It’s crazy to think, but we are moving onto a new generation of pop stars. I know that it’s just how things cycle, but I found myself growing strangely nostalgic this past week for Katy Perry. This isn’t to say that she’s gone anywhere, but I discovered that her album “Teenage Dream” is turning 10 years old next month.
It feels surreal for no other reason than that she always struck me as a one hit wonder, not unlike Carly Rae Jepsen, who was going to vanish after two or three albums. To have them still around is a testament to their ability to write these pop songs that stick with audiences and make us care about their talent. Still, if you look at the pop stars that were about to define the 2010’s, they were names like Taylor Swift, Adele, and Lady Gaga. All of them came out of the gate with much more confidence than Perry did, and yet she rose to their level. If available information is accurate, she’s sold 100 million copies internationally off of four albums in 12 years.
No matter how you stack that, it’s insane.
Though if I’m being honest, the reason that I didn’t think that Perry would last has everything to do with how she introduced herself in 2008. With her album “One of the Boys,” she presented this tomboy who was an outsider inside of pop. After all, she dated men like Travie McCoy of Gym Class Heroes, and Russell Brand. She picked these edgy dudes who didn’t fit within conventions. She played at The Vans Warped Tour, which caters to bands whose albums rarely rise above 35 minutes. She was edgy, and it’s what made the bisexual song “I Kissed a Girl” this wonderful piece of novelty. Similarly, “Hot N Cold” has a scathing subtext that is wonderfully sarcastic and gender-bending.
It’s by no means a perfect album, but the Perry of 2008 is one that I’m sad to have lost. I felt like she had this potential to be a singer who was wonderfully anarchic, able to work within Top 40 while having this brazen undertone. What other gender politics could she play with and throw in these comical asides that made her seem at odds with a song? Sure, everything on “One of the Boys” works in the realm of conventional catchy tunes, but it also felt like the fire of somebody ready to change our perception.
Given that “Teenage Dream” is theoretically her third album, it’s amazing to see the trajectory of her work. She started as this religious singer Katy Hudson before transitioning into something embracing playful sexualities and playing punk venues. By the time of her next album, she was a minor hit and one who would become so of the mainstream that I guarantee that if any song defined the summer of 2010, it was “California Gurls.”
It was inescapable and the only thing more painful than hearing it start up was knowing that Snoop Dogg broke his contract of representing The LBC to represent other areas of California that apparently he loved more.
Most of all, it was a shift to a more conventional tomboy, if she could even be called one. She sacrificed the fun stuff in favor of Top 40 flair that was probably for the best. She clearly has been a success story in the decade since. However, I’m getting the vibe that any spirit related to pushing boundaries is more of an adaptive gimmick, servicing whatever style is popular at the time. It’s why “Roar” is soul-crushing nonsense and “Swish Swish” is the sound of a person lacking anything meaningful to say.
That is why revisiting this album for the first time since probably 2011 or 2012 is an incredible achievement. I was worried that this would be the start where she grew less interesting to me. I’ll always check out her new music, but I miss the spirit that she used to have that was playful, winking, and making you feel like you had this dirty little secret.
Even looking at the album cover, I was reminded of how she couldn’t be a tomboy because it was understood that she was, ahem, sexually attractive. After all, she was 25 in 2010 and about to face a notorious incident involving Sesame Street where a low-cut top revealed too much cleavage and caused people to call the otherwise modest outfit obscene. It’s a moment that would be regurgitated on Saturday Night Live as she playfully bounced around in an Elmo t-shirt. Yes, in a matter of two years the story around Perry went from wondering if she was gay to whether her breasts were too dangerous for TV.
I’m not saying that she shouldn’t do something that interests her. After all, if you listen to the first half of “Teenage Dream,” it really does play with this sexual prowess that plays well into the cover, featuring her sitting naked on a cloud. Every moment in the “California Gurls” music video where she has pastry gizmos attached to her chest shooting frosting showed how much she was willing to play with her image. Compared to whatever was next, she still felt a little too dangerous to appeal to the mid-teen market that her later music clearly was designed for.
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Something that should be noted is that “Teenage Dream” was a phenomenon that many would envy for a whole host of reasons. The most noteworthy is that of the seven singles, five of them topped the charts. “Firework” is one of those inescapable party songs for when you need to feel better. The rest may not register as much with younger audiences, but trust me when I say that this album was inescapable in ways that few pop albums since have been. It kicked off the decade with an album that’s just as much airheaded as it is the first glimpse into a mature and earnest side of Perry.
Basically, it was the moment where you could still refute that she wasn’t going to last, but it was seeming less likely. The way that she catered attention was something we wouldn’t forget. Much like Lady Gaga and the meat dress, her Sesame Street fiasco was a PR stunt that paid in dividends.
Luckily her album was worth any of the attention. To begin off the bat, “Teenage Dream” was this amazing blast of tender nostalgia, where you dreamed of being a teenager. The way she cries in these soft tones makes you feel like she’s drawing you in. As she sings “you and I can be young forever,” you believe her. The song is a testament to her range, able to tell this story of aimless wandering with your requited that eventually builds to a familiar image. The sexuality is barely under the surface (the title barely hides its euphemism as well), so by the time that she sings:
I can get your heart racingIn my skintight jeansBe your teenage dream tonight
There is something about the way that she hits those notes, deep and guttural, that makes you feel the steam flowing off the iPod. This is a hot song and one that manages to convey youthful love in a way that is powerful in that Top 40 pop way. It’s the sign that she was capable of so much more. Sure, “California Gurls” is a nonsense party song. “Firework” sounds like it echoes through city blocks with jubilation. Even “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” has this checklist of bad girl tropes that works in the bouncing beat.
Even if every song had this ability to be about something different, there was something dangerous about Perry. She had this camp to her that was aware of how sexual her lyrics were, her willingness to get into danger for a good time. She had the spirit that you want from an album clearly designed for summer excess. “Last Friday Night” is a fantastic song that is sporadic and takes a look at so many wild situations, such as “is this a hickie or a bruise?” Then, if you forgot how hormonal this whole exercise was, the chorus features a shout-out to the beloved pastime “menage a trois.”
Yes, if anything suggested that she was still rebelling with her religious beginnings, it was her desire to be explicit in ways that could still be played on the radio. With that said, "Pearl" feels like a song coming to terms with her own religious doubt by quoting various pieces of symbolism.
That is what this album ultimately is. Where “One of the Boys” was about being a tomboy, “Teenage Dream” was about being a teenager who was hopelessly in love and willing to do the dumbest things just to fill alive. That is why this album feels so wild and alive, capable of finding an artist at the right time mixing bubblegum stylings with cheeky humor and top-notch producers who knew how to make the beats linger in your mind. I’d even argue that she’s more vocally talented here than she gets credit for.
It’s also amazing that we get five (FIVE!) songs in before we don’t get a familiar single. If you think that the previous four songs aren’t subtle, then listen to her sing “Peacock” with the second syllable being echoed as she says “I want to see your peacock.” As far as phallic euphemisms go, this cheerleader-esque number takes obviousness to new heights. Songs like the outer space-inspired “E.T.” has more subtlety than her suggestion of men having peacocks hidden “down below.”
If we’re being honest, the pop songs that reached radio are irrefutable evidence of her talent. It gets you moving and makes you understand why she hasn’t gone away yet. However, the turn around “Circle the Drain” is one that’s endearing while also lacking the connectivity to the rest of the album. It’s clear that these songs, specifically about heartbreak (“I’m not going to watch you circle the drain”) were something personal inside of Perry, and you understand her anguish because she sells it. As she questions her own existentialism with “The One That Got Away” and “Who Am I Living For?” it becomes clear that she has so much more to say besides airheaded pop hits. She has as much passion for the best of intimacy as she does the worst.
By the end with “Not Like the Movies,” she clearly has gone through an evolution from her reckless beginning. She’s experienced love and been heartbroken. She contemplates these fantasy images and how the princess didn’t get the prince. It’s a sad note to end on, but it’s one that shows that this was a journey of being a teenager, where making out to Radiohead albums has as much space in her life as painful separations. It’s what makes the album most human while also being arguably the least interesting as pop songs, the melodies not quite being fulfilling enough for the pain she’s expressing.
The truth is that it’s hard to not look at this album and see where she ended up. Her pop songs have become shallower while her personal journeys have way more heart. The disconnect between both has made these albums more awkward, but I still think she has something worthwhile as the person who proved me wrong. She wasn’t a one hit wonder. I may never love her music, but listening to “Teenage Dream” makes me realize how assured she’s always been as a musician. I just wish that her music was this playful, capable of finding personality in tired tropes. But then again, you don’t get to a million records sold without making a few duds.
This album holds up and it’s still amazing that this wasn’t a summer record (it came out in August). It feels so much like it that I finished the record with sand between my toes. She captures this youthful naivety that you always outgrow, and I think it’s why many consider it among her best work. She tapped into something universal and made songs that have stood the test of time, able to make us feel these youthful emotions. She was our teenage dream in more ways than one, and now that songs about her own nostalgia are old enough to form a new layer of nostalgia, it’s likely to become more endearing with time. It’s not always perfect, but if those first four songs don’t connect with you on an implicit level, then I don’t know what to tell you.
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