Thursday, August 5, 2010
HOT OR COLD? YES OR NO? When we heard "I Kissed A Girl" on the radio for the first time, I'm sure the response from most of us was that this'd be a flash in the pan, but 4 subsequent top 10 singles (including an additional #1 in California Gurls), is Katy Perry the new Madonna, the new Britney, or something entirely different? I don't know if the Rolling Stone cover story on her (sadly, only an excerpt is available) answers that question, but it certainly suggests there's something a lot more complicated there than we might expect from a pop tartlet.
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I'm still going with disposable and forgettable.
ReplyDeleteI not only have to change the station every time "California Girls" comes on, I have to dramatically say, "uuchgh" while I do it. And that's because Katy Perry hates women. Between naming her album "One of the Boys," breaking out by muffin bluffin, writing the lyric "you PMS like a bitch I would know" and even bringing my beloved Kelly Clarkson down with her with "I Do Not Hook Up," she is all about only praising women as popsicle melters and dissing them as human beings every other way she possibly can.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we have to see much more than the whipped-cream-can bikini to know that Katy Perry is about stripping away the surface to show us that underneath the surface is a whole lot of extra surface.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think that in retrospect, we'll all be able to talk about how her late '00s and early '10s stuff was teeming with irony, part of a long con she's playing to make us think she's this new breed of hateful anti-feminist, but it's fully possible that that's what we've got.
Still, if an album called "Now That I'm Rich, Here's What's Up" comes out, I won't be completely surprised.
I think Jill Sobule has lasted pretty well myself.
ReplyDeleteYes, agreed. I jump for the channel switch button. NPR just did a story yesterday that involved "California Gurls", which can be heard here--the sound link (titled "Listen to the Conversation"), not the text on that page. What they say, that's my thoughts on every Katy Perry song.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Robin, right down to the "uuchgh" sound I make when I lunge for the dial. Yuck.
ReplyDeleteYes she has!
ReplyDeleteI think that, in ten years, people will be much less embarrassed to admit ever having owned a Katy Perry CD or song than to admit ever having owned a Ke$ha CD or song.
ReplyDeleteGranted, that's a low, low benchmark.
I am always interested in the questions of whether fluffy pop artists have more going on than would appear. Lady Gaga, for example, I think is a great performance artist who has a lot to say about appearances, pornography, fame, fashion, etc. The thing about her work is that it comes out in the songs, which she helps write. I'm not sure Katy Perry's point of view, if there is anything more to it than a desire to be rich and famous, comes through in her work. It doesn't follow that she's not personally smart, but she's not making smart music.
ReplyDeleteI think Gaga does have some interesting things to say about a lot of stuff, but I think she isn't nearly as interesting as she thinks she is. Perry's conflict is much more internal and she doesn't dramatize it--the article talks a lot about how she is very much a product of (and not entirely a backlash against) her very Pentecostal roots.
ReplyDeleteOk...now I'm ducking for cover as I admit that my "gurlz" and I love listening to "California Gurlz." So shoot me. Honestly, I know nothing about Katy Perry's goals/aspirations/politics/favorite color. I just think it's a fun song, especially when we hear it as we're headed to the beach. Plus, I think the video is cute (who wouldn't want to live inside a life-size Candyland Game?). I don't take my music too seriously--it keeps me busy while I'm exercising or in the car. My kids like Ke$ha too; they're too young to realize she has no real talent, and they don't ask questions about her lyrics. Yes, I realize they are wildy innappropriate, but we all saw the movie Grease as kids...Rizzo got knocked up in high-school and Sandy had to be transformed into a slut to be accepted--who are we to be so high and mighty?
ReplyDeleteAnd that's all from Shallow Central. Good night everybody!
Lukewarm.
ReplyDeleteI like a few of her songs (though not California Gurlz), but beyond that I'm not really a fan. She seems like she's trying too hard.
Except, oh, I did read somewhere that she named her cat "Kitty Purry," which I find mildly amusing.