Regarding Katy Perry and Teenage Dream

I suppose there isn’t a lot to say about either one but I do have a couple of thoughts I’d like to share. First off, Katy Perry is pretty undeniable as a superstar iconoclast which I don’t think is all that hard to be these days. And I’d imagine in another year we will never hear of her again. Just like all the others that came and went before her. Don’t forget one ill-fated teen pop sensation- It’s Britney bitch.

I suppose to older folks (like myself, 38) Katy is in the periphery of our everyday life, somewhere out there lurks this woman we have heard of, but we cannot force ourselves to listen to her because our iPod are full of blasts from the past (Pixies, Pet Shop Boys and perhaps, Jethro Tull..) It’s like my dad who will insist onto his dying day that the Beatles are forever the only rock band that matters and all others that came after are nothing more than shit on a treble clef. Each generation follows the same path in music and we are no different from the ones before us. Did Nirvana change the course of music? Yes. We’re they musical geniuses? No. Did the Beatles change the course of music? yes. We’re they musical geniuses? No. They wrote catchy songs like the hundred of performers that came before them. Anyways, I digress.

Katy Perry isn’t The Beatles and she surely isn’t Nirvana (maybe?) but her album Teenage Dream is surely undeniable as a danceapocalypse. Every bar, party or parade  is immediately hyped to the next level when a Katy Perry song comes blasting over the speakers. Young girls (ages 8 to  31) salute each other with hands in the air making immediate eye contact with each other as the sing along to the opening verse. Not a word missed.

I thought of all of this while watching my son at his friend’s birthday party in a local bowling alley. As Katy P belted out the song (she’s gets your attention by hitting you in the head with a hammer) I watched as the kids joyously scurried back and forth across the slippery bowling alley floors, hands in the air, screaming with delight. Teenage dream, indeed. The bass drum is deafening, thunderous. My own head bobbing with the rhythm and a stupid smile slapped on my face. To be any other way, stone cold and somber, would be to deny the very existence of your own beating heart.

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