Dedicated Side B is the fifth studio album by Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen. It serves as a companion piece to Dedicated (2019), her fourth studio album.[1][2][3][4] It was released on May 21, 2020, by 604 Records in Canada, and Schoolboy and Interscope Records in the United States. The album features 14 outtakes from the original album.[5] The album was preceded by the release of the single "Let's Be Friends", which was ultimately included only in its Japanese edition. Musically, the album is primarily a dance-pop record with disco influences.[6]
The album received positive reviews. It peaked at number 58 in Jepsen's home country on the Canadian Albums Chart. In the United States, it peaked at number 22 on the BillboardTop Album Sales chart. The album's highest peak position was number eight on the Scottish Albums Chart. It also peaked at number 42 on the UK Albums Chart respectively.
Background
While recording Dedicated, Jepsen confirmed that she had written "nearly 200 songs" for the album.[7] Over the year following the release of Dedicated, speculation grew as to whether Jepsen would release a companion piece to Dedicated as she had done for her previous album with Emotion: Side B. Though Dedicated Side B was subsequently released with no prior announcement on May 21, 2020, Jepsen teased the album while speaking to Mike Wass from Idolator, stating:
"I feel like I should stop pretending. I have every intention of doing that and releasing a part two, I think that's the fun with having this much time to record an album. It gives you a little bit of perspective on what should come first and what should come second. It was easier to narrow down the first part because I knew was going to get to share a lot more songs".[8]
While discussing the influences for the tracks in an interview with Paper's Brendan Wetmore, Jepsen stated that she "wanted the beach-y vibe of Beach Boys, the stoner sort of — where you're following a guy around at the beach and like making love and doing all the things that are very holiday-ish. More allowing ourselves to get as weird as we wanted that day". In a separate question about the retro synths being used heavily in some of Jepsen's projects, she answered:
"Originally with [Dedicated], I was looking to go into '70sdisco, and I think we thought that was "Julien", but the rest of it kind of just led me right back to what I think is my idea of one of the greatest eras of pop music, which is the '80s. It's very heart-on-your-sleeve, and it's very to-the-point and not afraid to really be vulnerable and say the things that you really mean. I'm kind of drawn back to that place and I think the synth sound is still so very '80s, and it allows me to be like, 'I'm going to tell you the deep secrets of my heart, let's go!'".[9]
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received a score of 79 out of 100 based on seven reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[11]
Ali Shutler from NME described the album as "easily one of the best pop records of the year so far", and goes on to praise specific qualities of the album: "Dedicated Side B provides a joyous burst of escapism from the miserable everyday, the lockdownying to the yang of Charli XCX's How I'm Feeling Now. Consistently brilliant, Side B might be a collection of offcuts but this is the sort of record that most acts could only dream of making".[14] Natalia Barr of Consequence of Sound praised "how focused Jepsen's writing process has been on every emotion and experience love brings", while noting that "Songs like the '80s bass-heavy, ABBA-inspired 'Summer Love' and soft ballad 'Heartbeat' could have been beneficial additions to Dedicated".[20]Stereogum’s Chris DeVille wrote that "track for track [the songs are] at least as good as the original Dedicated offerings, if not better" as they "hang together much more naturally". In addition, DeVille complimented the second half of the album, in which "Jepsen plays around with rock sounds on the bass-grooving 'Summer Love' and the frantically upbeat 'Let's Sort The Whole Thing Out'", and finished off by inviting "those of us who were losing interest in the Carly Rae Jepsen show to tune back in".[21] In an article for Exclaim, Angela Morrison called Dedicated Side B a "remarkable" album, noting that "Jepsen [has] found a formula that works well for her — sparkling synth-pop inflected by giddy romantic anticipation". Morrison went into further detail with some of the tracks on the album, noting that "the slinky, sexy 'Fake Mona Lisa' and the bubbly, shimmering 'Now I Don't Hate California After All' sound like nothing she has ever done before", and that "'Felt This Way' takes a melancholic approach", while its counterpart, "Stay Away", "is more cheeky and upbeat". In addition, Morrison wrote that the album was "brimming with starry-eyed euphoria, glittery synth-pop confections and her characteristically odd lyrical syntax", concluding that "In essence, it has everything that makes Jepsen's music lovable and bewitching".[13]
Writing for NPR, Jon Lewis stated that "the album feels like much more than a compilation of outtakes from her last release", expanding that the project "could have easily functioned as a stand-alone record, with a fresh batch of exuberant, lovestruck choruses to get lodged in your head all summer". Lewis also called the new tracks "both a blessing and a curse", because "On the one hand, it can be frustrating to listen to her always perfect dance pop on the eve of a summer likely to be short on dance parties", but "On the other, no one makes music for dancing like nobody's watching or singing along in the shower like Carly Rae Jepsen".[22] In an article from Sputnikmusic, SowingSeason wrote that the "twelve outstanding pop songs with nary a weak link" were "better than the album from which these songs were cast off", and "quite possibly the best Carly Rae Jespen release, period". The writer also described the tracks as "80s-washed, electronic summer pop songs that Jepsen can now craft in her sleep", and called the album "more upbeat, energetic, and memorable than its counterpart, featuring hook-laden verses and explosive choruses that only came through intermittently on [Dedicated]". The writer further stated that the "album is good enough that had Jepsen simply released it with a new title, nobody would have batted an eye – it would have just been assumed that she poured her heart and soul into these tracks and that it is the spiritual successor to Emotion", concluding that as Jepsen "surprise releases her very best album to date – as if they're songs she couldn't care less about – she proves why she's one of the best pop artists in the whole industry".[18]
Callie Ahlgrim from Insider described the album as a "cohesive, sun-dappled, exultant artistic vision", as Jepsen "revels in her feel-good pop dominance and '80s-infused idealism". Ahlgrim commented on how Jepsen "rarely deviates from her sparkling, tingly, edge-free formula", writing that she "doesn't need to", as she "simply continues to stack impeccable, immediately likable bops on top of each other, like an everlasting Jenga tower — no biggie".[23] Writing for Slant Magazine, Alexa Camp wrote that while the album is "less musically adventurous than those [on Dedicated]", it "[doubles] down on pillow talk, lending the album a uniformity that its predecessor lacked". Camp went into further detail about the opening track, writing that "'This Love Isn't Crazy' is as immediate as anything in Jepsen's catalog and finds producer Jack Antonoff at his most unapologetically pop", in addition to describing the album's closing track, "the island-flavored closing track 'Now I Don't Hate California After All'" as a callback to Dedicated's "Right Words, Wrong Time". Camp concluded that the songs on the album represented the "wealth of treasures she had to choose from, [and] her ability to craft a cohesive narrative", and noted that the lyrics of "the meditative 'Comeback', [demonstrate] the tangled multi-dimensionality of both her psyche and the act of sex itself".[17]
