With a gun to my head, I’d probably say yes: Carly Rae Jepsen, “Let’s Be Friends” – I really enjoyed last year’s Dedicated, which felt like a necessary evolution in Jepsen’s confectionary pop sound. “Let’s Be Friends,” meanwhile, sounds like the singer has taken three steps back creatively, gilding itself with elements of 2012’s Kiss. That is still my favorite Jepsen album, but this would probably be a b-side on that at best, a la the similarly twee “Guitar String/Wedding Ring.” Still, I will probably listen to this again and again, until it sounds less like something in a Super Bowl commercial and more like the Carly Rae Jepsen that has continued to be a pioneer in modern pop music. —Joan Summers
Y: Christine and the Queens, “People, I’ve been sad” – I might be limiting myself here, but is there anything better than a sparkly, bilingual pop song about feeling sad? This track gets right to it—leaving little to interpretation. Sometimes mystery undercuts message, and there’s no missing the melancholy here. —Maria Sherman
Y: Christine and the Queens, “People, I’ve been sad” – I might be limiting myself here, but is there anything better than a sparkly, bilingual pop song about feeling sad? This track gets right to it—leaving little to interpretation. Sometimes mystery undercuts message, and there’s no missing the melancholy here. —Maria Sherman