katy perry - what do you think?

I think she needs to be sent to the guillotine

This was in a pile of random CD's I was screening the other day and it sounds like Pink taking a shit. I couldn't listen for more than 3 minutes.. it's one of the worst things I've ever heard in my life. Not kidding.

wtf is this shit even

like if you zapped lily allen of literally every single one of her redeemable qualities and on top of that made her some cobrasnake l.a. douche

do not fucking want not now not ever

I think it's supposed to appeal to Pink fans, but she looks more like Lily Allen. I hate Pink's music, and this is a million times worse. This album may be worse than Weathered.

ok she just looks like lily allen then?

this "kissed a girl" is alright but ppl dont really care about this right? i mean she seems to be literally talentless

btw i know ppl care about this but by ppl i mean critic types

i think the referents offered up so far are interesting cuz on the whole i like pink + lily allen, & those are the two that first popped into my head, third one being nelly mckay (ur so gay)

i love all of the above & i guess thats why she piques my interest - dunno if the criticism here is based on the idea that that appeal is intentional, or that she's inherently some kinda blanderized version - like i said to me at any rate she's new which is why i think she could develop into something more than decent

she sounds way too fucking pleased w/ herself

I just listened to her two singles are they are terrible. The comparisons with Lily Allen are otm. At least Lily Allen is fairly charming, somewhat.

Craziest fucking thing ever Dr Luke, Cathy Dennis & Max Martin!!!!!!!!!!1111111 wrote "I Kissed A Girl". SAY WHAT

Ouch. (From Slant Magazine)

f all the new artists Madonna has endorsed over the years (Björk, Mandalay, Goldfrapp, Gogol Bordello—hell, even Ricky Martin), Katy Perry is probably the least stimulating of the lot. It's possible that Madonna sees a little bit of her former self in Perry: The crass "If You Can Afford Me" is like "Material Girl" with the irony built right into the Cliffs Notes lyrical bridge: "I don't need your dollar bills/I just want something real." But that's where the similarities end. This generation's concept of being edgy and provocative is tame and retrograde. Perry confuses political incorrectness with being subversive on tracks like "Hot n Cold," in which she, in the process of skewering guys who change their minds "like girls change clothes," just winds up sounding mildly sexist.

Lead single "I Kissed a Girl" features a throbbing beat and an infectious, bi-curious hook, but its self-satisfied, in-your-face posturing rings phony in comparison to the expertly constructed ambiguities of "Justify My Love" or practically anything in the first decade of Ani DiFranco's catalogue; it's like a tween version of DiFranco's tortured bisexual confession "Light of Some Kind." "I Kissed a Girl" isn't problematic because it promotes homosexuality, but because its appropriation of the gay lifestyle exists for the sole purpose of garnering attention—both from Perry's boyfriend and her audience. "I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf," is an effectively biting way to kick off a song that lambastes metrosexuals (on "UR So Gay," the track Madge has been promoting, unsolicited, during radio interviews), but Perry's casually derogatory use of the word "gay" is emblematic of how the word has been optioned by straight youth. And what does it say that Perry has gotten famous doing it—and thanks, in part, to the reigning queen of the gay community?

"Mannequin" features some cleverly written lyrics, but Perry doesn't possess the grit or vocal prowess to follow through, and the title track is like No Doubt's "Just a Girl" sans personality and conviction: "I tape these suckers down/'Cause they just get in the way," she declares about her breasts before admitting, "I just wanna be your homecoming queen/Pin-up poster dream." Perry's vies for sympathy are even less convincing: See the dull "Lost" or "I'm Still Breathing," Perry's collaboration with Dave Stewart. What first seems like a candid admission of self-destructiveness ("I leave the gas on/Walk the alleys in the dark") is ultimately just a metaphor for a dying relationship. "I wanna break the mold/Wanna break the stereotype," Perry claims on "Fingerprints." Then don't hire Max Martin, Dr. Luke and Cathy Dennis to pen and produce your record. Alas, I suppose it's foolish to expect progressiveness from a girl whose debut was a Christian gospel album.

I actually think the album's not bad, fwiw:

http://www.blender.com/guide/reviews.aspx?id=5184

girl is way cute, song kinda sucks, but it's weird to me how now and then something so garden variety bad inspires so much ire, there's like a million angry blog posts about her.

That review's sorta otm.

I think I actually prefer Perry's cynicism to Allen's bitchery, but i wouldn't listen to either of them.

Despite there being plenty of reasons to hate "I Kissed a Girl" (many detailed here) there's something about the song that I find appealing.

Holy shit, this album is awesome.

only hear "ur so gay" and "i kissed a girl", but she's really awesome. gonna check out the album

only heard*

"I kissed a girl" in particular is the shit-- what a bold, arresting hook.

she sounds way too fucking pleased w/ herself

-- The Reverend, Tuesday, June 17, 2008 5:03 AM (Yesterday)

this is definitely true, but I like it

POP STAR WITH BIG EGO NEWS AT 11

Nothing pisses me off more than faux-lesbian pleas for attention, except maybe casual homophobia. She's managed two for two on that, then.

lol lighten up

i mean, the whole song is poking fun at tila tequila-style bisexuals and "faux-lesbians"

i don't see what's "casually homophobic" about it

tila tequila-style bisexuals
this is the first thing i thought about when i heard this song

I THINK SHE IS A DUD

"casual homophobia" was referring to "Ur so Gay."

I used to think "catchy" was a compliment.

Brain, I think he was referring to "Ur So Gay" as being casually homophobic. Which I guess it is, though it might be best described as metro-phobic.

agreed with brainwasher. i hear someone say "you're so gay" (or whatever, "UR") and my first thought is that they need to be punched in the face. clearly, conservative critics can stop worrying about political correctness' hegemonic choke-hold on popular culture.

heh, sorry, didn't mean to kill the thread with a possibly uncalled-for outburst. but i am a little mystified over how a cut like that can get a pass.

wait I'm confused do you like it or not

'cuz you said you agree with me

i mean, the whole song is poking fun at tila tequila-style bisexuals and "faux-lesbians"

really? i'd like to think this, but i have a feeling she's just being obnoxious for the sake of sales

oops, you're right, i was wrong there brain. i skimmed, i thought you were saying it wasn't even "casually" homophobic. never mind, we fall on opposite sides here.

it's like, "Ur such a n*gger, and you're not even black"
or
"Ur such a k*ke and you're not even Jewish"

choose your putdown. call me uptight but using "gay" as a putdown is straight-up (no pun intended) neanderthal. (no offense to neanderthals.)

really? i'd like to think this, but i have a feeling she's just being obnoxious for the sake of sales

-- Tape Store, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 9:05 PM (1 minute ago)

have you seen the video? it's very tongue-in-cheek

ay ya ya people actually like this shit

like seriously we're at ting tings/kate nash level here, ie rock bottom

pshrbrn: yeah, I don't really think that's comparable but whatever.

lex in having standards SHOCKA

Michael Scott: I call everybody faggy. Why would anyone find that offensive?
Toby: I think Oscar would like it if you just used "lame" or something.
Michael Scott: But that's what faggy means!

Michael Scott: You don't call retarded people retards. It's bad taste. You call your friends retards when they are acting retarded. And I consider Oscar a friend.

Clusterfuck thread of the summer.

thing is in the context of her song "ur so gay" could potentially be y'know, an effective putdown, cuz that kind of american-apparel-wearing uselessly weedy str8 indie boys are kind of gay, in the rubbish sense, and also a bit too gay in the gay sense, but she just flags it up so much, it's so tiringly LOOK AT ME I SAID GAY. and there's just nothing witty about any of her putdowns. halfwitty maybe.

and she kissed a girl and liked it, so fucking what.

plus, annoying voice.

"oops, you're right, i was wrong there brain. i skimmed, i thought you were saying it wasn't even "casually" homophobic. never mind, we fall on opposite sides here.

it's like, "Ur such a n*gger, and you're not even black"
or
"Ur such a k*ke and you're not even Jewish"

choose your putdown. call me uptight but using "gay" as a putdown is straight-up (no pun intended) neanderthal. (no offense to neanderthals.)"

but k*ke and n*gger are epithets, gay is not.

in actual use, she's not saying "that's so gay" in the gradeschool sense of putting down something she thinks is lame, she's saying that her metro boyfriend ACTS gay. Which, I'll grant you, is a close-minded thing to say, but it's not really prototypical homophobia. It's more metrophobia-- she wants her straight boyfriend to act straight.

"and she kissed a girl and liked it, so fucking what."

The so fucking what is that the song has BIG TIME BALLS-OUT POP HOOKS.

yeah exactly, I kissed a girl and I liked it GLAM ROCK STOMP FUCK YEAH

right, because driving priuses and being vegetarian are obvious hallmarks of homosexuality.

oh my god lighten up

are you even gay

like gay gay not "Ur so gay" gay

(offtopic, but does anyone else find it odd how much "prius" sounds like "priapus"? you almost wonder if toyota was afraid that people would find electric cars insufficiently masculine, and had to give them a name reminiscent of a huge, throbbing erection.)

fuck does it matter if i'm gay? that's not the point. (and no.) i just find it fascinating how it's fine for so many people to casually use "gay" as "lame," whereas racial epithets would never fly in public.

big time balls out pop hooks mean nothing if they're totally overshadowed by the big time balls out desire to physically assault the singer

i use "gay" as "lame" sometimes but i'm allowed

anyway, forget it, don't know why i should expect progressivism from teen pop, i'll bow out now.

annoying straight people who are overly-sensitive and PC about shit that is totally harmless and inoffensive = please stop.

"and she kissed a girl and liked it, so fucking what."

The so fucking what is that the song has BIG TIME BALLS-OUT POP HOOKS.

-- Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, June 18, 200

more like big time boobs-out right

it isn't offensive at all it just sucks, and the idea that she is poking fun at tila tequilla and capitalizing off her is just insane

tila tequila's song is much much much much much better than this shit

oh fuck off, brainwashed.

the idea that she is poking fun at tila tequilla and capitalizing off her is just insane

the idea that she is poking fun at tila tequilla and not merely capitalizing off her is just insane

off topic, pshrbrn, i just yr new single this evening, it's really really fantastic. loving 'the claim' especially

heard yr new single, that is

thanks lex!

and i'm sorry for just saying "fuck off" to you brain, i just broke my rule never to lose composure on a messageboard. i'll agree to disagree and i'm gonna shut up now.

brainwasher, you shouldn't really be surprised at someone taking offense at the way she uses gay. imo it's not really offensive, more of an accepted slang of our generation, but c'mon there are going to be people who, rightly or not, think otherwise.

i kinda like grandiose pop songs & think we need more of them which is probably why im not turned off by this, but i can see where pretty much everyone is coming from

including dom, that man knows his clusterfucks

pshrbrn i totally get yr perspective but i think its more appropriate for an ile thread on the whole - im sure neither of us think the most interesting thing about 'ur so gay' as a song is that it marks another example of someone using 'gay' as a pejorative (btw iirc in that song shes attracted to the same qualities shes repulsed by, theres loads of ambivalence in it)

To everyone who's calling her a "lesbo" and a "lezzy", she's not a lesbian. You can kiss a girl and not be gay. Society these days don't let anyone be different. We all have to be put in catergories immediantly.

I wear dark clothes so I must be a gothic or an emo.

Me and my best friend are always hugging and such but we're not gay!

And even if she was gay, why does it matter? Is everyone a homophobe?

Gentlemen, go back to your blogs and prepared for butthurt.

