of course there's room for external people coming in to collaborate, but there's an overarching concept you're trying to achieve. It doesn't work by randomly working with different people and making a compilation album. That works for certain records, but it wasn't the kind of records that I think I’m at my peak working on.

For a full album, it's very easy to lose perspective and not really achieve what you necessarily wanted to or could have with a little bit more time and space, but there is control because it's lots of trial and error. So many songs change several times over the course of making an album. Sometimes the concept is found on the journey to making that album.

How do you choose how to divide your time in terms of who gets your attention in any given year?

A lot of it has to do with timing. If I commit to something, I'm in it. Unfortunately, [that means] I'm not available for other things and that's been weird and heartbreaking for me. At the same time, I've never really felt like I needed to work on everything that I like, or that I needed to work on everything, period. I'm so happy to be a fan of music and just listen to an album and not have gone through the hard work, and sometimes traumatizing work, of making that album. It's not a sport for me.

I want to work on things that I understand and I feel passionate about. Sometimes that's just not what people are looking for. When you talk about records where I've done a song or two, it's usually because they were just already making an album that way. Then they came to me and I felt either adventurous that day or I had an idea and there was some sort of reason or chemistry for doing it. Sometimes you want to try something you’ve never tried before. [That’s true of] Usher. I was a big fan, but I never really saw myself making that kind of music in the room with him, but I got asked. I was like, "I’ve got to give it a shot." I was really happy with it. "Climax" is a song that I'm very proud of being a big part of.

I mean, of all the songs to have taken a swing on, you walked away with a GRAMMY-winning cultural reset of a track.

Having been there, I attribute it to nothing less than just chemistry and luck and timing and the mood of everything, because it just happened. We didn't go in there with preconceived ideas. In fact, if I had any, they were incorrect. They were false. They [were just me being like], "Okay, I know what Usher sounds like," to hype myself up.

He really was instrumental in shutting the door on anything you could have expected from him. He was all about functioning on pure intuition, like, "Let's just roll, no ideas." He knew certain things [about what he wanted]: "I don't want it to be a four-on-the-floor track. I want to do something unexpected with you. That's why you're here." I was like, "Okay, oh shit."

It was a very different kind of experience than producing the Vampire Weekend album or the HAIM record. It's almost a completely different job. It's funny that you could be called a producer in both instances; it's such a vague term, in a way.

And yet you do take those single-song swings every now and then, and they seem to pay off. You just did it with The Chicks, who spoke so highly to me of you recently, on Gaslighter.

I had huge respect for the Chicks. Timing-wise, I was available, they were local, it was easy to accommodate the session. We just showed up and we talked. They probably told me a lot of what they told you. It's funny because the demo [of "For Her"] is very banging. Every reference they had was hard-hitting. We started to freestyle around the room and then me and Natalie [Maines] stayed there until midnight, putting together the framework of the song—a little bit of banjo and a little bit of fiddle, just to give it their identity. Then I handed over the stems to them and it was a year later and suddenly, I got asked for approval and I heard a very different version, which is interesting.

On the record, it was a very mellow, long, epic version. Ours was this three-minute, hard-hitting little gospel jam; it reminded me of Tom Petty, hip-hop, and gospel mashed up together. It goes to show how different each process can be.

Do you ever feel weird about leaving your work in someone else’s hands, not knowing what it’ll end up sounding like, if it ever even comes out?

It's so fun for me, really, because it's so interesting and so opposite of what I'm doing 364 days a year. By all means, I do love that. I don't feel like I'm a control freak. I feel like I have a point of view and I feel responsible when I'm hired to do something that that's what they're asking for. I'm here to give it. I'm also very interested in what the people I'm working with have to say and have to offer.

I feel like that's been really instrumental with HAIM and Vampire Weekend, where I give something, they give me something back, and we just keep going tit for tat. The result is far more elevated than either one of us could do on our own. We're pulling each other in different directions and it's fun. It's like a great game of basketball.

