Katy Perry: Ruining America

OK, just call me Hatey Perry...

I was driving home from class on Monday and I heard the new Katy Perry/Snoop Dogg "collaboration" called "California Gurls." Oh wait no, not that one, try THIS California Gurls. After listening to the song with my jaw on my lap in horror, all I could think was how the hell did we get here?

A quick background on Katy Perry. She grew up in Santa Barbara as the second child of two pastors. She grew up listening to gospel music and singing in the choir. After freshman year in high school, she took her GED, passed, and left high school to pursue a singing career. Her church singing got her noticed and she released a gospel-rock album in 2001. She then got a song on the soundtrack to "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and got signed by Columbia Records. She got dropped 80% of the way through her album there and then got signed by Capital Records. Presumably by this point, Katy realized that she needed to sell out a bit to make it.

Believe it or not, I saw Katy Perry perform (by accident, mind you) at Mezzanine 3 and a half years ago. Nina and I went to their "New Year's Disco 2008" featuring Blaqk Audio, Moving Units and a DJ set by Junior Boys. Katy Perry was one of the openers.

There have been two concerts in my life where I have booed the performer on stage. The first was watching Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil struggle through an entire show where he needed a couple minutes between EVERY song and couldn't sing any of their old songs (not even close). Also, for those of you who like Home Sweet Home, I have never had a song from my adolescence crushed like they did that night.

The second concert where I booed was Katy Perry. I had never heard any of her stuff before, so I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Midway through the show, I started to realize that she was pretty bad. And then she pulled out her song "Ur So Gay." I had to go to the bar to numb the pain. The bartender and I even had this exchange:

Me: "She's pretty awful."
Bartender: "I haven't heard anything this bad in a long time."
Me: "I just want her to finish her set."
Bartender: "At least you can go outside for a cigarette. I have to stay in here."

Now before I rush to judge a song by its title or its introduction (which was something to the effect of "this is my favorite single off my new album... it's called Ur So Gay") and just be completely offended, I might as well read a little bit about the song or listen to the lyrics. Now not everyone agrees with me that calling someone "gay" is offensive, but I see it as akin to calling someone who is being tight with money a jew or any other slur/epithet. As Tommy Woon (who did multicultural education at Stanford) would say, if you had to substitute another word for gay in that context, what would it be? Does you're so gay mean, "hey that's awesome" or is it more like lame, stupid, effeminate, bad?

In Ur So Gay, being gay means essentially being a hipster - caring too much about appearance, wearing lots of black, etc. - or otherwise being non-masculine. Here's the first verse:
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

The chorus is:
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

According to some, this isn't gay-bashing it's calling out the boys who can't handle Katy Perry's edge. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Now I get it. Oh wait, does that mean I'm so gay?

Moving on...
I will admit that some of her songs are catchy. I have caught myself singing "I kissed a girl and I liked it" and even "You're hot and you're cold, you're yes and you're no." Each of these songs has lyrics that toe the line of taste/offensiveness.

You see, here's the thing. If there were just one song with lyrics, I could look the other way, but all of these together? They just reinforce stereotypes:

1) In I Kissed A Girl, she drinks a bit, loses discretion, kisses a girl and hopes her boyfriend doesn't mind.

2) In Ur So Gay... well I've already talked about that way too much

3) In Hot N Cold, you change your mind like a girl changes clothes. Yeah you PMS like a bitch, I would know.

4) And now California Gurls: Sex on a beach/we get sand in our stilletos/We freak/And we're cheap/So play the songs on the stereo. And the chorus: California girls/we're unforgettable/Daisy Dukes/Bikinis on top/Sun-kissed skin/So hot/Will melt your popsicle.

(Wow, when did I become such the curmudgeon?)

What I think really gets me are all the way-too-transparent record studio tricks.

Trick 1: Party songs seem to be the rage right now and we need a party anthem to counter Tik Tok by Ke$ha (who is a train wreck and is also ruining America).
Trick 2: Let's combine an up-and-coming star with a rap star to increase appeal.
Trick 3: Ke$ha sings octave jumps in her song and our surveys show that that is what sets her song apart, let's have Katy Perry do the same thing.
Trick 4: songs that are about a region of the US gain in popularity quicker.
Trick 5: intentionally misspell one of the words in the title because that is what our target demographic relates to.
Trick 6: have unintentionally comedic lack of chemistry between two artists so that it's obvious that the two have never met in person though they have a song together. (Oh wait, strike that last one.)

And that's the end of my rant. There's no way you made it all the way through this. I should probably just accept that I'm not in the target demographic. At all.