Did You Know Carly Rae Jepsen has Justin Bieber to Thank for her Success?

Carly Rae Jepsen

Carly Rae Jepsen is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and musician who went from a relatively unknown artists to a massive pop-star almost over the night. She became active in the Canadian music scene in 2007 when she finished in third-place of the Canadian Idol reality television show. Her first album was released in 2008, however her music never really broke out of Canada. As many people are familiar with, we now know Carly Rae Jepsen as the artists behind the hit singe “Call Me Maybe”. Riding the success of that song, she has now established a prominent musical career and was even nominated for two Grammy Awards. However, the most interesting thing is that might not have happened if it weren’t for Justin Bieber. To understand why that’s the case, first we need to take a look at the current state of the music industry.

Before the internet, Spotify, and music pirating, artists made the vast majority of their money through record sales. At the time, the only way to hear music was at a concert, on the radio, or if you purchased the vinyl/cassette/CD. Now that has all changed, and it’s much more difficult for artists to earn money from selling their music. Today artists get the majority of the money from other revenue streams: touring, merchandising, and product placement would be the three major forms. It’s just simply a matter of fact that fewer people purchase physical records today, as most listen to music from YouTube, Pandora, or Spotify. If you really want to make the big bucks in the music industry, then pop music is really the best place. Since we are all so interconnected with the internet, all it takes is for one music video to go viral, and then you’re doing pretty well for yourself. As promising as that sounds, since everyone these days can effectively buy digital music studios and upload their own songs to iTunes or YouTube, there is a lot more clutter out there. This is where social media comes in, as that platform can elevate and artists fame to all-new heights, and that is exactly the case with Carly Rae Jepsen.

After Idol, Carly Rae Jepsen would record and then release her first album in 2008. It was put out under an independent label and was only released in Canada. It saw moderate levels of success in Canada, yet it still did not get her to where she is today. Then, three years later Jepsen would go on to record “Call Me Maybe” and release it in September of 2011. Say what you want about the song (it’s personally not for me), however it is undoubtably catchy. This single would earn her mainstream success in Canada, however she was still having issues breaking out of that market.

Then in 2012 Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were traveling to Canada to take an extended vacation. During their stay, the two heard “Call Me Maybe” on the radio, and became extremely interested. At the time, Bieber and Gomez had established successful and prominent careers in pop music and had a worldwide following. Intrigued by the song, Justin and Selena tweeted about it on Twitter. To give you some perspective, Justin currently has 63.2 million followers and Selena has 28.7 million followers. While they definitely had fewer Twitter followers back in 2012, they still had millions of them. So all it took was a few tweets from the two of them, and Carley Rae Jepsen gained international stardom almost overnight.

About a month later, Bieber and his manager set up a meeting with Jepsen. She then acquired a record deal with School Boy Records and Interscope Records which allowed for distribution of her music not only in America, but the entire world as well. This deal proved to be extremely crucial, as now “Call Me Maybe” has become one of the most successful singles of all time. Sales of the single are estimated somewhere between 10 to 15 million, and the official YouTube video for the song has over 674 million views, a success by anyones standards.

So at the end of the day, a large portion of Carly Rae Jepsen’s successful career can be attributed to Justin Bieber. “Okay, who cares?”, you might be saying. The point is, that all it took for her career to takeoff was a handful of tweets from a celebrity. That seems innocent enough, but the takeaway is that that a simple thing like a post on Twitter can elevate you from relative obscurity to a worldwide pop sensation. Those 140 characters found in a tweet from a certain someone, could be the defining moment of someones life. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about that, but for Carly Rae Jepsen it worked out really well, and I’m glad she made it.

Photo by David Becker/Getty Images

Written by Sebastian Hensiek

From Philadelphia, Sebastian is a fan of music, writing, art, and entertainment.