Where in the end, both teams win.

That's the idea—or both teams are at least better.

Let’s talk more about that HAIM record. What keeps you coming back to that creative well, three albums in?

They originally reached out to me because they saw my name on the credits of some of their favorite Cass McCombs songs. They also loved "Climax." They were like, "What?" Even though when I first heard them, I was like, "Woah, why me?" I think it was about exploration. They assumed that I was down for all of it and they were right. They were right that my influences and my interest is vast.

What people expected of them, at least for their first record, was based on their live shows—very straightforward rock. They just didn't have the means to expand on that yet when I met them. When I got to know them, they told me their influences ranged anywhere from the Eagles to Pharrell to Chaka Khan. They had a deep, deep, deep musical knowledge, and years and years of playing and studying and rhythmic abilities. It was this huge open canvas.

What's been really gratifying about working with them over the course of three albums is that things were moving so fast for them from the moment I met them. They were already touring and it just kept growing and growing; there was always a finite amount of time for work. That's okay. There wasn't not enough time, but you just hope that the next time, you can expand and go in a different direction and keep evolving. I had seen a glimpse of everything that everyone else has seen now, from "Forever" to "Summer Girl." I'd seen a snapshot of all of that on day one. The fact that we're talking about less than 40 songs or whatever it is? That's nothing. I feel like we could easily get to another three albums and still be exploring new territories.

You worked with Vampire Weekend on Modern Vampires Of The City, and you returned on Father Of The Bride. Is that another instance of you feeling like that’s a band with more to show the world with each album?

Why it worked out with us on Modern Vampires is because, without even having to think about it, I would never have any interest in trying to copy what they’d already done. I'm like, "Okay, let's explore," and that's exactly what they wanted too. They felt like they had already closed the chapter with the first record and Contra, and they wanted to break out of it.

We didn't make a conscious decision to go in and start working on the third record. They were fooling around. I think the process between production and writing is blurred when it's done in house. They’d started a lot of things, but had hit some sort of a wall. I had started to work on Rostam [Batmanglij]’s solo album after Contra came out. Then, at some point, just out of the blue, he was in town with Ezra. He called and asked if my studio was available, and would I be interested in coming and helping a little bit?

Without really knowing it, by the end of that first week, they had knocked down some barriers that they had felt. Then, we just kept going. Father of the Bride was very premeditated and also an experiment. I don't know that it was 100% clear that there would be a fourth album. People talk about how long that album took. It didn't really take that long. There was just a lot of time in between.

Without saying too much, again, it feels like the beginning of a new era. They had albums one, two and three, and then… I don't know. Now I feel like the process continues with potentially four, five, and six.

Am I to understand you’ve also been working with Sky Ferreira again?

Oh yeah.

This should come as no surprise to you, but fans are beyond eager for new Sky Ferreira music. We've been wondering where it is.

On some level, we never stopped. There was so much that was birthed out of that era of us working together. I can't exactly tell you what's going on internally over there, but I've wondered the same thing. I was always just on the tip of, "When you're ready, hit me up." When I met her, she was very young and she'd had a couple not great experiences trying to make music, trying to get what was inside of her out. I don't know that she had even fully formed a clear picture of what it was she was trying to get out of her.

The chemistry between us was good and we went on an exploration period. Out of that came, "Everything Is Embarrassing" and a couple early singles which clarified the direction of the album. We made that album, [Night Time, My Time], pretty quickly. Honestly, they were demos. After she had some time to sit with it, she realized that these "demos" were what she wanted, so it just came out like that.

I'm honored to be asked to be part of the next chapter. When Sky put out "Downhill Lullaby," I was super happy for her because I know what a struggle it was on the first record, and those previous singles, to find that sound. I know how much she had to fight against. There was an energy behind her but she just was never happy with the music. She was fighting the machine, in terms of like, "Oh, just sing this song this pop writer has written," you know what I mean?

Someone wanted her to be one type of artist, which isn't what she wanted for herself.

From my perspective, it's not such an evil idea. It's just...they believe in her as a personality, and they want to help her put music out. They can't make the music for her, so they can only help her by suggesting this or that. What she and I did together is not something that you can really plan… it was a bit abnormal. We just played around and found something that I thought was very unique and represented her, and she felt the same way.

It was honestly another chance meeting, but for her to feel empowered enough to go do something else and figure it out is really exciting. I also felt that way with Solange. We had done a lot of work together early on. We stayed close and she played me A Seat At The Table, and I was like, "Oh, my God, I'm so happy for you," because I could sense that that was something that she was trying to make early on. She played me songs that she'd done all by herself. She took her time and she found it. It's nothing that I could have done with her. That was her. I was excited for Sky on that level as well. I'm also happy to be called back in for this next chapter, and we have some stuff cooking. It's cool. It's exciting.

The work you did with Sky, and then later with Carly Rae Jepsen, really changed the ways people thought about quote-unquote "pop" music in the 2010s. Suddenly, the most uncool genre was cool again.

I've felt that, but you really only realize it in retrospect. When artists call you to work on their project, you start to wonder, "What are you looking for that we're doing over here in our other world?" Because when I was working with Dev Hynes on Blood Orange, and Sky on Night Time, My Time, and even HAIM on Days Are Gone, it really felt like the periphery of the mainstream. With HAIM, we felt high praise by artists like Taylor Swift. A lot of artists were really inspired by that first HAIM album, and Sky’s too, but you're just doing your thing. The fact that it made a little dent in pop music? It's crazy.

It just kept me honest, really. I worked very hard for those successes, but I feel fortunate to have the encouragement to just do my thing, to not be competing with other trends or producers, to not do something that is not authentically me. In those earlier days, everything felt like little stepping stones of encouragement and confidence, and achieving a slightly higher plane with every artist and every project.

With Carly, it wasn't like any of those songs were as big as "Call Me Maybe," but it seemed like her goal was to make something that felt more authentic to her—or at least authentic to her then-self. It achieved what it was trying to achieve, and introduced her to a new audience. All those things feel good. A lot of times, people just run through a Rolodex of producers who are just getting it done in this era, and that could be me. Really, what they're hoping for is more of the same, and for me to have success with doing this thing that we cooked up in the comfort of our own anonymous little home was a really fortunate thing for me because it encouraged me to just continue to explore and do my thing and be me.    

We’ve talked about building up newer artists. But how do you go into a room with someone like Madonna and not lose yourself in those sessions?

I'm fairly sure I lost myself that time.

Are you?

I mean, not in a bad way. I came into that session with Diplo, who I had a longstanding creative relationship with, which I'm also extremely fortunate for. When we first started working together, it could not be more bizarre [of a pairing]. That first Major Lazer record and some of the stuff we were doing early on was so left field, and the fact that he became such a go-to pop producer was so wild to me. That got us in the room with people like Madonna, but nobody was steering that ship other than Madonna.

I was just flipping through pages of her Sex book and reliving my youth and inspiration from her, with her. She's such a gracious, awesome person in real life. That was just a fantastic opportunity in this weird exercise of fantasy. It's so hard to have a clear perspective on her because she's just omnipresent. Her peers coming up were Michael Jackson and Prince, you know what I mean? It's totally insane. If you've seen her live, that's another experience altogether. Getting to know her, she's like a true eccentric, very smart and very knowledgeable. There's depth and real roots in stuff.

She's also just done it all. You get to a point where you don't know what to expect and it doesn't even matter. She's just continuing to create and add to her catalogue. Who's going to tell her no? I had ideas, but she's a strong personality. And you have to respect the legacy. I wasn't going to be the one to control what direction she went with it. She wasn't even asking me for that, to be honest. I was there to be part of a team of just helping her create and find a vision that she was comfortable with. My respect for her is more than enough to allow me to do just that.

