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Music

This New Carly Rae Jepsen Song Is Pretty Good!

"Trouble in the Streets" is on Swedish duo BC Unidos' new EP, 'Bicycle,' and comes alongside a new Charli XCX track.
Photo via Carly Rae Jepsen on Instagram

The two songs that Carly Rae Jepsen has released since last year’s EMOTION outtakes record, Side B, have been bright, glittery serotonin kicks. On Danny L Harle’s “Super Natural,” Jepsen took the lead over muffled happy hardcore, singing about “easy love / Every day, euphoria.” And “Cut to the Feeling,” released in May, was all handclaps and disco guitars, Jepsen distilling her mission statement down to a song title.

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There’s a new Carly Rae Jepsen song out this morning, though it’s been buried a little. “Trouble in the Streets” is on Bicycle, the new EP from BC Unidos. If you haven’t heard BC Unidos, that’s fine—the Swedish duo have only existed for a few months. They’re made up of Markus Krunegård, a singer-songwriter, and Patrick Berger, the dude who wrote Robyn’s “Dancing on my Own,” Charli XCX’s “Boom Clap,” and Icona Pop's Charli-featuring “I Love It."

“Trouble in the Streets” sounds nothing like any of those! It sounds nothing like Carly Rae Jepsen’s most recent stuff either! It’s a shuffling piece of guitar-led indie-pop that, without Jepsen, could pass as a Bombay Bicycle Club B-side. Jepsen, inevitably, drags it out of mediocrity. Her delivery is pacy but never muddled, and she’s more melancholy than usual: “I like the way you got me scheming for you, dreaming for you / Won't change your ways / No, can't change your ways.”

There’s a Charli XCX song on here too. “I’m a Dream” is, again, a passable guitar-rock song that never really takes off. In place of a chorus, there are uncanny shimmers, bells, and coos to close out every verse. There’s a dash of Lily Allen, a bit of Arcade Fire, and nothing as entertaining as “I Love It” or “Boom Clap.”

You can listen to the whole EP below.

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