Curiosity [Shelved]

Curiosity was originally intended as Carly Rae Jepsen’s sophomore studio album, before it would be cut down to a six track extended-play. The album was intended to release on February 14th 2012, through 604 Records exclusively in Canada prior to being shelved.

Since the release of her first album, Tug of War, in 2008, Jepsen would continue writing new music and by the beginning of 2010 would have a total of 55 songs written. These songs would be considered by Jepsen for her next project, which had began to materialize in January 2010, alongside collaborator Ryan Stewart, at the time seemingly under the original working title of My Beating Heart. Jepsen would continue working on the project under its original title as late as July 2010.

Across its early development, the original concept for the project was to continue in the same direction as Jepsen’s previous release, Tug of War, pulling from ‘cozy folk-pop’ influences such as that of Natalie Imbruglia. However, that was until the album’s new title track, Curiosity, was written, sometime in 2010. Jepsen states the song, had ‘come rushing out differently’ and was decidedly ‘very bubblegum pop’, a notable shift from the folk inspirations of her previous work and early material written for the new album.

Over the course of eight months in 2010, Jepsen and producer Ryan Stewart questioned how the song was going to fit onto the album and wondered if she could take on the new direction for the project. Eventually, Jepsen concluded that the album would feature both pop and folk influences in equal parts, describing it as a ‘pop-folk’ collaboration.

Though it’s unclear when exactly the decision was made to rename the project, Jepsen states the new title represented how she was ‘curious’ about trying something new, which is how the name was decided upon; ‘for me, the title has a double meaning.’ she explained. As of January 2011, the album had gone through three different name changes.

Throughout 2010, the project remained in development and Jepsen would begin to tease songs such as ‘Alice In Wonderland’ and scrapped track ‘Katie’s Kicking in the Corner’ through social media and in a series of live performances. Over the course of a month in 2010, the project’s lead single Call Me Maybe was developed alongside collaborators Tavish Crowe and Josh Ramsay. Originally written as a folk song with Crowe, Ramsay helped to reconstruct the track and develop it as a pop song instead.

In 2011, Jepsen worked with Canadian songwriters Tino Zolfo and Joe Cruz on writing and recording new material for the project, though their contributions to the album wouldn’t see an official release until being reworked for Emotion later in 2015, in the form of Warm Blood (originally written as Falling For You) and I Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance (formerly known as Came Here to Dance).

Jepsen and Stewart would also meet in the studio multiple times that year to work on the album, collaborating on all album tracks except Dear Julien and Call Me Maybe; the former being co-penned by Canadian producer Kevin Maher. Work on the album would continue up until September 2011, around the release of Call Me Maybe in Canada, when mixing on the last song of the album was completed.

Jepsen states a total of 35 songs were written for the project, with the majority of the album made at Ryan Stewart’s Wine Cellar Studios in Vancouver, then mixed by Dave Ogilvie at Mushroom Studios. Similarly, Jepsen described she had ‘at least three album’s worth’ of material written for Curiosity, and had let her friends and family pick which ones made the final cut for the album during a listening party she had organized.