Carly Rae Jepsen has spent more than a decade proving that a global pop hit does not have to define an entire career. Now, at 40, the Canadian singer is preparing to open another chapter with Day and Night, an ambitious 24-track double album that arrives September 18 through Interscope Records.
The project comes at a particularly significant point in Jepsen’s life. Since the release of her last studio project, The Loveliest Time, she has married musician and producer Cole M.G.N. and become a mother. Those changes are central to Day and Night, an album that explores love, desire, marriage, family and the complicated process of building a personal life while remaining deeply committed to music.
The album is divided into two distinct halves, with 12 songs on each side. The “Day” portion leans toward live instrumentation, organic arrangements and touches of 1970s psychedelic pop, while “Night” moves into a more electronic world built around sleek synths and dance-pop. Rather than forcing those ideas into a single sound, Jepsen has embraced the contrast.
That decision says a lot about where she is creatively. Jepsen has always been a prolific songwriter, often recording far more material than could fit on a conventional album. Her previous projects frequently generated companion releases built from songs that did not make the original records. With Day and Night, she has turned that instinct into the central concept.
The result is a much larger canvas. Instead of separating the material into an official album and a collection of leftovers, Jepsen has treated all 24 songs as part of the same creative world.
The first glimpse came with “On Wires,” a song built around a lush, piano-led arrangement that captures the more organic character of the “Day” half. The track established a warmer direction while retaining the melodic precision that has remained a defining part of Jepsen’s music.
She followed it with “Motivation,” a song from the “Night” section that approaches family and inherited patterns from a more personal angle. Produced with Kyle Shearer and Cole M.G.N., the track places Jepsen’s songwriting inside a glittering, house-influenced production.
The contrast between the two songs reflects the larger idea behind the album. Day and Night is not simply a collection of different sounds. It is built around the idea that different parts of a person can exist at the same time.
That theme has become increasingly relevant to Jepsen herself. She has spoken about the tension between her professional identity and the life she has built away from the stage. Her relationship with Cole M.G.N. developed while they were working on the album, turning what began as a creative partnership into a personal one.
The couple married in 2025, and they welcomed their first child in March 2026. That makes Day and Night the first Jepsen album to emerge from a period in which marriage and motherhood became part of her everyday life rather than distant subjects for songwriting.
Yet the record is not simply a motherhood album. Jepsen has also described desire and romantic pursuit as important parts of the project. That fits with a characteristic element of her writing: she often approaches romantic subjects through excitement and anticipation rather than simply focusing on the aftermath of relationships.
There is a confidence in that approach now that was harder to see earlier in her career. Jepsen became famous at 26 with “Call Me Maybe,” a song that became the bestselling global single of 2012 and turned her into an international pop star almost overnight.
The success was enormous, but it also created an obvious problem. When one song becomes that closely associated with an artist, everything that follows risks being judged against it.
Jepsen eventually took a different path. Emotion, released in 2015, became a critical turning point. Although it did not reproduce the commercial impact of “Call Me Maybe,” the album earned a devoted audience and established Jepsen as an artist whose ambitions extended well beyond mainstream radio.
That audience has remained remarkably loyal. Projects such as Emotion: Side B, Dedicated, Dedicated Side B, The Loneliest Time and The Loveliest Time have allowed Jepsen to develop a catalog that rewards listeners willing to explore beyond the biggest singles.
Her approach has also become increasingly independent from traditional pop-star expectations. Rather than chasing every possible audience, she has repeatedly emphasized the importance of maintaining a smaller but committed community of listeners.
Day and Night appears to be the most direct expression of that philosophy. A 24-track double album is hardly the safest commercial strategy in an era dominated by short attention spans, singles and playlist-driven listening. It asks listeners to spend considerably more time inside Jepsen’s world.
But that is also what makes the project interesting. At this stage of her career, Jepsen has little left to prove commercially. The challenge is no longer demonstrating that she can produce a hit. It is showing how much further she can push her own version of pop music.
The album’s two-part structure gives her room to do that. The daytime songs can explore warmth, live instrumentation and a more open sound, while the nighttime material allows her to move toward club music, electronic textures and a more intense atmosphere.
That range has always been part of Jepsen’s appeal. Beneath the bright melodies and polished production is a songwriter who has never been particularly interested in staying inside one narrow definition of pop.
Day and Night therefore arrives as more than another album from an established pop singer. It represents a moment when Jepsen’s personal and creative lives have begun moving in the same direction.
Fourteen years after “Call Me Maybe” changed everything, Carly Rae Jepsen no longer needs to chase the idea of becoming a different kind of pop star. She has spent years building her own version of the genre, one album at a time.
With Day and Night, she is giving herself more space than ever to explore it.
