There are No 1 pop songs you hear everywhere you go and soon hope never to hear again; and then there are pop songs that, to quote the critic Robert Christgau, “actually reveal themselves to you in that kind of saturation”. Nearly 20 years ago, he gave the examples of the Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way and Cher’s Believe – songwriting so irresistible, it withstands not only play after play but years of changing tastes and production.
Call Me Maybe is another song you are still glad to be reminded of, even after hearing it a gazillion times. As Justin Bieber tweeted to his many millions of Twitter followers, after hearing it on Canadian radio in late 2011: it is “possibly the catchiest song I’ve ever heard lol”. His endorsement prompted his manager, Scooter Braun, to sign the artist, one Carly Rae Jepsen – then best known as the third-place runner-up on 2007’s Canadian Idol.
Bieber had “never jumped out and promoted an artist like this before,” Braun told Rolling Stone. Months later, in April 2012, Bieber still hadn’t got Call Me Maybe out of his head. A video of him larking about and miming the lyrics with then-girlfriend Selena Gomez, Ashley Tisdale and a host of other tweenage celebrities went viral. Their enthusiasm was as infectious as the song, inspiring everyone from Katy Perry to US armed forces in Afghanistan to follow suit.
You could not have planned Call Me Maybe’s path to No 1 better had you tried. Within weeks it had hit the top spot in 16 countries with more than 10m copies sold and 355m views on YouTube. It was the kind of rocket-fuelled, felicitous ascent that today might suggest an industry plant – but social media’s instant embrace of Call Me Maybe was organic and real, a human response to something so moreish.
On first listen, the song seemed deceptively featherweight. The strings sound like ringtones; the guitar parts as though they were lifted from a PlayStation 2 game. But even the most synthetic production can’t detract from songwriting this ironclad. It is telling that Call Me Maybe was intended as a folk song; it would be catchy played on a kazoo, or underwater.
Its power lies in its compulsive karaoke quality: you can’t sing along to the chorus without also twirling your finger at your temple and miming a phone. And at three minutes and 13 seconds, it leaves you wanting more, and more – until you eventually succumb to the repeat button.
But most of Call Me Maybe’s charm has to do with its singer. At 26, Jepsen was older than most pop stars are at the time of their breakout hit, and certainly past the point of thinking an exchange of phone numbers “crazy” – but she buys into the bubblegum romance with such enthusiasm and warmth, and what could be corny is purely endearing.
It speaks to persistent snobbishness about mainstream pop that Call Me Maybe is often spoken of today as a novelty record or guilty pleasure, rather than as an enduring classic. But it’s precisely the song’s candy-floss lightness that has sustained its longevity. Even when Jepsen achieved indie cred with her 2015 album Emotion, it wasn’t with the sense of “now this is the music I’ve always wanted to make”. Now 34, she continues to perform Call Me Maybe with the same infectious delight as she gave it a decade ago. And why wouldn’t she? It’s still every bit as good.
