Earlier this year, Carly Rae Jepsen took time off from doing press in Amsterdam to go shopping with her hair and makeup artist, Aga Dondzik. In one store, Jepsen saw an abstract print of a woman on a pinkish background next to text that read: “I think I’m thinking too much.” She decided immediately that she had to own it, but as she was going up to pay the store attendant, she saw another, almost identical print — this one on a blueish background. She was suddenly gripped by panic; she couldn’t decide which to buy. So she ended up buying them both, hauling them across the Atlantic, and realizing that she had overthought buying a print that said she thought she was thinking too much.

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“Like, yah, y'think?” Jepsen says now, beaming, sitting in an alcove inside a white-walled office space in midtown Manhattan. “You couldn't even pick one print! One's pink, one's blue! It was so stupid, but it's a fault of mine.”

That indecision won’t come as a shock to Jepsen’s army of fans. This is the Carly Rae Jepsen who wrote 250 songs for her dazzling 2015 album E•MO•TION, waited a year to release eight (almost equally brilliant) outtakes on a separate LP called E•MO•TION: Side B, then spent two years writing, recording, tweaking, axing, and overthinking before releasing its deft full-length follow up, Dedicated. She says she’s written three songs for her next album already, but admits she’ll probably have to write another couple of hundred before anyone hears new music.

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That’s partly Jepsen being a perfectionist, making sure that every synth, hook, and bridge hits at just the right moment for her euphoric, neon-lit pop to take hold. But it’s also a matter of life experience. In the three years since the E•MO•TION tour wound down, Jepsen has been in love and felt the sting of a breakup; she’s traveled to Nicaragua to write, New York to record, and rural Italy to escape a stifling Los Angeles. Her ability to articulate emotional extremes remains intact: ”I want you in my room / On the bed! On the floor! / I don’t care anymore!” she sings on one of Dedicated’s high points. But she reveals little scars of loneliness and introspection just as often, whether she’s trying to ignore potential romance on “Happy Not Knowing” or fighting against insecurity on “Too Much.” Both on record and in person, Jepsen can dissect complex feelings with sharp one-liners.

The last time I saw you perform live was at Irving Plaza on the E•MO•TION tour. I remember thinking that half the crowd there would have happily died on the spot after seeing that set. Was the response you got on that tour surprising or even overwhelming?

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It was very surprising and it's still surprising. I think that's the main feeling that I have every night that I go out: OK, I guess this is going to be a party tonight. I feel very lucky, and I don't know how we landed in that world, where everyone comes ready to be in a room of love and enjoy the night. I feed off of that energy and it just ends up making me stoked to do the show every time.

You got off that tour in mid-2016 and spent a lot of time in L.A. before deciding to go to Italy. When did you decide you needed to have that break? Was there an emotional breaking point?

I had gone through a breakup, and it was a little after that that I was like, OK, I've gotta go and get out of L.A. You have to pop the L.A. bubble every once in a while. I found that I was secluding myself anyway, and I thought it would be fun to take that energy of wanting to be alone and just go have an adventure — try and make it more of a pilgrimage of sorts. My sister had been to Italy not too long before and was just gushing about her trip, so I was like this is the spot, let's go. I hadn't done a solo travel before and I was always just, as a teen, thought that was something I would like to do as an adult at some point. It was only three weeks that we had. I was writing a lot up until leaving and as soon as I got back. So I just made a rule: no writing, [only] listen to other peoples' music, go walk and explore and try to do some fun things on my own.