Last month saw the release of Katy Perry’s latest album, 'Teenage Dream.' To the extreme shock and surprise of absolutely no-one, the album went straight in at Number One, with the first single released from the album, 'California Gurls' (her spelling, not mine) also hitting the top spot. Now far be it from me to take anything away from this success: Perry is a talented singer, adored by thousands of people worldwide. If album sales are what you’re after, then she’s definitely doing something right, and there’s nothing that a silly man sitting on a computer can do to change that.
“So what’s she done wrong? Why bother writing at all?” I hear you not ask. Good question.
When Katy Perry stormed onto the pop scene in 2008, she was a mix of fifties-inspired fashion and pop-rock guitar hooks, with her moral compass twisted a little towards the cheeky side. She had kissed a girl, and we liked it: Her bubblegum-pink spirit was a hit with the younger listeners and the album was a smash hit on dance floors all across the country.
So naturally when I got my hands on her new album I was excited. My shaking hands readied the CD player: I whipped on my Miniskirt and got my life-sized cut out of Edward Cullen ready to serenade (worrying behaviour for a 22 year-old male perhaps?). With barely controllable anticipation I pressed play with my hairbrush/microphone at the ready, but something was a little different about the Katy I had grown to know and love.
Image'Teenage Dream' is in almost every sense of the word a quintessential pop album: It is filled with prozac-happy upbeat anthems, leaving just enough room for the two songs where Perry gets to cry into the microphone and prove that there’s a soul behind that crystal-cool exterior. However, this is where the problems have started for Katy Perry: the pop album road is so well trodden by Britneys, Christinas and (god forbid) Ashlee Simpsons, that it has left no room at all for originality. In fact the themes feel so breathtakingly unoriginal that Perry has been left with only one route left to sell her records: a desperate, in-your-face vulgarity. The album is over-sexualised from start to finish and the innuendos are so thinly veiled that they become tiring from the offset. A quick listen through the first three songs of the record will reveal Perry’s intent even to the inattentive listener:
“Let you put your hand on me in my skin-tight jeans” (‘Teenage Dream’)
“Sun kissed so hot, we’ll milk your popsicle” (‘American Gurls’)
“Last Friday Night, we were streaking in the park, skinny dipping in the dark, then had ménage a trois” (‘Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)’)
‘Peacock’ is the triumph in Katy’s quest and could easily be the anthem to unite strippers all over the world. The premise seems to be that by adding the prefix “pea-” in front of a word, what you have is a cute if not cheeky message, rather than a song which shouts “I want to see your genitals” over and over like a horny robot with a broken speech circuit. The song sounds like ‘Hey Mickey’ on Viagra, and will offend listeners with any taste all over the western world (so it will of course, become a massive hit and you won’t be able to get away from it). Despite the dance-friendly drums and mass appeal, ‘Peacock’ is a step beyond the usual pop-rock mantra of hedonism and loose inhibitions: the song chants the word ‘cock’ on repeat sixty-six times (and yes, I did decide to count that) in a vacant and desperate attempt for attention.
I am fully aware at this point that I am sounding like a bitter headmistress who hasn’t been laid in a long time. Far from it, in fact: I’ve twisted, I’ve rocked, I’ve rolled and I was even caught up in an unfortunate grinding incident once. Sexuality has been commonplace in pop music all the way back past Elvis’ first hip thrust and there’s no denying it: Bucks Fizz probably wouldn’t have won Eurovision without the skirt trickery and the Beatles weren’t twisting and shouting just for the heck of it. In short, sex sells - or so I’m told.
However there’s something more deeply worrying about Katy Perry’s recent career decisions. The first single from the album, ‘California Gurls’, featured an expensive video shoot with an array of models and none other than Snoop Dogg himself. Here is the video for those non-existent people who haven’t seen it:
The scene is slightly disturbing: gummy bears wage war on a sugar-clad Perry, the models use cakes to just about cover themselves and Snoop Dogg does wonders for feminism, playing the role of Doucheus Maximus (the Roman god of twats), controlling the women with just a roll of his dice. The entire set (appropriately dubbed “Candyfornia”) seems to be a snapshot from the dreams of a seven year-old: and this is the perplexing thing.
It is one thing for Perry to turn her dial up four notches from flirty to stripper, but the video fuses overtly sexual lyrics (and actions, for those that missed Perry fighting off an army with her breast cannons) with images intended specifically to gain the attention of children. In recent years, this has been a worrying trend in the development of pop-marketed sexuality. It’s easy to imagine three cigar-smoking executives pounding the whiskeys down in an L.A. board room, struggling to find a way to appeal to the younger demographic. Chad, Lance and Dick are stuck for ideas: they need something that kids like more than Miley, but they need to keep it sexy. Sex sells, after all.
Dick: “Hey guys....I might have an idea”.
Chad: “What is it Dick?! We’re desperate”.
Dick: “well....Nah. It’s silly”.
Chad: “Please. We need anything you’ve got”.
Dick: “Hmmm. Ok. Well...remember in school when you were told not to get into cars with strangers...even if they offered you Sweets".
....
Chad: Sweets! You genius!
It sounds ridiculous, yet somehow this type of decision was made and went unnoticed by millions, even when 50 Cent released a single with a first line which could have been taken straight out of the paedophile’s manifesto: “I’ll take you to the Candy Shop, I’ll let you lick the lollipop”. The descent from music performance into soft porn has been a slow and steady one, with the likes of Madonna and Lil’ Wayne steadily paving the way. However, when this branches out into blatant child-luring it is an irresponsible use of influence and cultural power. The worst part about it is that Katy Perry is a talented singer, who clearly has a brain on her shoulders: before her major label debut, she released a gospel-rock album, which was self-titled under the name “Katy Hudson”. Admittedly the album sold like hotcakes (of ricin), but it shows that the singer once had some aspirations towards creating heartfelt and sincere music rather than vacuous pop-prints.
‘Pop’ music is, by definition, always going to be popular. Even if Katy Perry does continue down the path of innuendo and commercial sexuality (a path which many men wouldn’t dare complain about), let’s just hope that her next effort doesn’t have that strange whiff of the child-catcher, which seems to be oh-so-subtly polluting so much of pop industry at present.
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