Haim Open Up About 'Women In Music Pt. III,' Protesting In L.A. & Music Industry Sexism: "Not A Lot Has Changed"

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mxmtoon

Photo by April Blum

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mxmtoon Prepares For An Autumn Of Reflection mxmtoon-prepares-autumn-reflection

mxmtoon Prepares For An Autumn Of Reflection

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Whether through her subdued EP 'dusk' or history podcast "365 days with mxmtoon," the 19-year-old songwriter is using the lessons she’s learned to continue her growth
Gabriel Aikins
GRAMMYs
Sep 11, 2020 - 8:57 am

Autumn is almost here, and even in this pandemic-altered year it symbolizes a transformative mindset and mood. As the blossoms of spring give way to the sunshine of summer and finally to the brisk breeze of fall, it gives people a chance to reflect on where they’ve been and where they’d like to go. It’s a calmer, more introspective time. That makes it the perfect season for 19-year-old mxmtoon's new projects to arrive.

mxmtoon, who also goes by Maia, has already had a busy 2020. On the heels of debut album the masquerade dropping almost exactly a year ago in Sept. 2019, she wowed again with the bright, pop-driven EP dawn this April. The EP was some welcome positivity as the hardships of the year fully began to settle in for all of us, including Maia. She continued to utilize her sizable social media reach to keep in touch with fans across Twitter, Twitch and TikTok. The isolation and time for thought also contributed greatly to the sound and feeling of upcoming EP dusk, out Oct. 1. A companion to dawn, dusk is a more subdued, melancholy collection of tracks, as evidenced by lead single "bon iver." Maia has also been thinking about the more general past, leading to the launch of her new podcast "365 days with mxmtoon" on Sept. 14, which will find her recounting stories from the history of the world, music, and herself.

Maia spoke with GRAMMY.com in August to discuss how dusk and dawn are related, how she made the EP in isolation, what working with Carly Rae Jepsen meant to her, and how all the time for reflection inspired her music and podcast. 

You had the EP dawn come out in the spring and you have dusk coming out in the fall. When you started writing for this did you know it was going to be two EPs?

I did know that it was going to be two EPs, and it was still open-ended on what thematically the two were going to be about. At that point, dawn started forming itself and just making a piece of work that was going to be more optimistic and more outward facing in the way the lyrics would be written and more just classical pop production in a sense. The second EP, I was trying to work around how are we going to think about this and what will pair up with doing something that feels so different than anything I’ve done before? Why don’t we just go to the opposite end of the spectrum and do something that feels a little sadder and more melancholy in its tone and more introspective?

Was it difficult making that big of a shift right after writing dawn?

I mean, the world kinda turned itself on its head so it wasn’t entirely too hard for me to be sad about what was going on. [Laughs.] But it was definitely difficult to go from a co-writing situation where I was traveling and going to write with people inside other studios and spaces to all of a sudden being in quarantine and being by myself and not having anybody to bounce ideas off of other than my own brain. That was the hardest part, but definitely thematically I think we were all in the space of wanting to write sad music whether or not we were musicians.

You wrote most of this alone because of the pandemic. At what point did you start bringing people in and how did it feel after this extended quarantine period?

Oh my god, it was really crazy. I only started co-writing last year in August, so I’ve only been co-writing with other people for around a year now. I love doing it, there’s something about in-person collaboration you just can’t emulate even if it’s over FaceTime or Zoom, so it was really daunting to go into the writing rooms and my own studio spaces during quarantine to be like, "Okay, I hope my own brain is well-equipped enough in order to make music for this project." That’s how I originally started writing–by myself–so it was a big challenge for me to go back into that headspace and get used to it again. But I think it was a really good challenge too because it helps you understand what are the pros and cons of both situations, of working with people and then also working by yourself. And bringing back people into the production of these songs after I finished writing them at the end of working on dusk was really exciting too. I was just really proud of myself for the fact that I still felt capable of being able to write by myself after doing so much collaboration. [Laughs.]

