I'm out of the loop on new music right now, I will freely admit this. But I ran across something new this morning - purely by accident!
I'd logged into iTunes to download the latest New Yorker fiction podcast to my iPhone, when I noticed a promo for Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl". Wondering if it was a cover of Jill Sobule's hit from back in the day, I clicked through to listen to the thirty second clip. I found out it's not a cover of Jill's old song, and I found out that I liked the track. I liked the production. I also liked Perry's voice. There are traces of Rihanna's "S.O.S." in the song, but it still sounds fresh. Here's the video:
Who is Katy Perry?, I asked myself. Judging by the prominent ad placement by Capitol on the iTunes store
home page, clearly she's a heavily promoted and marketed artist. She's all glammed up on this big budget video. But judging by her lyrics and the cover of her Ur So Gay EP, she's coming across as irreverent and
unpolished, the opposite of the stereotypically calculated puppets of
pop.
Intrigued enough to want to listen to her other songs, I fired up Rhapsody to find out what else I could hear of hers. All I could find was an EP featuring the single "Ur So Gay" which berates the subject of the song ("I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf.../You're so sad.../You're so skinny...") followed by the refrain "You're so gay and you don't even like boys". At first, being the New Yorker-reading fuddy duddy I am these days, I bristled at the lyrical content, worrying about the possible re-popularization of using the word "gay" in a derogatory way. I mean, retro production and imaging can be fun, but there are other areas where taking a step backward is not cool. But, perhaps the song "I Kissed A Girl (and I liked it)" can do some good for tolerance, rather than just encourage teen girls to kiss their best girlfriends in order to attract and impress teen guys?
But let's talk about the real offense: the third track on the Ur So Gay EP is a cover of The Outfield's "Your Love" (I got the cover wrong in an earlier draft of this post - I blame blogging after a long day). Well, not so much a cover as a reinterpretation, complete with new lyrics and the destruction of some of the best hooks of the song ("tonight, tonight, tonight!" Terrible!). Let's face it - "Your Love" is a pop masterpiece and just shouldn't be covered. By anyone. For any reason. Go buy the original, everyone, young and old -- it holds up. (I'd show you the amazingly '80s video here, but it's another case of embedding disabled by request. Thanks, Sony/BMG!)
The final track on the EP, "Lost", is a belter-ballad that might as well have been recorded by Kelly Clarkson and promoted and performed on an episode of "American Idol". It's so sincere! Where did the edginess go? I won't even get into the Christian gospel album Perry (née Katheryn Hudson) recorded back in '01, because we all reserve the right to change our minds.
But the question still remains: Who is Katy Perry?
I'd logged into iTunes to download the latest New Yorker fiction podcast to my iPhone, when I noticed a promo for Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl". Wondering if it was a cover of Jill Sobule's hit from back in the day, I clicked through to listen to the thirty second clip. I found out it's not a cover of Jill's old song, and I found out that I liked the track. I liked the production. I also liked Perry's voice. There are traces of Rihanna's "S.O.S." in the song, but it still sounds fresh. Here's the video:
Intrigued enough to want to listen to her other songs, I fired up Rhapsody to find out what else I could hear of hers. All I could find was an EP featuring the single "Ur So Gay" which berates the subject of the song ("I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf.../You're so sad.../You're so skinny...") followed by the refrain "You're so gay and you don't even like boys". At first, being the New Yorker-reading fuddy duddy I am these days, I bristled at the lyrical content, worrying about the possible re-popularization of using the word "gay" in a derogatory way. I mean, retro production and imaging can be fun, but there are other areas where taking a step backward is not cool. But, perhaps the song "I Kissed A Girl (and I liked it)" can do some good for tolerance, rather than just encourage teen girls to kiss their best girlfriends in order to attract and impress teen guys?
But let's talk about the real offense: the third track on the Ur So Gay EP is a cover of The Outfield's "Your Love" (I got the cover wrong in an earlier draft of this post - I blame blogging after a long day). Well, not so much a cover as a reinterpretation, complete with new lyrics and the destruction of some of the best hooks of the song ("tonight, tonight, tonight!" Terrible!). Let's face it - "Your Love" is a pop masterpiece and just shouldn't be covered. By anyone. For any reason. Go buy the original, everyone, young and old -- it holds up. (I'd show you the amazingly '80s video here, but it's another case of embedding disabled by request. Thanks, Sony/BMG!)
The final track on the EP, "Lost", is a belter-ballad that might as well have been recorded by Kelly Clarkson and promoted and performed on an episode of "American Idol". It's so sincere! Where did the edginess go? I won't even get into the Christian gospel album Perry (née Katheryn Hudson) recorded back in '01, because we all reserve the right to change our minds.
But the question still remains: Who is Katy Perry?