Review: on 'Day and Night (Continued)', Carly Rae Jepsen keeps her 'secret pact' with fans and turns a 24-track album into 32

This is a review. Three weeks after releasing 'Day and Night', a 24-track double album that debuted at No. 29 on the Billboard 200, Carly Rae Jepsen drops 'Day and Night (Continued)' this Friday (Oct. 9). It brings eight new songs, four for each side of the concept: on 'Day', 'Reaching for a Star', 'Sixteen and Rising', 'Wedding Season' and 'Lullaby'; on 'Night', 'Yes', 'Muscle Memory', 'Love Depressed' and 'In Pure Faith'. 'B-side lovers I see you and I didn't forget our not so secret pact', she wrote when announcing the set. 'Let's get freaky.'

The gesture has been Jepsen's signature since 'Emotion' (2015) and 'Dedicated' (2019), which also got their B-side companions. Here, though, the extras do more than empty the drawer: they stretch the logic of a record built as two worlds. 'Day' was designed around live instrumentation and hints of '70s psychedelic pop; 'Night' around the synth-driven dance-pop that critics compared to Robyn and Kylie Minogue. Titles like 'Wedding Season' and 'In Pure Faith' reinforce the theme running through the whole project — requited, grown-up love, without the angst of the impossible crushes that made 'Call Me Maybe' famous.

The problem is scale. 'Day and Night' already ran about an hour and a half; with eight more tracks, the era passes 30 songs, and it is hard to picture a casual listener making it to the end. Splitting the extras into blocks of four helps, since each half slots into its original side, like completing a sticker album. But the excess, charming for devoted fans, dilutes the impact of songs that already shone on the main record, such as 'Don't Leave Me On the Dance Floor' and 'Versailles'.

Still, few pop names treat their audience this generously — and other artists would sell this material as a new album. 'Continued' doesn't change the verdict on Jepsen's most mature era; it just makes the feast bigger. Score: 7/10