Getting into dusk, it is a little sadder, a little more subdued. A big theme of it is still finding the light in those scenarios. Why was it important for you to include that message?

That’s something I am constantly reminding myself, even beyond the era of COVID-19 where I think we all have to do that anyways. It’s just really important for me to hopefully champion the message that sadness is not something to be afraid for shy of, and you can still feel hopeful even in the dark. Even if you have a project like dusk where it’s about the darker, sadder elements of our experiences as humans, you can still relish in the sadness and the whole negativity, but at the end of the day come out of it and understand that I can take this moment for now, but I also understand there is still good things that wait for me at the other end.

Writing that contrast, was it more a general contrast in mood or did you go back and refer to dawn to specifically make dusk play off of it?

I naturally followed an arc of the more negative thoughts that are swirling around in my brain? How can I approach those? But I didn’t actually go back to dawn while I was writing dusk to make something that felt different. I think that the two naturally came to be really interconnected without having to be very on the nose about what sort of themes I was touching on and the progression from one to the other.

So Carly Rae Jepsen is on the track "ok on your own." What was it like working with her?

It was insane, oh my god. When I got the email that Carly Rae Jepsen wanted to feature on this song, I literally almost fainted on the ground. [Laughs.] I have been a huge fan of Carly for as long as I can remember. I remember dancing to "Call Me Maybe" in my middle school dances growing up, and I texted my best friend when I found out about this and she called me immediately. I had like 10 missed calls on my phone just like "you have to tell me more information about this." I was freaking out, because I am in awe of her and I just think she’s such an empowering figure for female artists in the music industry and I adore everything she’s done. It was super cool to just have a FaceTime with her and meet her for the first time and hear her thoughts on the track and just be mutually excited about working on something together. My mind is just blown.

Growing up, you had classical training in cello and violin, and it feels like dusk really draws on the style of that. Was that intentional?

Totally. I love classical music and any kind of element I can add into my own music is super exciting for me because I just love the sound of string instruments. It was really exciting for me to work on dusk because in a lot of ways the production on this project is the way when I first started writing music just me and my ukulele. These songs are the way I wish I could have made my earlier music sound. Just making it sound really pretty with all the strings and the piano and the synths. I now have the ability to do that with producers and people that I work with. I wasn’t able to do that early on so it’s super exciting for me to take elements of things that are important to me and put them into this newer project.

Read More: "The 'Canon' Is Racist": How A Collective Of Black Musicians Are Exposing Racism In The Classical Music Community

Talking about classical segues us into the podcast about history. At what point during all this did you decide to start this podcast?

It’s something that’s been on my mind for awhile. The first podcast I ever worked on was called "21 Days with mxmtoon" and was in collaboration with Spotify, and I made it last year when I was working on my first ever album and documenting that whole process. My team and I were like, how can we continue this thread of "'something' days of mxmtoon," but make it something that’s completely different? And we thought about this podcast, "The Daily," from the New York Times where it talks about topical things that are happening in the world at this moment. What if we made the Gen Z version of that, and instead of talking about current day issues, we just talk about historical events that are really funny and totally out of the blue? Like, party facts that you can just listen to for 10 minutes and then you’re knowledgable about a subject all of a sudden. History’s always been something I really enjoy, and to think about doing some form of daily content, especially in the format of podcasting was super exciting for me and it’s been super cool to see it come into reality and being able to think about all the stuff we get to talk about.

The podcast focuses on more of the personal side of history. What made you want to focus more on that?

I think history is so often, I think the best word is Euro-centric. We only focus on the same set of events that happened in the course of our American history or whatever it is, even when we look at the world there’s very few things we actually know about what else happens inside of our universe. It was really exciting for me to work with my team to work on these episodes that feel like they pinpoint really specific facts about things that are even interconnected with my life, like growing up in the Bay Area and having Alcatraz Island be right next to my house. I just like learning about things in ways that feel ultra specific and that feels more intriguing to me and hopefully other people like to learn that way too, otherwise I might be screwed. [Laughs.]

