“Party for One”

While it is true that a new Carly Rae Jepsen track is cause for celebration, it’s also true that the celebration is likely to be attended by a small but aggressively vocal collection of fans who will express their joy with such deafening shrieks, squeals, and screams that it will drown out the song. So it’s best to experience her jubilant and almost strikingly simple new breakup anthem, “Party for One,” as its title suggests, at least for the first few listens. There will be plenty of time to dance along with everyone else later, as this one will undoubtedly join “Cut to the Feeling,” “Run Away With Me,” and the whole of E•MO•TION as a top-tier Jepsen track that can invigorate swaths of the pop-hungry masses from the tick-tock of its opening bars.

It’s been three years since E•MO•TION, Jepsen’s euphoric third album that is a source of as many memes as it is moments of pure bliss. “Party for One” finds her only a few steps removed from its startlingly romantic saxophone riffs (“Run Away With Me”) and woeful, synth-heavy ballads (“Your Type”). Jepsen and her co-writers have a knack for throwing a dart at a “How Are You Feeling Today?” chart, laying down a simple narrative based on whatever primal emotion it strikes, and applying as many coats of lush, ’80s inspired pop production as necessary for people to start dancing. This has proven to be a wildly effective formula, so one can’t really fault her for using it here. With “Party for One,” the dart landed on “Brokenhearted!” (exclamation marks always included), threw in a few familiar blips and thwomps, an infectious, repeating mantra-cum-metacommentary (“Back on my beat”), and a steamier-than-usual (though still relatively tame) reference to masturbation that Jepsen sings with that youthful and uniquely raspy voice of hers. In the pantheon of pop breakup anthems, Jepsen’s newest single lacks the aching detail of “Dancing on My Own” or the Max Martin alchemy of “Since U Been Gone,” but it’s a satisfying intimation that E•MO•TION could be getting a sequel soon.