This review covers the pop rock track Katy Perry – I Kissed a Girl.
This track was released in 2008 on the album One of the Boys.
If you’ve never heard of Katy Perry, there’s still a high probability you’ve heard this particular track. This is thanks to the prominence of this track throughout the late 2000’s to early 2010’s.
The track is made famous for the themes in the lyrics. It’s very suggestive of female homosexual leanings at the very least. I will say this up front that I don’t personally have a problem with themes such as this in and of itself.
The problem for me here is the way the themes are set. I can see the argument that the lyrics are supposed to be unapologetic and uncaring about scrutiny. I can also see the argument that it supposed to be supposedly taboo breaking. The problem I find is that it ends up being rather trollish. The track is made to be controversial. It’s designed to get under the skin of people who disagree with the themes. The more it irritates people, the more popular it becomes. Politically speaking, it doesn’t help anyone in the US culture as far as I’m concerned.
The track starts with vocals and general drums. Shortly after, rock elements appear.
When the chorus hits, not only are there rock elements, but also some synth bassline. Some of those elements fade somewhat during the verses. The track ends with one last run through of the main chorus before suddenly just cutting off.
As I’ve mentioned with other tracks, when the track just suddenly cuts off, it makes the listening experience more clunky. In this case, it makes the track rather disappointing because I literally found myself saying, “That’s it?”
In the musical sense, the vocals weren’t bad. They worked well with the blending of other sounds. I also thought the mixture of electronic elements with rock elements worked out better then I thought they would. It’s better then I thought because I’ve heard other mainstream tracks in the past where it simply doesn’t work. In this case, it isn’t bad.
While the blending of elements works, they don’t to much more than carry the track through to the end. There’s nothing much that makes this track really stand out for me. The jarring ending gives this track a disappointing and anti-climatic ending on top of it all.
Overall, the theme is meant to push buttons, but ultimately falls flat. Because of this, the lasting appeal winds up being short lived. The elements from three different genres (pop, rock, general electronica) works out better than many other tracks out there, but there’s nothing that propels this track into the forefront of quality. The sudden cut at the end winds up making this track disappointing because nothing really wraps up the track. A passable track, but nothing special.
Score
6/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
