Exactly two years from now, hit wonders like I Kissed A Girl and Hot N’ Cold and among others simultaneously heaved top charts successes. These antics lightly cemented Perry’s hyper controversial yet ultra orgasmic prowess in catchiness and lyricism. This time, she attempts yet again to charm her likeability to the ever scrupulous market with that fruity cocksureness. No. Sugarcoating. Here. Folks!
Almost similarly so, Teenage Dream succeeds in relinquishing her much deserved comeback and more importantly, in awakening the most subconscious in us. And I don’t mean the Nolan’s Inception kind of way but the quirkiness, that abstruse fun we have been keeping sweetly, naughtily. With heavy influences of Queen, Alanis Morrisette, and Madonna thrown into her whirlpool of 70 to 80’s accompaniment enmeshed haughtily by her sugary come-ons and futuristic innuendos, Katy Perry is sure fire exacting her renowned pace.
Teenage Dream picks up from the glorious day that was One Of The Boys. It heavily yet effectively directs us to her alter ego – that is the hypersensitive and thoroughly thoughtful Perry. Amidst the glittery, pinkish flashes we have been catching at any medium there is, any keen audiophile would not beg to let you agree that this California Gurl has indeed matured with her musical menace. Although not your typical, cohesive retrospection, Teenage Dream is unanimously a collection of hits crafted at its most meticulous.
Below are my takes on each track:
1.) Teenage Dream – that ballad which will let us ponder with a smirk about those chances we took for granted when we were still, well, sweet and sugary and naive. That crazy story that was our first romance.
2.) Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F) - fun and ultra shedding of one’s self-control hullabaloos . A damned eargasmic experience since BEP’s I Gotta Feeling.
3.) California Gurls – a sweet retaliation to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ Empire State of Mind. But not really. It is leaning more on glorifying that stereotype on West Coast frolicking women.
4.) Firework – Perry’s house version of wooing hope and fortitude to our very ears. I hope you’d be awakened.
5.) Peacock – This track was obviously created to let us retrospect the I Kissed A Girl and U’r So Gay kind of way. It did not fail. Heck, it is still ringing in my ears!
6.) Circle The Drain - Leaving something that is convenient is most of the time is not frowned upon but celebrated instead. “You have become what you despised, a stereotype. You think you’re so rock and roll but you’re really just a joke.”
7.) The One That Got Away – Reeling in the lost, young love. The woes of leaving undisclosed feelings. Spectacularly weaved into two dimensional yet delusional repercussions rooting from an ecstatically sugary past.
8.) E.T. – The most esoteric in him brings out the ultra surrealistic side of Perry’s emotional vulnerability.
9.) Who Am I Living For? – “It’s never easy to be chosen, never easy to be called.” That being decisive and decided on what you want. My hat’s off for you Perry for touching something in me here.
1 PPearl – A vagrant, narrative track about a girl who loses her strength by letting herself stuck with a drowning man. “She was a hurricane, but now she’s just a gust of wind.”
11.) Hummingbird Retreat – a musical aphrodisiac which delves into a honey-sipping enigma brought about by the instantaneous attraction.
12.) Not Like The Movies – “When he’s the one, he’ll come undone.” An almost realistic juxtaposition of the reality of finding your real match. There is no perfect ending. Just an imperfect perfection of a sweet ending.
Teenage Dream Rating - Sizzle
California Gurls spanned six consecutive weeks on No. 1 in Billboard 100. Teenage Dream is currently topping the said chart.