In recent press material you’ve mentioned this work is some that you’ve been very proud of and proud of your own growth making it. What are some of those things you’re most proud of through this process?

I feel really proud of myself whenever I finish a project in general because I think that’s always a huge step to put yourself into a position where you’re pouring your soul into a piece of work and sharing that with the world. In that sense, I’m proud of the general process of doing that. But I think the reason that these EPs stick out to me the most is probably because of the exact same reasons that I don't always believe that I am in this world of the music industry and being an artist for a living and a creative and I am the person on the screen at the end of the day that people are paying attention to. I think when I was listening to dawn and when I was working on dusk, I had these very real moments where I was listening to these songs and being able to finally connect the dots with the fact I was like wow, I’m making music I can recognize finally as good enough in the greater context of the music industry and being able to think about if I heard this on a playlist on Spotify amongst all these other artists I look up to personally, I wouldn’t be weirded out by my presence on the playlist. I’m like, "this is a really good song and it deserves to be here." I think there’s a level of understanding that I am finally having with my own music when I listen to it that has also been able to feel more proud of the work I’ve put in.

Doves On Their First Album In A Decade & Why They’re Still Trying To Stay Patient 

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Carly Rae Jepsen

Carly Rae Jepsen

Photo: Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage/Getty Images

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Mad Cool 2021: Carly Rae Jepsen, Killers, More mad-cool-2021-lineup-red-hot-chili-peppers-carly-rae-jepsen-killers-pixies-twenty-one

Mad Cool 2021 Lineup: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Carly Rae Jepsen, The Killers, Pixies, Twenty One Pilots, FEVER 333 & More

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The fifth anniversary edition of the Madrid music festival was postponed until July 2021 and will feature many of the artists from the original 2020 lineup, including Mumford & Sons, Deftones, Placebo, Faith No More, Foals, Major Lazer and more
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Jul 8, 2020 - 1:01 pm

Today, July 8, Madrid's Mad Cool Festival revealed the first-wave lineup for their postponed fifth anniversary event. The headliners for the four-day fest, taking place July 7-10, 2021, are GRAMMY winners Red Hot Chili Peppers, Twenty One Pilots, Mumford & Sons, Deftones, GRAMMY nominees the Killers and Faith No More, and Pixies, Placebo and Royal Blood.

GRAMMY nominees Carly Rae Jepsen, Black Pumas, Fever 333, Alt-J, as well as The Rapture, Puscifer, Angel Olsen and Waxahatchee are also among the 94 acts making up the initial lineup. Mad Cool notes that 132 total will make up the final billing, which includes three more headliners, and will be shared "as soon as possible."

Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Black Pumas On Their Breakout Year, Creative Process And "New Chapter"

https://twitter.com/madcoolfestival/status/1280804179049623552

🌶🔥✨ Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Killers, Mumford & Sons, Twenty One Pilots, Faith No More, Deftones, Pixies, Placebo, Alt-J, Royal Blood y Major Lazer encabezan las primeras confirmaciones de #MadCool2021 ✨🎡🌴

Entradas ya a la venta! 👉https://t.co/kYvdqfdF46 pic.twitter.com/2Nb73KyseK

— Mad Cool Festival (@madcoolfestival) July 8, 2020

Other artists playing the big 2021 event include London Grammar, Yungblud, Foals, Pale Waves, Alec Benjamin, Glass Animals and Shura. The fest's electronic music stage, The Loop, also reveals a solid offering: GRAMMY winner Diplo and his  Major Lazer project, GRAMMY nominees Four Tet, RÜFÜS DU SOL, along with electro heavyweights Floating Points, Octa Octa, Nina Kraviz, Hayden James, Modeselektor, ANNA and more.

Since the event was officially rescheduled to 2021 on June 26, organizers have been working to book as many of the artists from the original 2020 announcement, although headliner Taylor Swift will not be able to play the 2021 edition.

