Banned
Member Since: 4/30/2011
Posts: 38,486
|
TinyMixTapes - 70
Original score: 3.5/5
Quote:
That said, I came into Katy Perry’s music by accident. I listened to it, initially, for the lulz and kept with it because it was the best thing on the radio
|
Quote:
But the reason the reviewer is meaningless — the real reason — is that no matter what I write and no matter what her MetaCritic score is, she will still make millions of dollars. [Laughs] Seriously, more importantly, the real-real reason is that she will still matter — deeply — to the people who love her. I’m glad that neither you nor I can step in their way. Sometimes you just can’t help what you’re attached to.
|
Quote:
There are a couple of points I’d like to make — definitely offhand remarks that I don’t feel the need to back up, as I think the songs speak for themselves.
01. Katy Perry (hereafter KP) claims that “therapy” is the reason these songs exist. There is no doubt that several of them are borne from pretty intense introspection, more than is typically attributed to mainstream pop songs, especially KP songs.
02. In the past (on One of the Boys and Teenage Dream, especially, but even her first self-titled album, if the big Other counts), KP’s songs have been directed to a possessive, masculine “you.” Virtually every song was this way. PRISM is the reversal — not of the masculine you, but of the possession.
03. “Empowerment” gets thrown around a lot, but on PRISM, it shows up as a kind of very pragmatic feminism. Jezebel has already pointed out that KP is “problematic,” and we can all agree. But we can’t live and die by purity tests, and for what it’s worth, I’d rather hear someone sing about the advantages of introspection and making incremental progress than doing molly in a club bathroom. (No offense, I guess.)
04. There are admissions of failure on PRISM, as well as admissions of reaching out to loved ones for support. It’s strange to me that this strikes me as a relatively unique theme in contemporary pop music, but then again, most pop is all party and apocalypse.
05. KP may not present a complex theology, but she presents a complex spirituality, and a complicated understanding of love as it’s experienced — from within and without. There’s something both unfashionable and unmarketable in this that I think is worth consideration, and even respect.
|
|
|
|