Wow this song is my anthem!! I just kissed a girl for the first time, I liked it and I have a boyfriend, and I haven't told him this yet!! ^__^

i have an idea lets keep talking about gay and what it means & doesnt mean & shouldnt mean instead of this chicks songs

haha love this song! its so catchy, though i aint no lez.

tape store you are like the number one trafficker of teen pop butthurt and over analyzation so plz don't come in here posting youtube comments like you're above the game

I gotta say though, what would we think if Katy Perry was black?

http://www.outplacementsrus.com/images/comfused.gif

that would be pretty awes

I actually could see Rihanna doing this song

"fuck does it matter if i'm gay? that's not the point. (and no.) i just find it fascinating how it's fine for so many people to casually use "gay" as "lame," whereas racial epithets would never fly in public."

again, she's not using "gay" as "lame." She's saying her boyfriend acts in a stereotypically gay way--caring a lot about his personal appearance, buying high priced clothes etc. These are stereotypes, and it reflects a general fear of the bending of orientation "rules," but she's not equating gay with lame.

every female rapper in the game and some of the harder-ass r&b chicks have pretty much covered the 'ur so gay' ground a million times though thankfully without the american apparel stuffz

she's doing both matt

katy perry just tries far too fucking hard

oh, for fuck's sake, can't you just go back to sucking wayne's lollipop? i've only seriously analyzed two or three songs on ilx and all my other posts say, "THIS SONG SUCKS" or "OMG I LOVE THIS," jackass

you can't ever put someone down effectively if you're trying so hard it shows

hay guys no fighting

'lollipop' sounds so much better in the context of the album!

"big time balls out pop hooks mean nothing if they're totally overshadowed by the big time balls out desire to physically assault the singer

-- lex pretend, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 9:27 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Link"

I don't give a shit whether I want to be friends with the singer, I just care about whether the song is good. This song rocks.

you can't ever put someone down effectively if you're trying so hard it shows

-- lex pretend, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 9:48 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Ashlee Simpson 'Bittersweet World'

faced

nah, I think Tape Store was reaching with that one.

so about Katy Perry

the other great tracks on this one are Waking Up in Vegas and Hot N Cold. Hot N Cold has probably the best chorus I've heard this year.

Reading this thread is a bit like listening to her music, congrats everyone!

you're right, the thread is thrilling and a lot of fun.

zing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPkRaZs5op8&feature=related

what a bold, arresting hook

either that's sarcasm or i'm listening to a totally different song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVducOr5-ww

ok seriously obviously its not sarcasm, & if it wasnt 'arresting' in some way to just about all of the whiners here why would we even be talking about this shit in the first place

i happen to agree that its catchy & that thats a good thing; i dont think the song itself is all that great. and i totally get the 'too pleased w/ herself angle', but at the same time its no better than any omg this is great or omg this sucks cliche - it doesnt ultimately hold water because the same could be said of any musician

As I just walked by the desk of one of the most disgusting savages in the world imo this song came on and she said “ oh..this is my jam”

I HATE PEOPLE!

I DON'T WANT TO PICTURE THIS BEAST KISSING ANYTHING

randomly clicking on muxtapes i found her cover of that outfield song. the gender reversal should possibly be interesting (from the perspective of the jailbait instead of the creepy guy), but she seems oblivious to it and the result is pretty drab.

I saw her on FNMTV and she seems pretty dumb

tape store you are like the number one trafficker of teen pop butthurt and over analyzation

-- J0rdan S., Wednesday, June 18, 2008 9:44 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Link

uh

-- Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 9:45 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Link

Radio station did this neat trick here of playing five seconds of "I Kissed A Girl", five seconds of Pink's "Cuz I Can" and five seconds of Kelis' "I Don't Think So", noting that Dr. Luke produced all of them. Weird how glamstomp beats have had this slow five year graduation from edgy dance trick to US chart success formula.

"I Kissed A Girl" meanwhile is a bit of a radio jam for me (that and "Vida La Vida"!) but I don't know if I like it outside of that context. Kinda obnoxious yeah. Lyrics are totally try hard in their rhyming schemes (rhyming "your name" with "experimental game"), they're kinda like lyrics I'd write (structurally, not contentwise).

(that and "Vida La Vida"!)

what

i love "glamstomp"

I know, odd re "Vida La Vida". I'm a bit of a sucker for that kind of string riffing. But I don't like it nearly as much as The Veronicas' "Untouched" obv.

i was just thinking about how much better "i kissed a girl" would have been had it been performed by the veronicas, actually. is it the twins? or is it that they are the kind of people who would be, in fact, convincing when posing for promotional pictures with knives 'n' shit? eye dee kay.

The Ipod commercial had me all excited about "Vida La Vida," but the song is way too restrained. The chorus always ends right when i expect it to start climaxing.

This is already priced at 7$ at Virgin.

i missed the bulletin saying we should be excited about coldplay songs

i think he was trying to make some kind of sick joke

btw i hate katy perry now

to clarify that when i first heard her i was like ok this is kinda grating but its also pretty unique these days & has a lot of potential but after hearing her x amount of times its just grating

sorry KP supporters but i repudiate u

Guys, some of us like the occasional Snow Patrol/Matchbox 20/Coldplay single. It's ok.

matchbox 20

I'll take "Vida la Vida" over this bullcrap any day of the week.

otm vlv is solid kp is garbage and fwiw i loved the last two ashlee records

i haven't heard any ashlee, but i'm into I Kissed A Girl, and she looks awesome in the video

i like how she says "and i liked it"

I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf
While jacking off listening to mozart
You bitch and moan about LA
Wishing you were in the rain reading Hemingway
You don’t eat meat
And drive electrical cars
You’re so indie rock it’s almost an art
You need SPF 45 just to stay alive

(CHORUS)
You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like boys
You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like…

You’re so sad maybe you should buy a happy meal
You’re so skinny you should really Super Size the deal
Secretly you’re so amused
That nobody understands you
I’m so mean cause I cannot get you outta your head
I’m so angry cause you’d rather MySpace instead
I can’t believe I fell in love with someone that wears more makeup than…

(CHORUS)
You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like boys
You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like…

(BRIDGE)
You walk around like you’re oh so debonair
You pull em' down and there’s really nothing there
I wish you would get a clue that its
not all about you

(CHORUS)
You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like boys
You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like
Oh no no no no no no-------
You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like boys
You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like
No you don’t even like… PENIS

^^^ Poll material.

I have a H&M scarf, it cost £3.

Question: would people's attitudes towards this song ("Ur So Gay") be different if it was sung by a gay guy?

I bet it gets covered in this fashion.

that wouldn't make any sense

have you seen the video? it's very tongue-in-cheek

it's tongue-in-cheek for folks who would find a jack-in-the-box genuinely surprising.

she's the bif naked of her generation.

haha lawrence, well put. but the video still kind of rocks and she's suuuper beautiful.

youtube guy "This is so wrong... when did it be ok to have gay porno-songs on the airwaves?"

you know that i kissed a girl video would be better if she actually did kiss a girl in it, but as it stands it's just an annoying tease. so she needs to go away.

http://images.starpulse.com/pictures/2008/03/23/previews/Katy%20Perry-TYG-000275.jpg

awww

"that wouldn't make any sense"

Why not?

Metrosexuals who won't put out is a common source of frustration amongst gay guys.

The only vaguely problematic lyric is the one about falling in love with someone who wears more make-up than the singer, and even then it still kinda works.

I think this shit is morally indefensible and we should burn her mp3s

it's tongue-in-cheek for folks who would find a jack-in-the-box genuinely surprising.

-- Lawrence the Looter, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 00:10 (54 minutes ago) Link

"she's the bif naked of her generation."

This is nastier though.

Curious how she's doing on Warped Tour. Do they have a lot of girl-centric acts now to go with the screamo and skate-punk?

I know you guys are mostly talking about Ur So Gay (okay production, gimmicky lyrics) but man, I hate hearing I Kissed A Girl, a song even more shamelessly gimmicky.

song obviously written to be played in strip clubs = automatic fail

song obviously written to be played in strip clubs = automatic fail

-- Nhex, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 03:26 (15 minutes ago)

this is so RONG

Curious how she's doing on Warped Tour. Do they have a lot of girl-centric acts now to go with the screamo and skate-punk?

-- milo z, Tuesday, July 8, 2008 9:37 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

well, her song's climbing up the Modern Rock chart, so I guess she's being marketed to the alt-rock crowd. not totally out of the question to have female-fronted acts on Warped anyway (Paramore's also on it this year).

song obviously written to be played in strip clubs = automatic fail

-- Nhex, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 03:26 (15 minutes ago)

this is so RONG

-- The Brainwasher, Wednesday, July 9, 2008 3:42 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Question: would people's attitudes towards this song ("Ur So Gay") be different if it was sung by a gay guy?

-- Tim F, Tuesday, 8 July 2008 23:44 (Yesterday) Link

Sorry dude, but whether or not the song is coming from a bullshit standpoint, shit is wack.

Surmounter: She looks hella creepy. Hella creepy.

If it was sung by a gay dude, it would just be as annoying as Mika or something.

or sam sparro ugh

sam sparro is worse than mika, pretending to have talent and then showing up in a dashiki to perform reheated prince karaoke. "black & gold" is really good. at least when mika showed up with "grace kelly" you knew exactly what you were getting yourself into. sam sparro LIED to me! i had to wait two hours to download anything else from rapidshare after i was tricked into pirating his album!

incidentally "hot n cold" is pretty good, even if i have kind of soured on "i kissed a girl"

I'm not actually defending "Ur So Gay". I haven't heard it. Don't particularly feel inspired to. I was just interested in people's reactions on that point.

Hai Tim, can't remember what yr pop-emo tolerance is like, but until a gay guy covers Ur So Gay, here's a local pop-emo band doing a pretty shiny cover of I Kissed A Girl; Fall Out Boy frothiness doing My Chem glam-stomp that ends up kind've sounding like "Doctorin' The Tardis", ha.

Yeah I realised subsequently that a gay guy covering "I Kissed A Girl" is even better and hardly needs any lyrical amendments (maybe just the "us girls we are so kissable" etc. bit).

:)

i dunno what all the column-inch fuss is about really. it's all rather inoffensive, and the album's ok for all that. i mean, it's no Let Go but y'know.

Yeah I realised subsequently that a gay guy covering "I Kissed A Girl" is even better and hardly needs any lyrical amendments (maybe just the "us girls we are so kissable" etc. bit).

http://www.myspace.com/maxvernon

NB: I have no idea if Max Vernon is actually gay, but c'mon:

Sounds Like
Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, and Stephen Sondheim get together for dinner, sip a few cocktails, and talk about politics, hard drugs, and how everyone sucks.

I think it's the inoffensiveness posing as shock value that's getting a lot of people irritated (also the fact that the song's been at the top of the charts forever, which gives it more cred, even as a one hit wonder, than it deserves).

I kind of like this cover, though -- the song becomes accidentally twee, which is where its heart is anyway if you just look at what's going on in the lyrics. (A friend of a friend sez: "I kissed a girl! In third grade! And I liked it!")

Although it never really occurred to me that this song is actually kind of cute, if you get rid of a few remaining clunkers ("experimental game"). The covers have been helpful...who'da thunk this song really wanted to be fey indie pop.

Ground control to major lolz:

Hey, Let’s Make Middle School Lesbians!
by Johnnie Moore

Billboard Magazine just deemed Katy Perry’s debut single to be the “Song of Summer” after maintaining six straight weeks in the number one slot on their Hot 100’s chart.

What’s interesting is the song is anything, but “straight.”

It is, in fact, the next episode in the never-ending media agenda to make homosexual experimentation a kind of adolescent right of passage.

This time, through lyrics like:
“drink in hand, lost my discretion…just wanna try you…I kissed a girl and I liked it, the taste of her cherry chap stick, I kissed a girl just to try it, I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it, it felt so wrong, it felt so right, Don’t mean I’m in love tonight, I kissed a girl and I liked it…No, I don’t even know your name, it doesn’t matter, You’re my experimental game…”

In a July 23rd Chicago Sun-Times article entitled, “Even Mild Girls go Wild for ‘I Kissed a Girl’” the music director of a Chicago station said, “I think it’s just a fluffy, light novelty pop song that has a slightly edgy lyric.” He also said he’d only received about two complaints about the song. The Sun-Times says this new song is “capitalizing on the casual kissing epidemic sweeping a generation.”

In order to get the full picture of the implications of this number one hit you might consider following around an average middle school or high school student this weekend. No doubt, the song will be blaring in every tween or teen store in your local mall, and you’ll most definitely hear its lyrics incoherently sung through the lips of plenty of teenagers.

Now, I’m no legalistic. My iTunes library has its share of secular music intermingled among the latest Christian tunes, and Podcasts of every shape and size, but I just can’t handle this one. How long will all these media moguls be allowed to sit around board room tables and make decisions that alter the healthy development of our nation’s kids?

This weekend there will be many thousands of young girls who will “playfully” choose to “kiss a girl to try it” after they are nonchalantly coaxed by this “fluffy” hit.

From the California Supreme Court’s decisions regarding marriage, to the skyrocketing popularity of this song, to the nearly non-stop introduction of the homosexual agenda into almost every facet of our culture, we are facing the rise of the most homosexually friendly generation in history.

Homosexual experimentation is also an epidemic. This is the fruit of years of marketing that has literally altered the worldviews of our nation’s 80 million millenials.

Oh, by the way, Katy Perry’s real name is Katy Hudson. You might remember her from the 2001 album bearing her name on Red Hill records; it was a Christian album.

the whole scenario of 'i kissed a girl' is potentially interesting (if not transgressive or radical or shocking in any way) (though maybe a straight boy doing 'i kissed a boy' would work!) (o christ no it'd be some american apparel indie fucker NO NO DO NOT WANT) but katy perry is just so smug and self-satisfied about the whole business. also, awful bellowing voice.

btw im christian

actually you know what, i'm really busy right now and katy perry isn't even worth the procrastination time it'd take to untangle my visceral dislike of her

Now, I’m no legalistic

And here I was worrying about that.

Perhaps Jay Brannan should cover it on a youtube video in order to close the circle.

Yo that Max Vernon doesn't sound like Joni Mitchell, David Bowie and Stephen Sondheim getting together to talk about the weather even. He's an Imogen Heap wannabe. Though not devoid of promise. The second half is endearingly WTF. He put quite a bit of effort into that arrangement.

I prefer this Imogen Heap wannabe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y73rqRKYQ24

Yeah, the Max Vernon arrangement is kind of interesting: I like how he throws in some of the original's clubby bounce on top of the rococo Pallett/Wainwright piano thing.

It's Nellie McKay-ish, almost.

Was that her name?

smug and self-satisfied is her look for the video, but she seems like a sweet girl with a good alto

one reason that 'i kissed a girl' strikes a false note which i only realised last night is how little of it dwells on the girl she kissed, the person who's awakened all these latent feelings in her and who surely should be the focal point of the narrative (bar the clichéd soft porn line about her lips). it's almost as if it didn't matter whether katy liked kissing the girl, or even whether she kissed her at all, just as long as she got to tell the whole world that she did.

the girl doesnt matter, just the fact that it was a girl, thats sorta the whole point of the song

it is irritating

xp I wouldn't say "almost": I think that is the point of the song and the reason why it seems reprehensible to so many people. The girl she kissed didn't "awaken all these latent feelings in her" -- in fact, she takes pains to assert that it doesn't mean she's in love or anything.

which brings me back to my og kneejerk reaction to it: so fucking what, then, katy? why should we care?

the most homosexually friendly generation in history

Pretty sure the way I'm reading this isn't the way it was intended

THIS MUSIC DOES NOT DESERVE ILX'S ANALYSIS

THANK YOU

yeah people should be on the tila tequila thread instead

Sure it does.

I'd be interested in an analysis of the contrast between Katy Perry and Jill Sobule, whose kissee is clearly a friend (she even has a name!) rather than some anonymous sorority girl in a club:

Genny came over and told me 'bout Fred
" He's such a hairy behemoth, " she said
" Dumb as a box of hammers
But he's such a handsome guy. "
And I opened up and told her 'bout Larry
And yesterday how he asked me to marry

I'm not giving him an answer yet
I think I can do better

So we laughed
Compared notes
We had a drink, we had a smoke
She took off her over coat
I kissed a girl

So she called home to say she'd be late
He said he'd worried but now he feels safe
" I'm glad you're with your girlfriend, tell her hi for me "
So I looked at you, you had guilt in your eyes
But it only lasted a little while
And then I felt your hand above my knee

And we laughed at the world
They can have their diamonds
And we'll have our pearls
I kissed a girl

I kissed a girl, her lips were sweet
She was just like kissing me
I kissed a girl, won't change the world
But I'm so glad I kissed a girl

And we laughed at the world
They can have their diamonds
And we'll have our pearls
I kissed a girl

For the first time
I kissed a girl
And I may do it again
I kissed a girl
I kissed a girl

I kissed a girl her lips were sweet
She was just like kissing me
But better

I kissed a girl
Won't change the world
But I'm so glad
I kissed a girl
For the first time
I kissed a girl

i love that song so.

The "won't change the world" line at the end has a way of defusing the "so what?" question -- she realizes it's not an earth-shattering event but more of a personal epiphany. Unlike Perry, she's not trying to prove anything to anyone.

that reads like a response song, actually, which makes KPs that much worse

ILX lit crit semester 01 reconvenes after lunch

Although, I dunno, I'm starting to think the problem with "Kissed a Girl" is all Katy Perry. The song itself isn't inherently smug or calling attention to itself; it's NOT earth-shattering, and there's nothing in the actual words that says that this has been earth-shattering. There's just something about Katy's delivery that makes her sound like it should be -- there's too much residual pop-confessional angst in her voice, like she's doing a slightly tortured delivery because it's the only thing she knows how to do (which it is). In the emo cover, they're stuck in their own one-delivery-style-only mode, but you can immediately accept it as a genre thing and not...y'know, take it personally. Whereas with Katy (and maybe it's just the genre she's picked to cop) it's all about coding (a weird sort of) "personal," even if there's nothing even remotely personal about her songs -- and even if there's nothing even remotely personal in choosing to sing that way.

I realize this will probably piss off Louis Jagger even more, but the more I think about the difference between Perry and Sobule, the more I feel like the two songs encapsulate the difference between '90s and '00s culture. Sobule kisses a girl because exploring your sexuality is a very cool, PC thing to do; Perry kisses a girl so she can plaster the photos on Facebook.

no that is actually quite a good point. social conjecture is fine, minute analysis of lyrical sentiment in this sort of music is lolsome

I think dabug is on the money. Lyrically I don't have a problem with it - drunken random kisses at parties don't tend to rely on (or provide) much in the way of insight into the other person. She probably can't remember anything other than the taste of the girl's cherry chapstick. In fact my own very few memories of kissing girls at parties are remarkably similar

Nonetheless the performance is so look-at-me involved that it comes off as smug and self-absorbed and egotistical anyway.

Perhaps this is Dr Luke's fault too: "I Kissed A Girl" clearly rips from Kelis's "I Don't Think So" and Pink's "Cuz I can", and it occupies a confused middleground between the former's winning shallow snarkiness and the latter's plea for redemption disguised as fuck-you indifference. The song is closer to the former but Katy sings it as if it's the latter.

jaymc otm

(xx post)

She probably can't remember anything other than the taste of the girl's cherry chapstick.

lol

An underrated influence here is probably Megan McCauley's "Tap That," another Max/Luke, in which Megan veers between Salt 'n' Pepa and Evanescence. Katy actually reminds me a bit of Megan sans the Salt 'n' Pepa stuff (which she never did again after "Tap That" anyway), which would account for some of the unpleasantness -- with Megan, veering into that Evanescence/Avril vocal style was an interesting contrast; with Katy it's oppressive. (Should note that I don't hate Katy's voice, just what it's used to do.)

"Evanescence/Avril vocal style"?

With Katy it's more like Avril, with Megan it's more like Evanescence. Alto angst.

ha

ok cause I was trying to figure out how Avril and Amy Lee could be used to describe the same specific vocal style and it made my brain hurt.

one reason that 'i kissed a girl' strikes a false note which i only realised last night is how little of it dwells on the girl she kissed, the person who's awakened all these latent feelings in her and who surely should be the focal point of the narrative (bar the clichéd soft porn line about her lips). it's almost as if it didn't matter whether katy liked kissing the girl, or even whether she kissed her at all, just as long as she got to tell the whole world that she did.

-- lex pretend, Tuesday, August 5, 2008 11:04 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

this is v otm

sometimes i go out and kiss a boy and it's like, the story i tell about it is mainly superficial stuff. his hair, his lips. i'm not like romanticizing him, i'm just kind of excited that i kissed a boy. maybe that makes me awful, maybe not.

but that's different cuz i've liked boys for a while, and i don't have a girlfriend.

this song is just like 5 years too late

you can turn on any station on cable and see chicks making out, letting alone "kissing". singing "i kissed a girl/AND I LIKED IT" is just annoying and naive

well she was a Christian rock act until like 3 years ago so maybe it's still transgressive to her. actually the whole song would be better if it was more like "I kissed a girl/AND MADE CHRIST MAD"

would be song of the decade imo

also thx alex if i ever have to hear this fucking song again i can just substitute "AND MADE CHRIST MAD" in my head and lol

oh i didn't know that about her and christ

this song is just like 5 years too late

i know right, really the benchmark here is tatu

Sobule kisses a girl because exploring your sexuality is a very cool, PC thing to do;

This is so off the mark ... what in Sobule's song gives you that idea? PC?!? How old were you when this song came out?

While I can easily admit Katy Perry's song (hell, the whole album) is sloppily written and annoyingly overproduced, I still gladly welcome its intrusion into my daily life.

it really amazes me how much of this can turn into a debate about katy perry's personality/social mores/oughties trends when it should just be about the BALLS OUT HARDCORE POP HOOKS that are in the song. You know, the MUSIC that is in the song. I mean, fuck, the song kicks ass and is a lot of fun, I don't give a shit if she's sincere about her lesbian explorations or not.

sir, please put your balls away.

you don't listen to the words being sung during BALLS OUT HARDCORE POP HOOKS?

and ever think, "hey this BALLS OUT HARDCORE POP HOOK is stupid as shit?"

i guess this makes a lot of sense though, come to think of it

matt im all for BALLS OUT HARDCORE POP HOOKS but i think this song kinda crosses the line; after all, these hooks have to be put in context & that context is that this song is way overly relying on the BALLS-OUTNESS of the lyrics & their delivery

in the end, its pretty annoying

btw i started this thread

I mean, sure, it would be better if the lyrics were great. But we're talking about clubthumping pop music here, not bob dylan.

"and ever think, "hey this BALLS OUT HARDCORE POP HOOK is stupid as shit?""

BALLS OUT HARDCORE POP HOOKS are never stupid, they are always AWESOME.

and CAPSLOCK ALWAYS MAKES IT TRUE

I HOLD DOWN THE SHIFT BUTTON

AND THE ITALICS TAGS ARE ANNOYING TO USE

...or, what j0rdan said

MA thats why i initially sorta liked this song too, but i mean, jesus: "we're talking about clubthumping pop music here, not bob dylan." - that doesnt make anysense; we're talking about a fucking song, & telling you why it basically sucks

I mean, sure, it would be better if the lyrics were great. But we're talking about clubthumping pop music here, not bob dylan.

-- Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, August 5, 2008 2:50 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

isnt this logic counter the whole teenpop experiment

ever since Ashlee shrugged off her status as the New Dylan and made an album with Timbaland, the teenpop community's been of two minds re: clubthumping

there still isn't a teenpop experiment deej no matter how much you try to will it into existence!

meanwhile, you know, when i return again and again to a song to overthink everything about it, i usually have to end up admitting that there's something of worth at its core, but with 'i kissed a girl' and the whole katy perry project i'm actually finding it more and more hateful. like oh, i hate it because of that, AND that, AND that at as well.

and now i have to fucking listen to the whole album b/c i have to review it which is going to be yet another reason to hate her gnnnnnngh

whats worthwhile is wondering why this song is in fact so popular despite what j0rdan said about it no longer being in any way transgressive: its basically uniquely regressive sonically, max martin style (which like i said i initially thought was awesome) & still badass enough lyrically that teens are gonna consider it sexy/rebellious

also she is dating the dude from gym class heroes

i kinda like...oh nm

haha i was just baiting with 'experiment', does 'project' work better?

anyway the point is that matt armstrong is being utterly facile here

"here"

really? jesus

xpp abt gym class heroes

there's so much more reason for shame and confusion at kissing one of gym class heroes

"MA thats why i initially sorta liked this song too, but i mean, jesus: "we're talking about clubthumping pop music here, not bob dylan." - that doesnt make anysense; we're talking about a fucking song, & telling you why it basically sucks"

This reminds me of people who complain about lyrics in AC/DC songs. I mean, yeah it's nice when an AC/DC song has good lyrics, and great lyrics can make for great songs, but it's really missing the point to focus on AC/DC lyrics in any meaningful way.

"ever since Ashlee shrugged off her status as the New Dylan and made an album with Timbaland, the teenpop community's been of two minds re: clubthumping"

Ashlee's a different ball of wax entirely.

the way the vox are foregrounded and KP's horrible loud bellow of a voice ensure that sonically it's impossible to tune out her lyrics

ftr i dont think the tenet of matt's argument here is wrong, as ive found myself arguing away lyrics to friends who laugh away pop, but i think in this specific instance, the lyrics and sentiment of the song are so overwhelmingly bad that they are inexcusable

MA youre being reductive if you think peoples problem with this song hinges solely on its lyrics; its actually more about the attitude w/ which those lyrics are deployed by KP - this has been said pretty explicity upthread

the fact that the lyrics kind of suck doesnt really help matters

deeznuts just actually clarified an argument

who the hell complains about AC/DC lyrics!? i mean sure if you hate on good old fashioned sleazy double entendres, but has anyone gone "man that riff would've been more profound if Bon had spoken from the heart"?

Strikes me as a novelty act, sort of like Julie Brown or that Meredith Brooks "Bitch" song, more than anything as provocative as Madge in her prime. It's better than "Bitch". Falls somewhat short of Alanis, which isn't saying much.

"MA youre being reductive if you think peoples problem with this song hinges solely on its lyrics; its actually more about the attitude w/ which those lyrics are deployed by KP - this has been said pretty explicity upthread"

Right it's not just the lyrics, it's also her personality, a backlash against straight girls pretending to be "experimental," etc. etc.

Basically a lot of things that don't have a lot to do with the actual musical elements of the song.

"who the hell complains about AC/DC lyrics!?"

it happens! People complain about The Donnas' lyrics too.

He's got big balls
And she's got big balls
But Matt Armstrong's got the biggest balls of them all

who gives a shit about the lyrics, really.

it's the music that sucks balls.

big balls?

where is blount, anyway

xp Well, her voice (which is a musical element, obviously) is clearly part of what people like Lex object to. (It doesn't really bother me much -- I basically like the song, way more than most other radio hits this summer, but I thought it was pretty innocuous from the beginning and I'm sort of amused by how much it seems to piss people off -- but then I also don't think it's great or anything, and guess I can understand it irritating people. There are better songs on her album, for whatever it's worth -- not to mention on the Sisterhood of Traveling Pants soundtrack from a couple years ago.)

there still isn't a teenpop experiment deej no matter how much you try to will it into existence!

Yeah, I was gonna say.

yes ppl are getting so upset

http://bigbowlingballs.ytmnd.com/

'experiment' was a joke dudes

omar OTM

This is so off the mark ... what in Sobule's song gives you that idea? PC?!? How old were you when this song came out?

I was 16. Even if there's nothing explicit in the lyrics, something about the sincerity of Sobule's song, coupled with how it slotted comfortably into alt-rock playlists of the time, connects it in my mind with the early 1990s emphasis on multiculturalism and sexual awareness. I'm thinking especially of the presence of gay characters in otherwise mainstream entertainment like Reality Bites and The Real World, as well as a whole host of examples of bisexual chic, from Madonna to Roseanne. I can imagine Sobule observing this stuff in the culture at the time and thinking "hey, kissing girls is cool and progressive."

it really amazes me how much of this can turn into a debate about katy perry's personality/social mores/oughties trends when it should just be about the BALLS OUT HARDCORE POP HOOKS that are in the song. You know, the MUSIC that is in the song. I mean, fuck, the song kicks ass and is a lot of fun, I don't give a shit if she's sincere about her lesbian explorations or not.

I actually agree that the song is a pretty great piece of songcraft, but all the tangential stuff around it is way more interesting to discuss, IMO.

It blows Sobule's coffee-house crap out of the water, either way (at least in part, maybe, because Perry seems less deadingly "sincere.")

the dreaded COFFEE HOUSE

i don't really know that musically, you can compare the two? i mean, they're meant for different things. one can't really blow the other out of the water, cuz they're not in the same pool.

yeah you're right ones in a pool filled with sweet clubtastic beats and the other's in a pool filled with overpriced hippie coffee i tell you what

People have been comparing them for weeks; of course they're in the same pool.

Oh good lord, forget I ever said anything. Proceed. Take her, take her to your bosoms and keep her there.

oh i see, because people have been comparing them for weeks, they're in the same pool. ITS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SOUND

I just think that if Katy were sincere about her reaction, I might actually, if not relate, than at least understand better what she was saying. Passing something so trivial off as a big deal is annoying -- if she'd been more sincere about it -- "I kissed a girl, oh no" -- at least there'd be a character there.

As is, I don't think it's that great for songcraft, though not bad, and it's just not enough (kind of like what jaymc is saying) to get me not to think about the big ideas happening in the song first and foremost. Doesn't help that the track, part through music and part through delivery, is so in your face about its words. If she's going to be smug and disingenuous and hyper-precise about it, she's also going to need some much smarter shit to say.

If we're going to talk about the ~*music*~ there's one thing which I noticed (and have already said elsewhere) which is that when she sings the chorus' "i kissed a girl - and i liked it", the tune itself sounds angsty, the way it doesn't resolve, the way it just hangs there. It sounds angstier in the boyvoice covers, because one of them's doing wainwrightlite and one of them's straight-up emopop, and because Katy Perry makes it sound perversely proud, play-acty in her emoing it up. But it'd take a huge act of will to sing that bit of tune and make it sound like a glad revelation.

It blows Sobule's coffee-house crap out of the water, either way (at least in part, maybe, because Perry seems less deadingly "sincere.")

-- xhuxk, Tuesday, August 5, 2008 3:48 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

the dreaded COFFEE HOUSE

-- omar little, Tuesday, August 5, 2008 3:53 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

ts coffee house vs. high school party

Fun fact: if you transposed this song to a major key, you'd be singing a bunch of major sevenths, i.e. would sound like a lounge singer and/or Jens Lekman (said that elsewhere myself).

As is, it's a standard confessional modal thing where you resolve to minor but go to the major key at points in the chorus -- not so obvious here, but standard for other angst people (many of whom have worked with the same producers/writers), may give an otherwise dour tune a sense of brief uplift. That's not what really happens in this song, though.

hs party easy

Fun fact: if you transposed this song to a major key, you'd be singing a bunch of major sevenths

I'm going to go try that right now!

Just go Imaj7-iimin7-iiimin7-IVmaj7 repeat -- might have to tweak the "it" note and just repeat the same figure in the melody twice. You know, if you wanted to.

Funny that this song actually ends up more dour than most confessional stuff with the same kind of minor/major screwing around -- the melody really stresses the minor third ("I" in "I kissed a girl"), which usually resolves to the major. In "Since U Been Gone," the prototype for all this stuff, she hits the major third in the major key/fifth in the minor key on the long "gone" -- resolving to major is a stronger choice for the melody, and also fits the idea that she's so moving on. But that shift to major in "Kissed a Girl" (second chord in the chorus) is basically a stepping stone on the way back to the minor key, and there are a lot of syllables happening there, so you don't get a real sense of that major chord even happening (because it isn't actually a major chord, just a different bass note with the minor chord kept intact).

I didn't actually try it, because my girlfriend is asleep. I will say that I like how "kissed a" hits the 9th and the 7th of that initial minor chord before going to the major.

which would be better as an answer song, from the perspective of the girl who was kissed?

A) i dreamed of katy perry last night, i wonder if she'll ever call
B) i was having a good time until this drunk chick started groping me

or even, the transposed male version of this...

I'd like to hear a male singer cover this song. It would then seem to be from the point of view of a man who was surprised to find that he liked women.

Moley there've already been versions along these lines - check upthread.

B) i was having a good time until this drunk chick started groping me

C) Everyone thought it was hilarious that I agreed to kiss someone's ugly, uptight straight friend again last night.

Maybe it was all an elaborate set-up so that the girl and Katy's boyfriend can sleep together (without Katy), like that one Sex & The City episode.

I don't think Katy Perry's boyfriend needs any extra set-up or justification for cheating on her, really.

what if a male singer covered it and it was "I kissed a bloke and I liked it", that's gonna get the Nuts/Zoo crew goin'!

katy perry's bf's response song will probably be along the lines of "who is that annoying girl calling me her boyfriend? did i talk to her at that party?"

oh yeah guys the Gym Class Heroes remix is gonna be something else.

Gym Class Heroes remix would be called "I Sucked A Cock", presumably

"The taste of his talcum powder..."

vivid!

Really, all one can say about her record is that it's total trash.

http://www.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/wikiHow.gif
<h1 style='margin-bottom: 0px;'>How to Look Like Katy Perry</h1>
from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit<br/>

This article needs to be converted to wikiHow format as specified by the Writer's Guide. You can help by editing it now and then removing this notice. Notice added on 2008-08-14.
We all know Katy from her Single "I Kissed A girl" You also may be amazed by how she looks and acts.
<a name="Steps"></a><h2> Steps </h2>
<ol><li> Lets start with hair. This step is not necessary but will help. Have a darker color black or extremely dark brown. If you are blonde you should try darkening you hair as much as you feel comfortable or you are allowed to.
</li><li> Cut your hair a little below the shoulders or breast length with layers. For the bangs they should be cut straight across the eyebrows.
</li><li> Straighten you hair so there's no waves or curls.
</li><li> Put big bows (or small) In you hair. The ones that clip on the side. You can get really nice ones at Claire's. Another thing is to out flowers on the sides. Hair clips with cherries on them.
</li><li> Fashion. Katy seems to be into the "Lolita" Style As she says in one of her songs "I studied Lolita Religiously".
</li><li> She constantly wears Betsy Johnson Dresses. These are more "Dress up" dresses and once you see them a lot of people will say " Im not going out to the mall in that" these dresses are more for parties or other special occasions
</li><li> High waisted bottoms have came back in style. The higher the waist the better. But I have to warn you on this step. DO NOT wear high waisted anything if you do not have a thin curvy flattering figure. High waisted bottoms are made to flatter and complement one's shape .
</li><li> Juicy Couture has a lot of things Katy would be seen in. Bright colors are the best. Katy is not known for wearing dull boring colors.
</li><li> Skinny jeans are very Katy.
</li><li> Shoes. Heels. Cute heels are great. Cute as in hearts, polka dots, fruit etc. Flats she may wear. For Guys, you're on your own on this one.
</li><li> Wear chunky or big bracelets. 3-4 cute bangles would look vary Katy.
</li><li> Attitude. Don't be ashamed of what and who you are. She admits "I kissed a girl and I liked it" Speak whats on your mind.
</li><li> Heart Shaped Sunglasses. Any type. She loves these. She even has made her own that you can get at her tent at Warped tour 08
</li><li> Anything with strawberry's, Cherry's, or any fruit.
</li><li> Get a gold necklace that has you name on it. Or even one that says Katy or Katy Perry.
</li><li> Get pro nails with strawberry's rainbow leopard or music notes on them
</li><li> Have sort of a random humor. But keep the randomness to a minimal. No one likes people who are just like this all of sudden "Oh My God pink flamingo"
</li><li> Have a Myspace with alot of friends.
</li><li> Have a tumblr blog and post lots of vlogs and photos
</li><li> Be sweet. Katy perry wouldn't be mean or bitter to just any person.
</li><li> Play Guitar. Acoustic or electric. Or like her BOTH
</li><li> Think Pink! Pink is a big Katy color.
</li></ol>

<a name="Warnings"></a><h2> Warnings </h2>
<ul><li>They make high waisted jeans small, thin and tight for a reason. (read high waisted bottoms above)
</li><li>Don't make it to obvious that your trying to be her.
</li></ul>

<a name="Things_You.27ll_Need"></a><h2> Things You'll Need </h2>
<ul><li>Access to Betsy Johnson clothing and Juicy Couture
</li><li>Straightening Iron
</li><li>Black or dark brown hair dye
</li><li>Myspace
</li><li>Tumblr.com page
</li><li>Guitar
</li><li>guitar lessons
</li><li>Good hair dresser
</li><li>High waisted jeans
</li><li>Anything with cherries on it
</li><li>Hair bows
</li></ul>

<a name="Related_wikiHows"></a><h2> Related wikiHows </h2>
<ul><li>How to Be Like Paris Hilton
</li><li>How to Be Like Your Favorite Celebrity
</li><li>How to Be Like Victoria Beckham
</li><li>How to Dress Like Katy Perry
</li><li>How to Be a Sweet Lolita
</li><li>How to Become a Lifestyle Lolita
</li></ul>

<p>
Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Look Like Katy Perry. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
</p>

Have sort of a random humor. But keep the randomness to a minimal. No one likes people who are just like this all of sudden "Oh My God pink flamingo"

^^^needs to go in the FAQ

Wisdom for the ages, that.

Matos on Katy Palin:
http://thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=675052&mode=print

That is one of the most OTM assessments of modern culture I have read in a long time. Matos, I tip my hat your way.

yup

friend's assessment of KP: "i think if i met her i would falcon punch her ngl"

she's closer to Cindy McCain than Palin.

Xtian rock Katy Perry sound-alike tune, Make Some Noise by Krystal Meyers, seems to be about hypocritical evangelical kids chastising their hypocritical evangelical parents for being hypocrites. Or, more likely, she's complaining about secular people who stereotype evangelicals, which would make it a little scarier.

Reminds me that Katy Perry, coming from the same bubble herself, probably has a pretty warped view of whom she's aiming for -- that is, she sincerely believes that she's *actually shocking*, even though she hasn't really shocked anyone more "progressive" than her home base. I think that makes her Bristol Palin, not Sarah.

Oh wait, I forgot that what with the election cycle, the home base isn't allowed to be shocked by Bristol Palin, what with her having so much in common with so many normal average run-of-the-mill true American families.

(And anyway, Jan Brady middle child Willow, also stuck with the lamest name, is going to be the one to lash out Katy Perry-style with any prolonged exposure of her mom to the public. Bristol is more like Krystal Meyers, accepting her lot and trying not to actually make any waves.)

Oh, no...the Youtube comments on that MAKE SOME NOISE!!! song. Oh, No...MAKE SOME NOISE!!!

I'd tap that.

I kissed Le Guin and I liked it
The taste of her Terry Pratchett

oh i didn't know that about her and christ

― Surmounter, Tuesday, August 5, 2008 3:18 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Matos rocked this perfectly

The more I hear this song, the more actually homophobic it sounds

I'm quite astonished that it's only come out on physical release (as a single) today!

" No one likes people who are just like this all of sudden "Oh My God pink flamingo""

Stealth hommophobia

Tracer and Matos OTM

hommophobia = homophobia, obvs

fear that french men will turn you into one of them

The lyrics just make it worse. She kisses a girl—sure, okay. She likes it—um, and? Oh, and she hopes her boyfriend doesn't mind, because sexual autonomy is inextricable from the male gaze, and that's fucking awesome. "I Kissed a Girl" is infuriatingly ass-backward: cynical adherence to outdated values made into titillation, snide calculation dressed up as the underdog, the same old bullshit disguised as rebellion.

I'm sorry but this is bullshit. If feeling bad about making out with someone else when you are in a relationship is "cynical adherence to outdated values", you fuckers should be sterilized, or at least not date anyone until you gain some emotional maturity.

There are enough (intentionally!) problematic things about the narrative behind this song that you don't really need to start making some up if you want to criticize it.

hm. i think this person means she "hopes her bf doesn't mind" as an afterthought, because of course he won't

sociological and sexual/political implications aside, this song blows a zillion goats

^^^

this tune is a good litmus test for music taste imo

Dan, I wasn't talking about "feeling bad about making out with someone else when you are in a relationship" at all.

She hopes her boyfriend doesn't mind because WINK WINK she already knows he won't mind, she's doing it for HIM in the first place. It's the song's ENTIRE SUBTEXT.

(sorry for all caps, first time on new system and can't be bothered monkeying w/code)

this specific sort of titillation has always felt kind of exploitative and misogynistic and homophobic to me. such sins would be semi-forgiven if this song wasn't on some horrific heidi montag level of quality~

ugh fuck this shit. unlistenable.

I feel sorry for anyone who kissed Katy Perry

this is overcompressed, is this too sensible a complaint? it is also horrible. It is really horrible sounding!

I still want to hear the answer song

this girl was drunk /
she groped me /
i think her name was katy

I feel sorry for anyone who kissed Katy Perry

why?

this song has still gained MUCHOS RESPONSOS on ILX

while other far more interesting artists go unremarked ;_;

people like to complain

it's interesting when someone so uninteresting gets a vast amount of public interest

I wouldn't call her uninteresting. There's a lot to unpack here, as evidenced by the length of this thread. Which isn't to say that she's good in any way at all.

She hopes her boyfriend doesn't mind because WINK WINK she already knows he won't mind, she's doing it for HIM in the first place. It's the song's ENTIRE SUBTEXT

Wouldn't he actually have to be present in the song for that to be the ENTIRE SUBTEXT?

He is present in every chorus..

So is the girl's cherry Chapstick; that doesn't mean the narrator has a fruit or wax fetish!

Don't you find something odd about criticizing a song for being patriarchal wank material by taking the single off-handed mention of a man in it and making that the focal point for understanding the whole thing?

I kissed a guy and I liked it
The stench of his hairy forelip

I kissed a guy and I liked it
Hope his frat bros don't mind it

It's not a single mention, it's in the chorus every time! Coincidentally confirming that she's not actually gay! Also totally coincidentally reinforcing male judgement of females kissing each other as an important thing to think about!

well for the men it may be

What I think is weird about the video is that Katy doesn't kiss anyone in it.

"you can say this stuff but you can't do it"

In terms of the structure of the song, the mention of the boyfriend occurs once in the chorus. The chorus itself is repeated multiple times.

In terms of the narrative of the song, the boyfriend is mentioned as a concern after the fact; he is not present during the makeout session, he wasn't on her mental radar during the makeout session, and when she's reminiscing on the situation and extolling the virtues of women in general, he's not in the picture. Yet somehow, this is all about him and has nothing to do with her; the song isn't about losing control over a sublimated desire or acting out on impulses under the influence of alcohol that you would ignore if you were sober; it's about Katy trying to turn on her boyfriend. How not at all reductive and point-missing!

god forbid a girl kiss another girl, and doesn't have a boyfriend or give a fuck about having one.

ps i haven't read this thread. the GGW-ness of this song is really obvious and terrible.

matos otm.

Sure, it's about those things. And about how girls are soft and so sexy. Etc. But Dan I don't understand why you're going through such twists to downplay the boyfriend. The chorus is the emotional center of the song. It's the bit everyone remembers. And the boyfriend - or more specifically, Katy's thoughts about her boyfriend - are right there. It's like a repeated "no homo" smack in the middle of a song about girls kissing girls, and I find it conservative and irritating.

the GGW-ness of this song is really obvious and terrible.

I sort of liked this; it's much more interesting than 90% of top 40 radio. Not saying I'd listen to it on my own volition, but still.

And how come everyone here is complaining about this being "homophobic" and anti-gay but hardly anyone on ILM was disgusted and railing about Eminem when he did basically the exact same thing?

what?

he kissed a boy and he liked it

j/ks.

all criticism re: katy perry totally deserved

i think the conservative male fantasy w/r/t this is a world where girls only get with each other in order to please or titillate men, where real lesbians don't actually exist.

I sort of liked this; it's much more interesting than 90% of top 40 radio.

Yeah, but in fairness, so is whatever I'm going to shake out of my shoes after I ride home from work tonight.

I don't think Katy Perry thinks she's being shocking. She clearly has a sense of humor about the entire thing.

And like I said earlier in this thread, there is nothing at all "homophobic" about this song, that's just ridiculous really. Y'all think too much.

still can't believe that virtually the first words posted in this thread were:

+good versatile voice
-needs to show it off more

WTF NO.

consider the source

god forbid a girl kiss another girl, and doesn't have a boyfriend or give a fuck about having one.

That's Sophie B. Hawkins, not Katy Perry.

My main point here is that I think a lot of unnecessary patriarchal bullshit is getting thrown around about this song because people don't like the sonics but want meater, more damning/dismissive platform to justify their dislike; I'm not particularly interested in being the song's defender but I think it's kind of funny that everyone's being so binary/proscriptive of how the narrator should be allowed to express her sexuality and that a large number of guys are criticizing her for doing the "wrong" thing.

people don't like the sonics

I love the sonics -- the rest leaves me conflicted.

fake bi girls may be reacting to patriarchal society & doing it to impress but I doubt they're all trying to impress their boyfriends

anyway why is everybody talking about this song and not "Ur So Gay," which is way more overt in its cringeworthiness and adherence to outdated values?

Because "UR So Gay" was never a hit?

Y'all think too much.

Seconded. The pasted-together lyrics don't represent much beyond teenage boy wish fulfillment. Despite its songwriting faults - I like the album.

are you a teenage boy?

