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It's hard to imagine pop culture or, well, life in general without Katy Perry, but our little Teenage Dream Girl only dropped into our lives back in 2007 or so. Now, just a few short years later, she's gone from kissing girls to getting hitched, wowed us with wigs in every color of the rainbow, ridden everything from a banana to a cloud to Russell Brand (sorry), and released not one but two smash albums. In fact, the second one, last year's Teenage Dream, just helped Ms. Perry set a new record: she's the first-ever female singer (and only the second-ever artist, after Michael Jackson) to have five No. 1 singles from one album.

Teenage Dream takes its subject matter seriously: like teenagerdom in general, it is angsty, dramatic, hormone-ridden, at times annoying, near-universal and, oh yeah, a lot of fun. Perry's retrospective on adolescence and its attending aesthetics of emotional theatrics, colorful vibrancy, neo-jailbait vixenry and head-cheerleader camp are mined from a wide array of sources. In other words, peppermint candy-bras (and Russell Brand) notwithstanding, the girl's got surprisingly good taste. So dig in — and listen up! — to our exploration of the roots and routes that led to the record-breaking Teenage Dream. Katy lovers and haters alike will find plenty of favorites — and surprises — here! Be sure to also check out our Source Material: Katy Perry, Teenage Dream playlist.

Her days of kissing girls may be over, but Katy Perry is still one of pop’s most compelling and colorful figures. And with the successes of her smash singles “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream,” she’s also one of music’s biggest superstars. For her sophomore album, Perry floats the kitschy aesthetic of '80s teen movies in a meditation on youth as a metaphor for love, fun and emotional turmoil. But don’t worry, this is meditation as keg stand, and Perry is as over-the-top and fun as ever. Listen to the album below, and be sure to check out all the special features we’ve lined up to reveal the wickedly wild world of this teenage dream.

	Rhapsody reviews Teenage Dream			Read our Camp Rock album guide
	How duets with hot young things breathe life into aging artists' careers			Listen to a hot mix of Cali-centric Pop
	Check out our Pop Hits Radio			Explore Katy's full discography

The concept of youth as a metaphor — for love, for fun, for emotional turmoil — couched in an '80s teen movie aesthetic suits Katy Perry, who is both a bit juvenile and fond of a good gimmick (see also: girl-kissing). It's also pretty friendly territory for pop music in general, with its fountain-of-youth, 60-going-on-16 fixation on all things pretty and young, and Perry's got a slew of solid, stick-to-the-walls-of-your-brain pop tunes here.

Teenage Dream starts out in party mode — or at least in halfhearted party-regret mode (and we all know Perry loves to play the naughty girl): the '80s teen movie soundtrack-ready title track (think "I Think We're Alone Now" meets "More Than Words"), the '10s teen-movie soundtrack-ready "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)." Then K.P. spends the second half getting all angsty: the high-drama, industrial-lite dance track, fascinatingly silly "E.T." nails it, while stabs at seriousness like "Who Am I Living For?" (which also seems to be a bit steeped in Perry's contemporary Christian music past) are a bit hard to swallow from an artist with a penchant for riding giant bananas.

If at least five or six of these tracks don't immediately start rattling around in your head, we'll eat Perry's giant banana. They are near-perfect pop confections: light, fluffy, easy to swallow. But while that makes for good pop, it doesn't necessarily do a whole lot for Perry, an artist with a smallish, blandish voice that tends to make all her hooks run together a bit. She's also an artist who might be in the throes of an identity crisis, now that Lady Gaga and Ke$ha have come along and out-freaked and out-trashed her, respectively, and the girl who once kissed girls is now a respectable married lady (well, more or less). Most of the camp and sass that made One of the Boys such a Technicolor dream is gone, apparently replaced by the new, candy-coated, mall/malt-shop shtick. The sole exception is the oh-so-subtle "Peacock," which is perhaps Perry's most distinctive song to date — and sounds almost nothing like her. In other words, despite (or perhaps because of) all its pitch-perfect conceptualizing, Teenage Dream doesn't do much to tell us who Katy Perry is.

What's new? What's good? What will you find here that you won't hear anywhere else this week? Sit back, relax and click through to the premieres, the originals and the exclusives available only on Rhapsody! This week:

Katy Perry, "Hot N Cold (Rock Remix)" (Rhapsody Exclusive)

Anberlin, TK (Rhapsody Premiere)

The Higher, Rhapsody Original (Rhapsody Exclusive)

 

by Chris Ryan

Of the many success stories in 2008 (the Celtics, Obama, landing on Mars), none is more surprising than the emergence of Katy Perry. The California-born singer-songwriter has melded her quirky, witty tunes with high-end/high-gloss production from a murderer's row of hitmakers (Dr. Luke, Max Martin) to make a debut album, One of the Boys, overloaded with would-be hits (to compete with her certified hit "I Kissed a Girl"). Here, Perry talks about song arrangements, the writing process and dealing with the inflated egos of producers.