Call Me Maybe

"Call Me Maybe"
Single by Carly Rae Jepsen
from the EP Curiosity and the album Kiss
B-side
ReleasedSeptember 20, 2011 (2011 -09-20)
Recorded2009–2010
StudioUmbrella (Richmond, British Columbia, Canada)
Genre
Length3:13
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Josh Ramsay
Carly Rae Jepsen singles chronology
"Sour Candy"
(2009)
"Call Me Maybe"
(2011)
"Curiosity"
(2012)
Music video
"Call Me Maybe" on YouTube

"Call Me Maybe" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen from her EP Curiosity (2012) and later appeared on her second studio album and international debut album Kiss (2012). The song was written by Jepsen and Tavish Crowe as a folk song, but its genre was modified to pop following the production by Josh Ramsay. It was released as the lead single from the EP on September 20, 2011 in Canada through 604 Records. In 2012, Jepsen was signed to Schoolboy Records and released "Call Me Maybe” worldwide through the label, as her debut international single. Musically, "Call Me Maybe" is a teen pop, dance-pop and bubblegum pop track that alludes to the inconvenience that love at first sight brings to a girl who hopes for a call back from a new crush.

"Call Me Maybe" topped the Canadian Hot 100. Outside of Canada, "Call Me Maybe" topped the charts in Australia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. It peaked inside the top five of the charts in Austria, Belgium (Flanders & Wallonia), Germany, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. After peaking at the top position of the Canadian Hot 100, Jepsen became the fifth Canadian artist to do so in her home country since 2007. In the United States, the track reached number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart,[1] and is the first number one by a Canadian female artist on the Billboard Hot 100 chart since 2007's "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne.

An accompanying music video was directed by Ben Knechtel. In it, Jepsen seeks the attention of an attractive boy next door who is revealed at the end of the story to be attracted to a male band member. As part of the promotion for the song, Jepsen performed the track on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she made her US television debut, and at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards. "Call Me Maybe" has been covered by several artists, including Ben Howard, Big Time Rush, Fun, Cimorelli, Lil Wayne, JPEGMafia, and Cody Simpson, and parodied by Cookie Monster and some of the news staff of NPR. It was also covered on "The New Rachel", the season premiere episode of the fourth season of Glee.

"Call Me Maybe" was nominated for two Grammy Awards, for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 55th Annual ceremony, but lost to "We Are Young" by Fun and the live performance of "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele, respectively. On December 11, 2012, "Call Me Maybe" was named Song of the Year for 2012 by MTV.[2] In its 2012 Year-End issue, Billboard magazine ranked this song #2 in the Hot 100 Songs, Digital Songs, and Canadian Hot 100 charts. The song was also ranked number one by the Village Voice's annual Pazz and Jop poll, which compiles the votes of music critics from all over the United States.[3] The song was the best-selling single worldwide in 2012, selling over 12 million copies in that year alone, and the best-selling single on the iTunes Store worldwide in 2012. With worldwide sales of 18 million copies and over 1 billion streams on Spotify, it became the best-selling single of the 21st century by a female artist and one of the most successful singles of all time.[4] "Call Me Maybe" was the best-selling digital single of 2012 worldwide,[5][6] and is the seventh best-selling digital single of all time. The song is ranked at #436 on Rolling Stone's updated list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,[7] and eighth on Billboard's list of the 500 Best Pop Songs of All Time.[8]

  1. ^ Trust, Gary (June 13, 2012). "Carly Rae Jepsen Hits No. 1: 'Call' Connects Atop Hot 100". Billboard. Retrieved June 14, 2012.
  2. ^ Brodsky, Rachel (December 11, 2012). "Carly Rae Jepsen's 'Call Me Maybe' Beats Out Fun.'s 'We Are Young' For Song Of The Year!". Buzzworthy.mtv.com. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved June 29, 2014.
  3. ^ "New York Pazz and Jop Singles". Villagevoice.com. May 21, 2014. Archived from the original on May 13, 2017. Retrieved June 29, 2014.
  4. ^ Coscarelli, Joe (July 31, 2015). "Carly Rae Jepsen, With a New Album, Is Definitely Changing Her Number". New York Times. Archived from the original on October 9, 2015. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  5. ^ "World's Top Selling Digital Songs of 2012" (PDF). February 26, 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 27, 2013. Retrieved February 26, 2013.
  6. ^ "Online download – 2015 Month End Chart – March". Gaon Chart (in Korean). Korea Music Content Industry Association. To view sales from January, February, and March 2015, select "2015년 1월", "2013년 2월", and "2013년 3월", respectively. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved April 21, 2013.
  7. ^ "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. September 15, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2022.
  8. ^ Werthman, Rania Aniftos,Katie Atkinson,Katie Bain,Anna Chan,Ed Christman,Hannah Dailey,Stephen Daw,Kyle Denis,Frank DiGiacomo,Thom Duffy,Chris Eggertsen,Ingrid Fajardo,Griselda Flores,Josh Glicksman,Quincy Green,Paul Grein,Lyndsey Havens,Rylee Johnston,Becky Kaminsky,Gil Kaufman,Carl Lamarre,Elias Leight,Jason Lipshutz,Joe Lynch,Meghan Mahar,Elizabeth Dilts Marshall,Rebecca Milzoff,Taylor Mims,Gail Mitchell,Melinda Newman,Jessica Nicholson,Danielle Pascual,Glenn Peoples,Isabela Raygoza,Eric Renner Brown,Kristin Robinson,Dan Rys,Marc Schneider,Andrew Unterberger,Christine; Aniftos, Rania; Atkinson, Katie; Bain, Katie; Chan, Anna; Christman, Ed; Dailey, Hannah; Daw, Stephen; Denis, Kyle (October 19, 2023). "The 500 Best Pop Songs: Staff List". Billboard. Retrieved October 25, 2023.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)