Pop star Katy Perry realizes her 'Dream'
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Katy Perry is dangerously close to falling. Not because she's launching herself into the air with a harness like Pink, or clomping through a Heathrow terminal in 12-inch platforms, like Lady Gaga. This pop star's potential collapse is due to an unfortunate combination of sand, schmoozing and exquisite heels.
At dusk on a squint-inducingly sunny, mid-June evening, Perry's handlers have transplanted a beach party scene, complete with parasols, inflated balls and a sprawling stretch of sand, to the posh New York event hall Espace. About 100 select members of the music industry -- mostly radio programmers, but also Perry's Capitol Records team and the Norwegian production duo, Stargate -- have surrendered their cell phones for the price of hearing nine tracks from the singer's new album, "Teenage Dream."
Most people are huddled by the open bar, and absolutely no one is going near the sand -- except, that is, for Perry, who after setting up each track, traipses back and forth through the pit to greet those in attendance. For this simulated boardwalk bash, Perry's look of choice is a leopard-print Dolce & Gabbana dress, artfully applied makeup and daring peep-toes.
"I don't like sand in my stilettos," she pouts, referencing a lyric from her instant summer anthem, "California Gurls." She teeters back to her stool. "Whoever wrote that line deserves to be fired!"
Perry repeated this scene three more times that month, visiting Chicago, Atlanta and her home base of Los Angeles. Her mission: to shore up support for "Teenage Dream" before its August 24 release, by wooing radio program directors with free cocktails, corn dogs, cotton candy and a first listen to several potential singles.
"We wanted to share the music with people who had been instrumental in supporting her career," says Greg Thompson, executive vice president of promotion at Capitol. Thompson served as Perry's co-host, shrugging and laughing when she introduced the title track by saying in her girliest voice, "I really wanted to call this album 'Teenage Wet Dream.'"
RADIO STAR
Convincing a program director to play a Katy Perry song isn't exactly like pulling teeth. Her singles so far have been strong performers, starting with 2008's "I Kissed a Girl," an ode to bi-curiosity that spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also reached No. 1 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart. The track has sold 3.8 million downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a number eclipsed by Perry's next single, "Hot N Cold," with 4.4 million. Like "I Kissed a Girl," it also topped Mainstream Top 40.
"California Gurls" is the 25-year-old singer's third No. 1 on the top 40 chart -- a commercial coup, to be sure, but Perry is the first to admit that "Gurls" doesn't quite boost her artistic credibility. "I'm not saying, 'Oh, my God! "California Gurls" is a f---ing genius opus!'" Perry says. "I just know what kind of card this summer needs, and that's the one I'm playing."
Perry is calling from Paris, where she's been promoting "Teenage Dream." She's snuggled up under a blanket because, she whispers, "it's just so comfy, and I want to give a good interview." In London just a few days earlier, she mastered the album's remaining tracks, and before jumping on this call she did more fine-tuning.
"I literally was just looking through the lyrics, making sure they're all head-to-toe, A-to-Z perfection because they're putting the copy in the actual booklet now ... we're in the thick of it, people!" she says.
"California Gurls" has broadened Perry's fan base well beyond the average top 40 listener. "(It reached) No. 1 on top 40, No. 1 on hot AC (adult contemporary), No. 4 at rhythm crossover, it's climbing up the AC charts, and it's even showing spins at urban," Thompson says. "That is a game-changer when it comes to defining the audience for Katy Perry."
Perry says she wanted "Teenage Dream" to have more tempo than "One of the Boys" in order to make her live show more dynamic. "I really love going to shows where I'm sandwiched between people, and you don't know if the sweat on you is yours or the person's next to you," she says. "I love that feeling, and when I was on tour I would see that I was missing that a bit."
Serial hitmakers Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald and Max Martin were on hand to ensure that "Teenage Dream" bounced as much as rocked. "Katy definitely knows what she wants and doesn't want," says Gottwald, whose five credited songs include "Gurls," "Teenage Dream" and the celestial hip-hop track "E.T.," which he'd originally intended for Three 6 Mafia.
"We really went for a feel-good '80s vibe" on "Teenage Dream," says Benny Blanco, who worked with Gottwald and Martin on the title track as well as "Gurls."
"I love what I get out of them," Perry says of Gottwald and his cohorts. "It's just pure, unabashed pop, and they definitely have the Midas touch when it comes to radio."
Perry also found new collaborators in Stargate and Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. Stewart produced "What Am I Living For," "Hummingbird Heartbeat" and "Circle the Drain," a Pat Benatar-inspired number about Perry's ex-boyfriend, Gym Class Heroes frontman Travie McCoy. (She's now engaged to British comedian Russell Brand.) "It's kind of like my 'You Oughta Know' Alanis Morissette moment," says Perry.
Even among all these superstar producers and songwriters, Perry says she stood her ground creatively from start to finish. "I'm in the studio fighting with them to change the melody, or I'm fighting for the best lyric at all times," she says. "I think we rewrote 'Teenage Dream' five times for 10 days straight. On the last day, I was so happy to finally get somewhere that we all agreed on."
PUSHING BUTTONS
If radio embraces the album's risque "Peacock" -- a phallus-fetishizing song that Perry calls "a silly play on words ... an obvious innuendo, and I love an obvious innuendo" -- it will be in part because Perry already proved with "I Kissed a Girl" that she can sell sexual taboos with the best of them.
"I knew that song would open up doors, but I also knew that it wasn't going to make me a critics' favorite," Perry says of her breakout single. The blessing and curse stick with her two years later. Even as she continues to rack up hits -- all of which she has co-written, and many of which she has conceived, "California Gurls" included -- it's safe to say that Perry isn't generally considered as self-directed as Lady Gaga, who endows her every move with the air of performance art.
Perry insists that no matter how tongue-in-cheek her songs, statements or outfits can be, she's always true to herself. "I'm not coming out trying to prove anything to anyone, like, 'Oh, I'm in assless chaps!' or 'I can't be tamed!'" Perry adds. "I've already been through that phase. I started at 23, you know?"
Nor does she regret having sent a caustic Twitter message about blasphemy just hours after the premiere of Gaga's "Alejandro" video. "(Spirituality) is just important to me," she says. "The details of the importance are still to be determined, I guess ... It's one of those things that as the older you get and the farther you try to run away from your parents, you just turn right around and they are embedded into your DNA."
'WALKING CARTOON'
As Perry's star rises, so do opportunities to branch out. For instance, she's lending her voice to the animated character Smurfette in a "Smurfs" movie slated for 2011. "I am a walking cartoon most days, so it was an obvious go-to," Perry says. "I would love to do more of that ... to be a desk lamp in a Pixar movie or something stupid, like a fork! A spoon! A knife!" A fashion line and endorsements have also been discussed, but Perry insists that for now, her focus is on building her music career.
That will mean releasing more songs from "Teenage Dream" after "California Gurls" runs its course. Perry believes that "Fireworks" will be a defining single for her. "It's a song where I think my purpose to some people might change when they hear it," she says.
As Perry tells it, the inspiration for the song came from an unlikely source. "Basically I have this very morbid idea ... when I pass, I want to be put into a firework and shot across the sky over the Santa Barbara ocean as my last hurrah," she says.
"I want to be a firework, both living and dead. My boyfriend showed me a paragraph out of Jack Kerouac's book 'On the Road,' about people that are buzzing and fizzing and full of life and never say a commonplace thing. They shoot across the sky like a firework and make people go, 'Ahhh.' I guess that making people go 'ahhh' is kind of like my motto."
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