REVIEW (Music): Teenage Dream
READING TIME: 5 MINUTES
10 years ago with her candy land motifs, innocent childhood fantasies and self-empowerment messages Katy Perry whipped up a light hearted sophomore project as sweet as the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was cute, family-friendly and most importantly captures those familiar feelings of teenage love. Re-listening to the tracks confirms that they are deliberately sweet and still remain everyone’s guilty pleasure as its themes mean anyone can relate to the highs and low of teenage life.
The album’s formula evokes instant gratification due to Max Martin’s inviting hooks and Katy’s simplistic lyrics are like ear-candy (Martin recently commented his master production technique is ‘simplify simplify simplify’, of which Katy benefitted from). Teenage Dream may not display a critical trajectory in artistic excellence from her 2008 record One of the Boys but this record shows she meticulously planned its entire sound for commercial obliteration and omnipresence. She and Max gave clean crisp major chords in the SoCal pool pop hits ‘California Girls’ and ‘Last Friday Night’ to sonically contrasting yet suspenseful teenage puppy-love anthems ’Teenage Dream’ and ‘ET’.
Listening 10 years later, Teenage Dream still ignites the nostalgia in our lives when we lived in guilt-free innocence and ironically at a time where our self-esteem was severely challenged and our identity was still being carved out…we shouldn’t have taken life at this period as seriously as we did. Katy rallied with this idea and became the inspirational pop singer we know her as today using ‘Firework’ - this single in particular conveys that we should feel limitless, an element of being a teenager, when feeling limited. This identity may have originated from Perry wanting to relive and fulfil her teenage years again as a counterpoint against the fundamentalist Christian upbringing she lived through. However, the album themes' double-edged sword became the demise of her popularity today and she wasn’t able to shake off her goofy generic pop identity with her consecutive projects. This is most evident in her 2017 song ‘Chained to the Rhythm’ where she shoots herself in the foot for making a social conscious mockery out of…herself.
Anyways just like Michael Jackson's Bad (where she equalled the feat of 5 #1 singles from one album) every song from 'Hummingbird Heartbeat' to 'Circle the Drain' is mastered for commercial appeal with each consecutive song containing its own catchy grooves and hooks. For artistic hippie nerds wanting substance maybe this album can come across as easy-listening and transparent. Yet for the casual listener it’s a mesh of feel-good upbeat tunes and a vivid sound and image of its time. With that being said that’s the magic of this polarising album because no matter how you feel, the album and singles' intention and reward with immense commercial success locked Perry as a unforgettable figure in our early 2010s time portal.
California Girls
Teenage Dream
Firework
E.T.
Last Friday Night (Thank God It’s Friday)
The One That Got Away
