What’s a girl to do when the world insists on remembering you as a one-hit-wonder? Carly Rae Jepsen had two options when ‘Call Me Maybe’ gave the former Canadian Idol singer 2012’s defining pop song. She could either quickly attempt to capitalise on that success (witness the rush-release of Kiss and the chintzy single ‘Take a Picture’, released as part of a promo deal with Coca-Cola). Or, failing that, she could attempt to find a real vision. Over 100 recorded songs and a scrapped folk-pop album later, she brings us a near-perfect pop album.

No small part of the phenomenal success of ‘Call Me Maybe’ stemmed from how Jepsen so effectively embodied the cutesy character demanded of her. A lesser performer would have clumsily stamped an artistic brand on what could have been – and has been – dismissed as vapid pop. Jepsen instead created a Youtube megahit conspicuous by the self-effacement of its singer. She is pop’s everywoman, tapping into the universality of puppy-love through inoffensiveness.

E∙MO∙TION sees Jepsen honing the strategy, fully exploiting the plastic versatility of her voice, from the breathy, Timbaland-aping opening of ‘Gimmie Love’ and warm urgency in ‘Run Away With Me’, to kitsch ebullience in ‘Let’s Get Lost’ and surprising power in the chorus of ‘Your Type’. It’s not a perfect formula – dark sensuality and her girlish timbre make strange bedfellows on ‘Warm Blood’, Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij’s chugging electro wonder; it is standout production, just not for Jepsen’s voice. The album also includes strange lyrical moments: it’s an odd choice to include media critiques like “Buzzfeed buzzards and TMZ crows / What can I say that you don’t already know?” on ‘LA Hallucinations’ when Jepsen’s greatest strength lies in eschewing the usual pop trappings – false antics and relentless self-branding – and being confident enough to let the music do the talking.

And how that music talks. The cream of pop talent is here – Ariel Rechtshaid, Dev Hynes, the Swedes, Greg Kurstin – each of whom brings their most accomplished songs. Hynes uses his Blood Orange identity for 90s R&B slow-jam ‘All That’, a sultry ballad Jepsen pulls off with gusto. Sia and Samuel Dixon practically plagiarise themselves with ‘Making the Most of the Night’, recycling the chorus from Sia’s ‘Clap Your Hands’ and past lyrical ideas (“Here I’ve come to hijack you” could easily have come from Furler's 1000 Forms of Fear) to produce pulsating synthpop. But it’s ‘Run Away With Me’ that sees the best match of material and performer, a track expertly marrying Swedish dance-pop, crisp beats and yearning vulnerability into the soaring tribute to young love ‘Teenage Dream’ could have been. If Robyn did sheer euphoria, this is what it would sound like.

The result is a retro-edged album that is remarkable for both its cohesion and adventurous sonic range. In tapping into a powerful nostalgia and recalling the pop titans of past eras, its best moments achieve a timelessness few records even aspire to.