"Party for One" is not quite Carly "Reich" Jepsen, but it's fun to think about. The opening 30 seconds of this, the first single that will appear on her yet-unnamed 2019 album, feature a staccato synth-marimba that pulses at the same tempo as Steve Reich's 1976 masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians — a rhythmic euphoria coats the pop candy ready to burst from the inside. The key is different and adds a triplet that skips like a heartbeat, but the loop doesn't "phase" out of sync to create a musical puzzle of Top 40 proportions. Perhaps it's a missed opportunity, but mid-'70s minimalism isn't the reason we listen to Carly Rae Jepsen.
The left-field reference does, however, ripple into "Party for One" in both familiar and unfamiliar ways. Like a neon light that never goes out, '80s synth-pop is still at the core of Jepsen's being, an outlet to tease the smaller emotions of heartbreak and fantasy with grandiose production.
"Party for one / If you don't care about me / I'll just dance by myself / Back on my beat," she sings, echoing Robyn (who also recently and miraculously returned), another pop singer-songwriter who knows a thing or two about turning vulnerability into power. But mixed into those celestial synths is a little beat-driven bravado: "Party for one / If you don't care about me / Making love to myself / Back on my beat."
This is where Carly Rae Jepsen's phases cross over one another like polka dots on chevron, loudly proclaiming self-love forged from solitude. The accompanying music video does much the same, following lonely hearts in hotel rooms, who find their own forms of self-love through spaghetti and wine in the tub, dancing with a martini, shameless product placement (of which Jepsen is a queen), sad movies and, well, other pleasure devices. They're all back on their beat by way — of all things — of minimalist textures that pop.
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