When Katy Perry first arrived all those months ago, she seemed like the perfect pop star in waiting. She had an insanely catchy single in “I Kissed A Girl”, a track which stirred just the right amount of bile in the right wing press to score tonnes of publicity and airplay. She had an interesting back story. She was raised in staunchly Christian household and learned her trade as a gospel church singer (including releasing an album of gospel material under her real name Katy Hudson in 2001). She spoke of being inspired by Alanis Morissette, Shirley Manson and Joan Jett, and looked like she was ready to inject some life into a flagging pop scene. Which she did, a bit, getting famous in the process, meeting and getting engaged to Russell Brand and turning into the kind of artist record label talk about in their meetings with shareholders. After a brief spell away, she’s returned with a new record “Teenage Dream” and a new single, the title track, which follows on from number one hit “California Gurls.”
It’s not very good, “Teenage Dream” that is. Especially after the summery pop of “California Gurls” with its tongue in cheek lyrics and hyperactive sense of melody. “Teenage Dream” is a whopper of a comedown and a bizarre choice for a second single. Though you can see the logic in Perry’s record label deciding they need to convince those undecided about buying her album that she can do sensitive too, this track is just a plodding mess. It never gets going, with drilled percussion and borrowed keyboards that go from pedestrian to prosaic. Electronics buzz banally, things stutter and hum with the chorus coming and going without any kind of fanfare. It’s nowhere near as good as “Hot n’Cold” or “Waking Up In Vegas”, it’s not even as good as “Thinking Of You.”
Lyrically it’s boring in the extreme, with Perry dredging up Nicholas Sparks style tributes to a man who makes her happy. She’ll reward him by “going all the way tonight” and having “..no regrets” about it, which is nice for him, whoever he is.
The track’s principal writer and producer Dr.Luke has let himself down here. Having fashioned a reputation as pretty much the go to guy for a guitar driven pop song. He’s knocked out tunes for Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Jordin Sparks, Britney Spears and countless others. He’s responsible for turning Kelly Clarkson from trying to be Whitney Houston to wanting to front Skunk Anansie and for writing nearly all of Avril Lavigne’s latest offerings. A master at turning in cheeky, bombastic pop rock, this isn’t up to his usual standard.
This is hardly a blow for pop music. Perry was never offering anything particularly original, it just so happened she’d met the right people, chosen the right songwriters and created a persona just wacky enough to win column inches, but never strange enough to push eyebrows up. She can, however, do much better than this.
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