"You have asked a lot about Taylor Swift, unfortunately we are sad to tell you that she won't be able to attend our next edition. We have been working with her agent & management to try to make it happen for our 5th anniversary, but it hasn't been possible. Hopefully we will have her in one of our future editions," today's statement reads.

Listen: Shea Diamond, Tom Morello, Dan Reynolds & The Bloody Beetroots Call Listeners To Action In "Stand Up"

Tickets for Mad Cool 2021 went on sale today, starting at €75 for single-day tickets. 2020 ticket holders have until the next lineup announcement to request refunds; those who decide to keep their tickets get 25 percent off of merch and tickets to the Mad Cool Vibra Mahou tour. Please visit Mad Cool's website for more info on tickets and the lineup.

Yvonne Orji On Her First-Ever HBO Comedy Special, Faith & Celebrating Black Joy

Carly Rae Jepsen

Carly Rae Jepsen

Photo: Terence Patrick/CBS/Getty Images

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Carly Rae Jepsen's Love Of Love Makes Great Pop how-carly-rae-jepsens-love-love-makes-great-pop-music

How Carly Rae Jepsen's Love Of Love Makes For Great Pop Music

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The GRAMMY-nominated pop artist's latest project, 'Dedicated,' is a joyful romp through the different flavors of relationships, showcasing her "infatuation with infatuation," as Rolling Stone put it
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
May 27, 2019 - 8:56 am

On May 17, GRAMMY nominee Carly Rae Jepsen released the shimmering, exuberant Dedicated, her four-years-later follow-up to 2015's fan-favorite Emotion. The 15 tracks explore the ups and downs of love and relationships in all its forms while playing with different textures and sounds reminiscent of your favorite classic pop tracks from the last few decades.

On "Want You in My Room," she offers a healthy '80s dose of saxophone and synth, paired with the lyrics about longing to get a little closer to your crush. With "Party For One," a ridiculously catchy breakup anthem, Jepsen stays joyful as she celebrates self-love packaged as an authentically fresh sounding modern pop dance party bop.

Above the playful, candy-coated beats and lyrics, even above the songs feeling like exactly what Jepsen was meant to be performing as the cult-favorite "indie pop star" space she's carved for herself, the album reflects the main driver in her life; a love for love and relationships. Or, as her recent Rolling Stone interview put it, her "infatuation with infatuation."

Related: Carly Rae Jepsen Masters Emotion

"When you get to the place where you know somebody, and they've seen your absolute embarrassing worst and love you still, there's a rush and a high," she told R.S. "I try to create that with the music that I make: a feeling of a moment being so intense that you're present in it and you're nowhere else."

The feature goes in-depth into Jepsen's several-year journey that went into the new album, which, as they aptly suggested, shall hail her as "the new queen of heart-wrenching dance-floor catharsis." The pop darling explains the album's opening track, "Julien," about an inescapable "everlasting fantastical love," is the thesis statement of for the LP.

Working her way through the almost 200 songs she wrote in the process, the title track didn't make the final cut, but as the outlet details, "epitomized the album's strong emotions. Jepsen's greatest muse is 'new love.'"

As for her hopes for how her music is received, she is not concerned with repeating the hot-flash moment of pop superstardom she felt in 2011 with her huge GRAMMY-nominated No. 1 hit "Call Me Maybe."

"I would much rather have a small and mighty group of people who are getting what I love about music and connecting than a 'Call Me Maybe' ever again," she said. And as for how "true" love will pan out in her life, she is open to wherever things may go, as long as there's love, whether or not she got a ring on it, she'll be happy.

"I don't really have any rules for how the course of the adventures of my life will look. I know I'm gonna be happy as long as I've got [my] relationships in order."

You can catch Jepsen live on her Dedicated Tour, which currently has her singing her heart out in Europe, and then back stateside this summer.

Billie Eilish Releases "Seize The Awkward" PSA On Mental Health & Friendship

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Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy. Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy lies with the story's original source or writer. Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy.