“Daddy, what’s à ménage-a-trois?”
“Umm, go ask your Mum”
Embarrassing questions from my kids aside, I love this album. Not only is it chockfull of bangers – four massive ones in Teenage Dream, Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.), California Gurls and Firework – but Katy Perry herself was absolutely banging during this era.
I don’t want to claim that I saw her talent early on, but I could tell she was something special when I saw the music video to I Kissed A Girl. Then, if ever a music video could be constructed with elements from the deepest darkest parts of my brain, the sight of Perry spraying whipped cream out of her tits while she’s wearing lingerie in California Gurls absolutely ended me.
It’s hard to see how she got to this level of laser-sharp smut. She was peddling Christianity on her eponymous first album (under the name Katy Hudson) in 2001. Something must have happened between then and 2007 when she released an EP called UR SO GAY, before her first studio album as Katy Perry, ONE OF THE BOYS, landed in 2008.
If the ménage-a-trois line in Last Friday Night and the whipped cream thing in California Gurls wasn’t enough, there’s a song called Peacock on 2010’s TEENAGE DREAM where she’s essentially asking to see somebody’s penis. You’d think that Perry might not be familiar with the concept of metaphors, but at least she was clever enough to disguise her song about female ejaculation as a female empowerment song called Firework.
It’s definitely a front-loaded album, with the 1-2-3 smash of Teenage Dream, Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.), and California Gurls opening things up. Pop albums can get away with that more easily than rock albums, I think, as everybody wants to get to the good stuff. The non-single album tracks aren’t actually filler either. They just doesn’t have that same lightning-in-a-bottle appeal, and songs like Who Am I Living For? and Pearl have a darker edge that’s more in line with how her career went after this record.
I’m just here for the smut.
Hit: Firework
Hidden Gem: Circle The Drain
Vinyl Stylus 