I tend to like pop songs that seem to open up new spaces, create avenues of escape, that promise to lead you somewhere you weren't sure existed before. Songs that take you out of yourself and into a new thing. A song sung by a girl called "I Kissed A Girl" - and liked it! - seems to offer this. Until you hear it. The beat - which I like - has an insistent, boozy, seedy tug to it which gets completely ruined by Katy's totally clueless, eager-to-please voice. The part about the boyfriend is really just the nail in the coffin, the door slamming shut. In the chorus we discover that this experiment has had its limits defined from the get-go.

I tried to say the same thing about Andrew Antone but nobody listened

one detail in matos' review i'd not heard (not like i'd been following her closely at all) she was a christian singer at one point??

Perry was born in Santa Barbara, California, USA. The middle child of two pastors,[1] she grew up listening to gospel music and singing in church.[6] She graduated from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California in 2003 and immediately moved to Los Angeles at the age of 18.[7] After Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp signed Perry to their label Red Hill Records, she released her first CD Katy Hudson in 2001, a Christian gospel album.[8] In her teenage years, Perry found a Queen album with her friend, and later said, "From then on, they have been my biggest influence".[9] Also among her musical influences are Alanis Morissette,[10] Heart, and Joni Mitchell, as well as the Incubus album Morning View.[11] She changed her surname to Perry because "Katy Hudson" was too close to Kate Hudson.[12] Perry is her mother's maiden name.[1] Perry's biggest influence are 80's pop rockers Cyndi Lauper, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, and Shirley Manson who Perry says, "Those women still don't care. They come out with vengeance".[13]

what would i do without you

oh i didn't know that about her and christ

― Surmounter, Tuesday, August 5, 2008 2:18 PM (1 month ago)

haha!

But Dan I don't understand why you're going through such twists to downplay the boyfriend.

Because that's what the lyrics do!

I mean, if you're going to get hung up on repetition of the chorus (or to put it another way, get mad about Songwriting 101), she spends a lot more time talking about how great kissing the girl was than she does about worrying about her boyfriend; also, the verses are all about setting the "I wouldn't normally do this kind of thing but WAU AWESOME" narrative.

The whole song comes across to me as the narrator being super selfish; the "omg it's male wish-fulfillment because she has a boyfriend, GROSS" reaction coming largely from a group of guys sets off all of my "wow you guys protest too much" alarms.

agree with Dan. seems like a case of people latching onto one minor element of the song in order to stamp it HOMOPHOBIC and thereby leave the song's defenders in the position of defending homophobia by extension.

no element of a song is minor

yeah ok

i mean, if it's there it's there. the presence of a boyfriend is a constant.

defend this song on sex-positive or at-least-it's-not-burn-the-fags grounds if u like, but i find that a more strained reading than saying it's a cynical trade on a cynical state of affairs. a nice little ruffled-dress tour thru a lesbianism without lesbians universe? how titillating and also brave!! haha no fuck that, actually.

translation: aw, I wanted lesbians *sadly zips pants*

The girl in this song is like the ultimate unattainable object; she just found out she likes girls, but even if she doesn't follow through on that she's got a boyfriend. I can see why sensitive-guys-trying-to-get-laid would find this problematic!

excuse me?

This is the exact same type of rhetoric you guys are using to criticize the song; demonize the people who have a different take on it by linking that reading to a completely unsavory position. Not very cool, is it?

</rogerfidelity>

haha I'm not even bothering with this anymore

by your logic, nothing in life is either minor or major. if it's there it's there!

you kinda lost me there dan, i'm not demonizing anybody. defending songs on pro-sex or pro-gay grounds are good things as a matter of principle. and it's not a stretch to do so for this song because it's about a girl kissing another girl. however, the song is bullshit for any number of reasons. newsflash i'm not calling anyone a homophobe. not anybody here anyway.

this song is turning otherwise reasonable ilxors into anthony miccio imo

I hoped people would have a bigger problem with the rampant narcissistic selfishness running through the song rather than concern-trolling about how she's not lesbian enough.

she's not homophobic, she's just fucking stupid and so in-your-face with her stupidity that it's impossible to ignore

^^^^ I kind of agree with this despite liking the song (her "Hot and Cold" one is a complete nonentity to me ATM).

cathy dennis! i'll be damned

I hoped people would have a bigger problem with the rampant narcissistic selfishness running through the song

cough cough REST OF COLUMN IN QUESTION cough cough

"hope my boyfriend don't mind it" is a total cop-out of a line, and only partly because it's her suddenly going "no homo no homo" - it's more like, god, if you're going to go for a girls gone wild scenario here at least fucking commit to it for more than a line w/out worrying about your boyfriend! by every yardstick katy perry measures herself by - shocking, titillating, transgressing, whatever - she comes in at, like, an eighth of a tatu

'ur so gay' might be homophobic but not the kind of homophobia i can get worked up over (but again, the kind of stupidity which drives me nuts! ugh this girl)

cough cough REST OF COLUMN IN QUESTION cough cough

The rest of the column in question talks about cynical cultural repression expressed via wholly artificial female constructs. I'm talking about the narrator of the song basically worshipping to her id and reducing everyone else in the song into something to feed into her pleasure. I don't get why people are convinced she's doing this for her boyfriend; from what I hear, she kind of couldn't give two shits about her boyfriend in the context of the song.

god I must really want to avoid doing work if I'm spending this much time talking about Katy fucking Perry

i dont get why she would be bragging so much about kissing girls if she was just doing it for herself

what katy perry or "katy perry" is or does or wants is a little bit incidental. it's a story, no? how are "wholly artificial" and "reducing everyone else etc" mutually exclusive?

i dont get why she would be bragging so much about kissing girls if she was just doing it for herself

It's a song with lyrics; does "Back In Black" make you think the narrator has an unhealthy fascination with dark clothing?

what katy perry or "katy perry" is or does or wants is a little bit incidental. it's a story, no? how are "wholly artificial" and "reducing everyone else etc" mutually exclusive?

I'm talking about the song as a self-contained story; Matos is talking about the song as a propaganda tool, or more accurately a propaganda barometer. I'd rather look at what's going on in the story and critique it based on the rules it establishes rather than map it onto the politics of something else; it's the way I look at stuff.

i think it's this really horrible talent-free singer who is using an incredibly easy and opportunistic way to get attention and doesn't mean a lick of what she says (confirmed in all her interviews about how she's never actually kissed a girl), which is what makes it kind of offensive though more in the banal mild sense than in the real "this is OUTRAGEOUS" sense imo.

I don't think she's a talent-free singer. I'm not gonna be at any of her concerts and she doesn't have the greatest voice, but she knows how to use what she has and, the couple of TV performances I've seen, she's always been in tune and in command of what she was singing.

The "authenticity" thing is a non-issue for me.

ha ha look who's live on Later right now. at least she is kinda hot.

It's a song with lyrics; does "Back In Black" make you think the narrator has an unhealthy fascination with dark clothing?

right--its a song--why sing a song about kissing a girl unless you want the world to know? brian johnson doesnt have a fascination with "dark clothing" but he really, really wants you to know that ac/dc is back. which is important, because their singer just died!

I could've happily done without ever hearing that 'I kissed a girl' song

thanks a lot Jools Holland/housemate watching it

well there is something uh "interesting going on" in perry content that merits examination. there's an attempt to bring into the picture some kind of contemporary attitudes about sex and homosexuality post- jackass, 'no homo', britney and madonna, god do i need to list all of this garbage. it all sounds like a lot of cynical gamesmanship on behalf of dr luke, max martin, the onerepublic producer guy and all else involved, to me, but what do i know.

and, politically, the confused emo-fied gay-friendly-to-a-point attitude taking hold in le monde du teenager isn't something to be celebrated uncritically. it's better than the rev phelps but so what. if residual conflicts like that aren't interesting to a listener i can't make it so.

I hate to say it but lex OTM all over this thread

have drag queens karaoke'd this song to death yet? seems inevitable.

this girl's range of influences seem so ... blank to me. even the 'shocking' ones seem like some kind of joke. Heart, really? Queen? And this is still considered edgy? the Lolita bullshit is homogenized into pointlessness. I very much doubt she ever read Lolita and if she did she didn't understand it.

i distrust anyone younger than me, btw

in other words, she seems like a typically toothless product of excessive focus-grouping

female glam pop singer influenced by Heart & Queen shockah

speaking of which Gary Glitter should cover this song

EXCEPT HE SHOULD CHAGNE IT TO.... I KISSED A LITTLE BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;]

I'd like it better if she was influenced by "Queen of Hearts." Whither Juice Newton?

i don't like this song, lame sex performance crap gets on my nerves, but i suspect this is more of a performance for her strict religious parents than anyone else, an escape bid, and it seems to have worked since they said it was shameful and disgusting and sinful.

did they say that while cashing her checks and managing her trust fund account?

EXCEPT HE SHOULD CHAGNE IT TO.... I KISSED A LITTLE BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― Mohammed Butt (max), Tuesday, 23 September 2008 22:45 (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Gary Glitter is a heterosexual paedophile not a gay one, zing denied.

gary glitter had better beats

while they spanked her all the way to the bank xp

I'd like it better if she was influenced by "Queen of Hearts." Whither Juice Newton?

great call

christian pop is so weird 2 me:

chocolatejoy67 (6 days ago) Show Hide +3 Marked as spam Reply | Spam I love her new sound! I loved her old sound, but she definitely nailed the switch. At the beginning of the song,though, the beat, her voice, and the melody reminded me a tiny bit of "I kissed a girl" by Katy Perry. By the way, by the mention of Katy Perry, I am in no way condoning her music or her message. I'm just pointing out the similarities in sound between them. Anyway, am I the only one who thought this?

Not that weird, it sounds what you'd expect CCM of any genre to sound like: the respective mainstream genre four years ago.

xp

^^this = still top 10 singles of the decade

srsly though

JediJaleJozz (1 week ago) Show Hide +3 Marked as spam Reply | Spam
Both a deadly and awesome music video done by Krystal Meyers. Who says you can't serve God with a beat like that? Her whole album rocks!!!

xxxthoughtlessxxx (1 week ago) Show Hide -3 Marked as spam Reply | Spam
What the fuck? What the hell has Krystal done? O.O I prefer her first two records to this piece of pop shit. >.> Her voice is so covered up it's ridiculous. If it wasnt for the bone freezing In Your Hands I'd drop this little.....thing. At least she's beautiful. :D

off topic i know i know

xp the attitude, not the sound.

Dan OTM. I can't read the boyfriend line as anything but a throwaway laugh (even making fun of guys who are way too into OMG TWO DRUNK GIRLS KISSING).

Clusterfuck thread of the summer.

― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 4:17 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/372/the_visionary.gif

Maybe I should just say that this song thinks it's hot snot on a silver platter but it's really cold boogers on a paper plate.

"I Kissed A Girl" just as a whole package redefines punchable. From the fact that the first line is "this was never the way I planned" to the fact that she's a gormless, smiling robot in the video to the "it felt so wrong, it felt so right" triteness aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

still like it!

and still think she's fine!

Blah blah.

This is one of the very few songs I'd put into my own "guilty pleasures" category. I'm as offended about it's content as most people here, yet it still kind of "works" with me.

I've yet to meet/hear of an actual lesbian who is offended by this song. You guys are really ridiculous and humorless.

My ears (actual lesbians) are offended by this song.

lol

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "offended". I should have said "irritated".

No no, it was better with "offended," daavid. And I'm with you; I like the song alright, but it doesn't seem right somehow.

anyway why is everybody talking about this song and not "Ur So Gay," which is way more overt in its cringeworthiness and adherence to outdated values?

The most cringeworth lyric I've heard this entire year so far is contained in the album's title track: "I can belch the alphabet, double don't dare me," which is supposed to describe how she's "one of the boys..." since all boys dare each other to belch the alphabet.

if i were offended by this song i think i'd have to reevaluate my sense of security in myself.

i mean it's not like she's singing "i kissed a girl and i threw up"

The production and vocal melody are way too homophobic.

So wow, this one isn't going away, huh?

SNAKES ON A PLANE!

She has a coffee drink at Denny's.

i think this is hilarious

US singer Katy Perry has been wrongly handed one of the main prizes at France's main music award ceremony.

everything about Katy Perry is wrong

hot'n'cold = best single of 2008

no

hot'n'cold = best single of 2008 (in hell)

hot'n'cold = best Katy Perry single of 2008

(Don't actually know though, just trying to help. All I know is how she looks and that she has legs that get photographed a lot.)

"Hot'n'Cold," along with that Killers tune "Human" = return of chart-fodder hi-NRG.

kinda trippin out at the revelation benny blanco of http://youaintnopicasso.com/images/spankblanco.jpg fame co-produced "i kissed a girl" and "hot n cold" w/ dr. luke. also has credits on the 3 dr. luke songs on 'circus' and a few 3OH!3( >_<) songs

haha wtf

rly tho

So, did the girl she kissed ever come out of the woodwork to tell her side of the story?

ps, can't believe nobody jumped on this snippet: The Sun-Times says this new song is “capitalizing on the casual kissing epidemic sweeping a generation.”

^^^ Improves on a classic imo

agreed.. except it's not a classic

yes it is.

It doesn't improve on anything but it has its charms and at least it doesn't sound indie-ironic. The original is not a classic, but very good.

http://current.com/items/89973312/saudi_arabia_censors_katy_perry_with_colour_markers.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vil-s82_LM0

haha

fpa itt

i heard a song on the radio this morning and i didn't recognize what it was. after a few seconds i concluded that it was leighton meester singing in that cobra starship song. i thought to myself "this isn't very good singing and these lyrics are not good in the slightest." then the chorus happened and i realized it was "waking up in vegas" and remember that i really like this chorus, but that katy perry is awful at singing. not so much that her voice isn't good (i can't even tell if it is tbh) but that she tries to sing everything so earnestly when it's just some jokey shit. she sounds like a drunk girl doing karaoke. and that is the story of how my 5 minute commute to school reminded me of my dislike for katy perry.

i don't think earnestness is really the problem with her singing

perhaps someone with more fluency in vocal terms can better explain what the fuck she's doing with her throat to get those awful sounds out of it

maybe earnestness was the wrong word but like at least with "waking up in vegas" specifically (i haven't listened to "kissed a girl" or "hot n col" forever or very closely in general) but she was trying to be like super emotive about some motel key and it was just kind of silly.

maybe the video where she's mugging and going O_O at everything has colored my memory of how she sings the song

She muscles a lot of stuff, particularly when transitioning from full voice into head voice; sometimes it works but it's also kind of unsettling. I don't have a huge objection towards her except for when she is tired and singing live (RUN AWAY) but I always want a throat lozenge after hearing one of her songs.

i still can't believe they released a ballad as one of her singles

i thought the same thing about that pussycat dolls single but it was actually a hit

Nicole Scherzinger singing a ballad at worst clashes with her persona; Katy Perry singing a ballad clashes with nature and all that is good in the world

i think you what you guys are all forgetting is

+good versatile voice
-needs to show it off more

i actually find gwen stefani to be the unfathomable woman in the universe. i just don't fucking understand her at all, can't work it out. from that coy ultra ultra girliness to those REALLY ODD gestures and facial expressions she makes in her videos.

it's like trying to talk to Lassie. WHAT IS SHE TRYING TO COMMUNICATE?

it's like the woman in the red dress in Fire Walk With Me. whatthefuck??!?

― Wyndham Earl, Wednesday, January 30, 2002 8:00 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ i keep thinking of this post when i try to articulate how i feel about katy perry

She looks like such a nice person.

PCDs have had several ballads as singles and they've all been great, and i think they jive perfectly with nicole's persona.

i don't think katy perry singing ballads is any more weird than, say, avril lavigne singing ballads, but it's substantially worse.

Haha well yes, this is because Avril Lavigne has a much much MUCH prettier voice!

yeah i meant in terms of persona! but also, from the evidence of her uptempo songs, i would never have guessed avril would have the chops to pull off 'i'm with you' or 'my happy ending' or that other one she did

"Complicated" wasn't that far off from a ballad really

why won't she go away?

katy perry>>>>>avril lavigne>>>nicole PCD

perry has a great voice, imo. perhaps not technically, but I find it hugely appealing, specifically the way that it sounds like she only reaches the high notes by means of a violent full-body spasm.

haha i can't believe i argued with dan about this shit

she has a great voice but her producers still digitally process the vocals so that it sounds like it's going through some subtle autotuning.

LOL @ Perez

http://forum.phun.org/showthread.php?t=427760

i have to tell u that I Kissed A Girl sounds really good today. i'm sorry.

not gonna lie i was groovin big time to "hotn'cold" at work yesterday

yea and the gay song came on at work the other day and i was happy

...

this song new single is pretty good but you can't hear her voice at all? also that strangulated "oh-oh"ing is pretty embarrassing

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/05/katy_perry_teams_up_with_snoop.html

it's very tik tok.

good not great

it's dr luke

i think it sounds more like "party in the usa" than "tik tok", aside from the "oh oh"ing -- i like this a lot actually, def already the best KP single

well it's prob not better than "waking up in vegas", but it's good

she's working w/ tricky stewart too

How far along are you on Katy Perry’s album?
Right now we’re at the very beginning stages. I’m the first producer that she’s gone in with. There’s gonna be two other producers on the album. We feel really great about the stuff that we’re creating so far. We’ve been just writing and writing and writing, so we have really, really good stuff, but we don’t know what stuff is going on the album yet.

What direction is she headed in?
We haven’t really locked in on the songs or even the direction for that matter. We’re trying to write great songs, just really making sure that we have real interesting records that are smashes.

Will the album have an urban sound at all?
She’s doing what she did the last time. It’s pop/rock. It’s a different gear for me. This is a very important project for me ’cause people are waiting to see what I’m gonna do.

What is she like to work with?
Katy’s very, very cool. She reminds me of the type of people that I hang out with in my everyday life. She’s a very fun person to be around. Her energy is great, her spirit is great. We’ve spent a lot of time together in a short period, so I would definitely consider her to be a friend at this point.

What have your studio sessions been like so far?
We’re putting it in. We’re there from 1 p.m. to 5 a.m. That’s pretty much the schedule that I keep in the studio with all the artists that I work with. If they’re not ready to go hard, they don’t usually go in with me.

it's a little too subtle to serve the same function as party in the usa, and a little too tacky to be subtle in a great way, but it's ok. i guess they're trying to season her sound a little, too bad she continues to seem kind of negligible as a pop star.

it's good, i like it. very formulaic but that didn't stop me from liking tik tok. i will deffo be hollering the lyrics to this one sometime this summer. not great but nothing wrong with that. this will still put her back on the map for however much longer that can last.

guess i'll have to wait til LP 3 for her doom metal record

this song new single is pretty good but you can't hear her voice at all?

some coincidence!

yes that fact was certainly not lost on me, let me assure you

loooooool @ "sippin' on gin & juice"

not that bad, but this is definitely second or third tier stuff

This is like K$sha in that on first listens I'm simultaneously appalled and intrigued.

well it's also like ke$ha in that it's the same song with new lyrics and snoop dogg

hahah otm

i genuinely really like "waking up in vegas"

"California Gurls" is a ripoff of "Tik Tok" -- similar melodies, chord structures and attitude.

It's also an improvement in every possible way. This song is so good I can actually feel it melting the stress in my shoulders.

this is a first single???? it sure ain't no "hot 'n cold"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwE-SLnLkqY

The song is growing on me but fuck if she hasn't been taking lessons in facial expressions from Timbaland, and also the spelling as "Gurls" really irritates me.

that....still....i really can't decide whether i love or hate it

"Dr. Luke, Ms. Perry's vocals seem to be pretty buried in your California Gurls mix--

http://i49.tinypic.com/wlq2kn.jpg

The song is growing on me but fuck if she hasn't been taking lessons in facial expressions from Timbaland, and also the spelling as "Gurls" really irritates me.

It's spelled "gurls" as in "September Gurls" as a tribute to the memory of Alex Chilton, who had recently died. I'm not joking!

“And with the death of one of their members, I had just written that song, and he’s like, ‘Katy, just for me, will you please title it ‘California Gurls,’ with a ‘u’? People won’t even know!’ I don’t know the whole catalog of Big Star, but I did it because Bradford is one of my best friends, and I thought it was cool, and you know, the kids like those variations.”

i think you're gay

My approval rating for Katy Perry's handlers has doubled

4%

Just figured out who she reminds me of in every video: Julie Brown. I keep waiting for the joke, but there's no joke? I guess Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun probably doesn't hold up that well in 2010 anyway...

OK here is a PERFECT example why the Billboard charts are totally meaningless and completely full of shit: "Hot 'n Cold" has got to be one of the most played songs of the last five years. I mean, I heard that song everywhere when it was big. I'm talkin' radios, supermarkets, restaurants, like literally anywhere you could hear pop music "Hot 'n Cold" was there, man. But if Wikipedia is correct, then "Hot 'n Cold" only got up to number three! Whereas "California Gurls", which I hope we can all agree is nowhere near the hit that "Hot 'n Cold" was, somehow hit number one and its only been out for like a month! What a crock of shit.

dlp9001 otm like a motherfucker

Snurb, I mentioning what two songs beat it for the top spot might fuck your theory up

drowntown julie brown

I hear "California Gurls" way more than I heard "Hot N Cold"

(It doesn't seem nearly as ubiquitous as "I Kissed a Girl" tho)

You know, I noticed a similar situation with Rihanna a couple of years ago. I used to hear "S.O.S." waaaaaay more than I ever heard "Umbrella," and in fact still hear "S.O.S." way more than "Umbrella." But "Umbrella" was the bigger, more ubiquitous hit.

I think I've heard "SOS" once or twice in the past couple years, and still hear "Umbrella" all the damn time.

Yeah, I hear California Girls more than Hot N Cold and heard Umbrella more than SOS *shrugs*

smirky "fuck me, I'm saucy" attitude, hypocritcal "Ur So Gay" homophobia vs. "I Kissed a Girl" lezploitation + irresistible catchiness of California Gurls despite rank stupidity= Katy Perry makes me grateful for illegal downloading

It's a retread of Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know." The video's purty creative. She's not, though.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/m3-hY-hlhBg&hl=en_US&fs=1&";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/m3-hY-hlhBg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Sorry about that.

http://www.youtube.com/v/m3-hY-hlhBg&hl=en_US&fs=1&

katy perry has only gotten uglier with time

Ugh, that shit song is her then huh? fits.

man, I forget how cute whitney houston was

paid 99 cents for 'california gurls' on amazonmp3

That Whitney track is a great example of how strong unprocessed vocals can enhance even a crap song.

wow yr not kidding. i mean except about that being a 'crap song'

her voice was so unbelievable

every mr snrub post is basically a noisy, exclamatory insistence that "my experience = everyone else's experience"

h8 that shit

hot n cold ended up selling more and amassing more airplay than i kissed a girl did in the long run. the difference, though, was in longevity. i kissed a girl was #1 for weeks because it's just the kind of song that provokes people to buy it in droves for those few weeks that it is mega-popular. crank that (soulja boy) was kinda like that too - seemed ridiculously huge at the time (because it was), but then just kinda faded off into nothingness after people stopped caring. for whatever reason, hot n cold had a much wider window of relevance.

the two songs that held hot n cold off #1, by the way, were live your life and whatever you like.

god i love whatever you like

but tbh i am geting into i kissed a girl in a big way again. yup. hot 'n cold, i honestly think i've only heard it twice. don't even remember how it goes.

u change yr mind like a girl changes clothes

Horrid voice IMO. No variation or subtlety.

this has leaked

in the meantime, here's a not very good produced by tricky stewart

it's only notable for being a total evisceration of TRAVIE mcccoy

http://hulkshare.com/6m5mdjx8fr73

that song was almost enjoyable...almost.

found this in the mission in SF last summer.

http://usera.ImageCave.com/cockstar19/nolove4katyperry.JPG

ha

and that was her only good song up to that point

clever

i lied about this leaking btw

all the song lengths are on wikipedia which usually means it has leaked but the info must be from amazon or something

jfc "california gurls" has an irritatingly catchy chorus - ALMOST enough for me to like it but then i listen to what she's SAYING

"fine, fresh, fierce" --- it's like a cosmo cover come to life!

maybe her next single can be called "231 hot bedroom tips"

i think that's the thing about the song for me - it's a bit more irritatingly catchy than joyously catchy

jfc "california gurls" has an irritatingly catchy chorus - ALMOST enough for me to like it but then i listen to what she's SAYING

"fine, fresh, fierce" --- it's like a cosmo cover come to life!

maybe her next single can be called "231 hot bedroom tips"

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, August 18, 2010 5:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think that's the thing about the song for me - it's a bit more irritatingly catchy than joyously catchy

― janice (surm), Wednesday, August 18, 2010 5:41 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yes, yes, a thousand times yes. i had this precise conversation with someone a couple days ago while drivng around listening to the radio

btw "231 hot bedroom tips" wd make a great song

it's joyously catchy imo

yeah; the song is a strange mix of joyously catchy and insufferable.

the chorus rolls along a bit too smoothly for my tastes, almost as if it's TRYING to aurally simulate a conveyor belt

also the other problem it has is that it accentuates her horrible voice with those "oh oh oh oohh" that sound like a toddler just stubbed her toe

i dunno i just get vibe from that song like salo. force-fed shit in the guise of nourishment. to my mind the people that participated in the creation and recording of this song are pretty much unbearable in their seeming cynicism regarding and contempt for actual human beings. except, it's even worse than that

i said this on some other thread but this song varies wildly in quality within itself. the verses are 3/10, the chorus is 2/10, but the pre-chorus section is 8/10

i actually like the chorus better than the pre-chorus part, but anyhow, the song just comes off like the product of people who in actuality hate california, women, music, singing

I like this song

the prechorus is the only part that kinda throws me off tbh, that prevents it from being a 9/10 instead of the 8/10 it is. it's the part where she sounds most unmistakably like herself

also the other problem it has is that it accentuates her horrible voice with those "oh oh oh oohh" that sound like a toddler just stubbed her toe

all of her vocal mannerisms have that awful quality of throwing a tantrum over a stubbed toe

one of the worst parts for me is the "wo-orld" syllabic breakup...but yeah, everything she does vocally just bugs me, like katy perry, rise to the top of the pop charts and so forth, go go go, but at least pretend to try to make me believe that you could give a shit??

well she's a terrible vocalist but i feel like they found a way to hide it -- or at least window dress it -- with the recent stuff, with the notable exception that i mentioned

i feel like they've produced her to sound more like a "real" singer, instead of the ex-church-girl over-enunciation thing she did. when i first heard "i kissed a girl" she reminded me mostly of emily haines!

i don't get any of the sense of remove some of you are getting, she sounds invested enough to me. tbh, i get a lot more of that sense of cynicism from something like "i kissed a girl" or "ur so gay" (ugh)

i actually do like the verses to this song, and i think her voice is mixed well in them. i just think the chorus could've capitalized more on the build-up. sounds a little easy, a as a place for a melody to go.

i just think the chorus could've capitalized more on the build-up. sounds a little easy, a as a place for a melody to go.

― janice (surm), Wednesday, August 18, 2010 2:58 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm -- this is what i was saying when i said that it all rolls along a little too easily

yes

the "bikinis on top" line is just awful

yup

btw "231 hot bedroom tips" wd make a great song

In the manner of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover."

Pre-chorus section is 11/10.

also the imagery of "so hot it will melt your popsicle" always makes me think that she's talking about killing boners

xps yeah, that's kind of otm, but i'm not sure i'd like a more melodically complex chorus more, it could very easily tip into the kinda chipper pop that drives me nuts

i don't think i have problems w/ any of the lyrics. every line i either like or find inconsequential, pretty much

i unreservedly love the "hot enough to melt your popsicle" line

I asked my friend's five-year-old daughter what songs she liked, and she sang me "Hot 'n' Cold."

five year olds are always great arbiters

i asked my friend's five year old daughter what food she liked, and she vomited half chewed chicken nuggets onto my pants

i unreservedly love the "hot enough to melt your popsicle" line

whaa? i don't think i can even defend one line in this song!

i asked my friend's five year old daughter what food she liked, and she vomited half chewed chicken nuggets onto my pants

awwwww

i kind of feel like california gurls is written for little girls, notwithstanding some of the lyrics - it feels like something little girls shd play dress-up-and-dance to

i just love that image

it's very visual

:o)

ha, that was an xp, sorry surm

way to melt my popsicle?

regarding that lyric, i agree with what katherine st asaph wrote on the jukebox:

Also: sand in one’s stilettos — uncomfortable; melting one’s popsicle — horrific; Daisy Dukes — Southern.

oh lol i thought i was painting a very vivid image for you or something

I see girls in Daisy Dukes and I live in goddamn Oregon.

i kind of feel like california gurls is written for little girls, notwithstanding some of the lyrics - it feels like something little girls shd play dress-up-and-dance to

― janice (surm), Wednesday, August 18, 2010 3:24 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is also otm -- considering even that she dresses up to play in a candyland world in the video!

ramzi has been killing it today yall

i see girls in daisy dukes and i live in ENGLAND, but it's just dumb to cite something of southern origin when you're composing a paean to california

:D xp

I'm not sure they are Southern in origin in anything other than the term. But why does this matter?

i like to pretend she's singing "got my senate on stilettos" and is making a comment on the precarious "footing" of state gov't in CA right now.

xp The image is more important than the signifier.

nothing is more important than the signifier

pop music is structured as a system of differences

I enthusiastically permit gurls of all cultural origins to wear daisy dukes + "bikinis on top"

I find her voice actively, violently, unreservedly obnoxious: hectoring and unerotic, like someone imitating a blowzy tramp.

Her only competition in the fraud department is Alicia Keys.

u know, i bet u'd be surprised how many ppl try to sing like a blowzy tramp

I try my damndest to

u know, i bet u'd be surprised how many ppl try to sing like a blowzy tramp

and she's awful at it!

katy perry has always seemed 2 me like the apotheosis of a certain american cultural formation that combines watered-down protestantism with cloying 'cutesy' infantile sexuality. also characterized by lotsa big "GET IT???" winks and pop-culture references -- I mean the very first line of this song is an "oh-no-she-DIDN'T!" double-nontendre about weed and california ffs

next to Katy Perry, Ke$ha is Joni Mitchell.

ugh lies

I find her voice actively, violently, unreservedly obnoxious: hectoring and unerotic, like someone imitating a blowzy tramp.

yes; i liked how tape store put it a while back, "like sorority goats"

i wouldn't go that far. they're both just bad.

xp re kesha, joni

ugh lies

― janice (surm), Wednesday, August 18, 2010 12:52 PM Bookmark

^^^

ke$ha really more of a bob dylan

I mean, Ke$ha's a better sorority girl/tramp than Katy Perry is with her tease routine.

ke$ha has the most singularly unpleasant voice in pop right now or maybe ever

kesha is annoying personally, k p is annoying ideologically, to me

(and yes, that's "annoying")

i'm really alone in my like of this song here, huh :(

a good part of ke$ha's gratingness is the autotune/production though, whereas even when they try to smoothen katy perry out she still has that unpleasant edge to her voice

i kind of feel like both are pretty near rock bottom as pop stars but ke$ha has more potential to come up with a decent club banger, depending on where production trends go in the next few years and whether she scrubs that autotune vomit off her mouth

the only value Ke$ha has is a dollar sign in her name

The power chords don't do Perry any favors either.

I LOVE typing Ke$ha's name -- you know, that split-second hesitation as your fingers search for the dollar sign.

I find her voice actively, violently, unreservedly obnoxious: hectoring and unerotic, like someone imitating a blowzy tramp.

this is true - perhaps it's even part of the appeal? ("appeal") - but i feel it particularly so with 'teenage dream', in which the pure diabolical foulness of how she sounds i continue to be just kinda thunderstruck by.

No appeal for me. A better singer would make something of "I Kissed a Girl" (by "better" I don't mean technically better, but sure fine). Like, Pink could have done killed it.

i kinda like 'teenage dream'

People woulda thought Pink had actually kissed a girl and liked it tho.

The power chords don't do Perry any favors either.

― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 18, 2010 12:56 PM Suggest Ban Permalink
Bookmark

all the powerchords in "california gurls"?

"I Kissed a Girl"

oh. well i'm pretty sure i'm on the record as thinking "i kissed a girl" is 0/10 ass end of ass

i like the power chords in "i kissed a girl" and i think her voice works well in that song, even tho it sounds contrived

i'm actually not terribly bothered by her voice ::shrugs::

"I Kissed A Girl" is just kind of a new "Never Say Never."

I might like her better if her career was deader.

I find her voice actively, violently, unreservedly obnoxious: hectoring and unerotic, like someone imitating a blowzy tramp.

this is true - perhaps it's even part of the appeal? ("appeal") - but i feel it particularly so with 'teenage dream', in which the pure diabolical foulness of how she sounds i continue to be just kinda thunderstruck by.

thank you. that's what i mean about when i accuse her of not even trying, or of being overly-cynical or whatever, like her singing is like someone who has either never actually been in love or had sexual feelings or appreciates living in coastal california or whatever, or who is an alien making a lazy stab at approximating feelings associated with that stuff

i mean, i realize i may be a sentimental old fool in many areas of life, but i'm not sure i want my pop stars inadvertently subverting the cliches that are an integral part of the tools of their trade in such disturbing fashion. there is something shrill and yeah, good word, "hectoring" in her voice in these songs that bugs me

People woulda thought Pink had actually kissed a girl and liked it tho.

that. don't insult me; try!!!!!!!

thank you. that's what i mean about when i accuse her of not even trying, or of being overly-cynical or whatever, like her singing is like someone who has either never actually been in love or had sexual feelings or appreciates living in coastal california or whatever, or who is an alien making a lazy stab at approximating feelings associated with that stuff

Agreed, it is very off-putting.

i just watched the california gurls video. it's weird. it makes me feel like a grandfather, wondering what the fuck happened to his country.

i can appreciate katy perry's actual voice but her accent is another thing.

how do these kesha songs all sound like 3 yr old blog house

justice defenders, u did this

ke$ha really more of a bob dylan

― I.C.P. Freely (bernard snowy), Wednesday, August 18, 2010 7:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ha ha ha ha ha! Ha! Yes, yes she is.

the video is terrible obv but kind of redeemed by:

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l482sbe6un1qbrus1o1_500.gif

snoop dogg looks the same as he did 15 years ago!

but him being buried in sand up to his neck and having katy perry throw sand in his face: NAGL.