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"&lt;p&gt;There have been countless great pop songs about &amp;quot;California Gurls,&amp;quot; some of them by actual California girls. But Katy Perry&amp;apos;s Number One smash is one of the girliest and most Californian. It sets the tone for &lt;em&gt;Teenage Dream&lt;/em&gt;, Perry&amp;apos;s album about Cali girls: their hopes, their dreams, their desire to hit the skate park in high heels. Throughout &lt;em&gt;Dream&lt;/em&gt;, she chases an all-American teen-pop sound that&amp;apos;s older than the Hollywood Hills. One of her best songs, &amp;quot;The One That Got Away,&amp;quot; sets the scene: &amp;quot;Summer after high school, when we first met/We&amp;apos;d make out in your Mustang to Radiohead.&amp;quot; From there, she just piles on the sun-drenched drama.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;wm:embed type=\"related\"&gt;&lt;/wm:embed&gt;&lt;p&gt;Perry loves to cite vintage movie stars like Jane Russell and Liz Taylor as her biggest influences, and you can hear that all over her music. Even when she&amp;apos;s throwing down with Snoop, she vamps like she gets all her fashion tips from 62-year-old gay bartenders in Palm Springs. It just adds to the mystery that her uncle was the director Frank Perry, who made classic Hollywood movies about psycho ladies having drag-queen tantrums like &lt;em&gt;Mommie Dearest&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Diary of a Mad Housewife&lt;/em&gt;. When Katy Perry is flipping out in a ballad such as &amp;quot;Not Like the Movies,&amp;quot; sobbing on the floor over her tragic love life, she&amp;apos;s in a proud tradition of suburban girls who like their emotional meltdowns Hollywood-size.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Teenage Dream&lt;/em&gt; is the kind of pool-party-pop gem that Gwen Stefani used to crank out on the regular, full of SoCal ambience and disco beats. It&amp;apos;s miles ahead of Perry&amp;apos;s breakthrough disc, &lt;em&gt;One of the Boys&lt;/em&gt;, with her clever songwriting boosted by top-dollar pros: Dr. Luke, Max Martin, Tricky Stewart, Stargate. In the 2010 style, her vocals are processed staccato blips with lots of &lt;em&gt;oh-oh-way-oh&lt;/em&gt; chants. The tracks go heavy on Eighties beats, light on melody, taking a long dip into the Daft Punk filter-disco house sound.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Major themes include: how awesome it is having sex with Russell Brand (&amp;quot;Hummingbird Heartbeat&amp;quot;), how it sucks having sex with guys who aren&amp;apos;t Russell Brand (&amp;quot;Pearl&amp;quot;), how true love rules (&amp;quot;Teenage Dream&amp;quot;), even though it&amp;apos;s not like the movies (&amp;quot;Not Like the Movies&amp;quot;). Perry likes her songs chatty; in the kegger romp &amp;quot;Last Friday Night,&amp;quot; she chirps, &amp;quot;Think I need a ginger ale/That was such an epic fail.&amp;quot; Stargate&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Hollaback Girl&amp;quot; sequel &amp;quot;Peacock&amp;quot; bites a drum hook from Toni Basil&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Mickey&amp;quot; as Perry demands some action, chanting, &amp;quot;I wanna see your peacock-cock-cock&amp;quot; &amp;#x2014; subtle!&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Her Christian back story only comes up once, in &amp;quot;Who Am I Living For,&amp;quot; where Perry riffs on the biblical story of Esther, the Jewish orphan who married the Persian king and uncovered a plot to exterminate the Jews. It&amp;apos;s dark and compelling, especially since she sings it like Rihanna. &amp;quot;Circle the Drain&amp;quot; &amp;#x2014; which Perry presumably wrote about her ex, &amp;quot;Billionaire&amp;quot; singer Travie McCoy &amp;#x2014; is even darker, a kiss-off to a rocker hooked on pills. But she&amp;apos;s more at home with the mall romance of &amp;quot;The One That Got Away,&amp;quot; where she and the guy get matching tattoos on her 18th birthday. When Perry sings, &amp;quot;I was June, and you were Johnny Cash,&amp;quot; it&amp;apos;s understood that she&amp;apos;s thinking of the scrubbed-up Hollywood version of June and Johnny, from Walk the Line. But that&amp;apos;s just part of what makes her such a true California gurl.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/teenage-dream-20100823>