Much has been made over the last few months of Carly Rae Jepsen's age. At nearly 27, the Vancouver-based singer — a veteran of “Canadian Idol” with a 2008 debut available on iTunes — is a few years older than such chart-pop peers as Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, the latter of whom famously catapulted Jepsen's “Call Me Maybe” to song-of-the-summer status when he tweeted his approval earlier this year. (Jepsen is set to join Bieber for a North American tour that hits Staples Centeron Oct. 2 and 3.)
The chatter, not surprisingly, has skewed unkind: “Did Carly Rae Jepsen Dress Too Young for Her Age at the Billboard Awards?” demanded a recent blog headline. But even worse than reinforcing tired ideas about female propriety, this nonsense misses the point of Jepsen's strong new album, “Kiss,” which feels like a successful attempt to invest pheromone-rush dance pop with a bit of old-soul wisdom.
