Listening to
Katy Perry's debut, One of the Boys, it's easy to assume she'll do anything for attention, and a close read of her history proves that suspicion true. Prior to her transformation into a teen sensation,
Perry was a Christian singer operating under the name
Katy Hudson -- an appellation a little bit too close to Kate Hudson, so she swapped last names and started working with big-name producer after big-name producer, cutting sessions with
Glen Ballard and then
the Matrix. That was enough to get buzz touting her as a next big thing in 2004, but not enough to actually get a record into the stores, a nicety that often proves invaluable for wannabe pop stars. Given this long line of botched starts, maybe it makes sense that the 24-year-old starlet is singing with the desperation of a fading burlesque star twice her age, yet
Perry's pandering on One of the Boys is startling, particularly as it comes in the form of some hybrid of
Alanis Morissette's caterwauling and the cold calculation of
Britney Spears in her prime. This fusion is no accident, as
Perry works once again with
Ballard, the producer behind
Alanis' breakthrough
Jagged Little Pill, and
Max Martin, the writer/producer of "Baby One More Time" -- and that's just for starters. She also brings aboard
Desmond Child to give "Waking Up in Vegas" an anonymous, anthemic pulse,
Dave Stewart to give "I'm Still Breathing" a Euro sheen, and
Butch Walker to amp up the amplifiers, giving her a different sound for every imaginable demographic.
All the pros give One of the Boys a cross-platform appeal, but there's little question that its personality is all down to
Katy Perry. She disses her boyfriend with gay-baiting; she makes out with a girl and she doesn't even like girls; she brags to a suitor that he can't afford her, parties 'til she's face-down in the porcelain, drops brands as if they were weapons, curses casually, and trades under-the-table favors. In short, she's styled herself as a
Montag monster.
Perry is not untalented -- she writes like an ungarbled
Alanis and has an eye for details, as when she tells her emo metrosexual boyfriend to hang himself with his H&M scarf on "Ur So Gay" -- but that only accentuates how her wild-child persona is an artifice designed to get her the stardom she craves. Maybe if the music were as trashy as the style, she could get away with it, as it would have been a junkie thrill, but that's where all the high-thread-count producers actually work against One of the Boys. But the real problem is not with
Perry's gender-bending, it's that her heart isn't in it; she's just using it to get places. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine