Teenage Dreams: All Grown Up But Still Nostalgic One Pop Song at a Time

Let me just begin with this, I cannot stop thinking about Katy Perry’s new song “Teenage Dream” – the title track from her forthcoming album which has already given us the world’s most superfluous Snoop Dogg collabo with unnecessary misspelling in “California Gurls” (also, the most recent entry in the long list of pop music earworms you wish you’d never heard). The "Teenage Dream" video is quite boring – lots of beaches and driving in bikini tops and a hot boy and overlong shots of undoing Katy’s jeans and some writhing in a motel room, all filmed in the kind of undersaturated fashion that evokes 1970’s cinema but ultimately seems merely nostalgic for reruns of The OC (helped, of course, by the presence of a former cast member as Katy’s creepy lurkey man crush in the vid). This is presumable the yin to the neon colored yang that was the Candyland themed vid for “California Gurls.” Or perhaps Katy shot her wad (literally if you count her breasts ejaculating with frosting at the video’s close) on being the cartoon character Katy that she plays 24/7 – you know, the one that we’re supposed to believe is hilarious, endearing and Bette Page with gay BFFs. Oh, and did I mention she can’t perform live? At all. Ever. Shouldn’t be allowed.

But back to “Teenage Dream” – aurally the song is nostalgic as well, filled with the language of virginity as a prize, “the first time,” and true love being a boy who likes you without your makeup on (which is funny since Katy cakes that shizz on). Any good postmodernist or feminist worth their snuff knows that nostalgia is so much crap, so much yearning for a capitol-P Past that never really was, or if it did exist was really only in circulation for those with privilege and power. There’s a far distance between theory and life, between words I read and believe and the affective experience of life. We all yearn for earlier, before, younger; I felt it riding into my hometown on a train just yesterday and that feeling shouldn’t be discounted. And “Teenage Dream” evokes that both with lyrics and with the sound of the song which approximates hazy eighties dance song, languid seventies rock.

Now, I don’t believe in guilty pleasures when it comes to music. I love Britney Spears and Lady Gaga and all those people that often times “pedigreed” music lovers like to believe they only embrace ironically. I think if you like it, like it. Leave out the guilt and the games of pretend. It’s the equivalent of those articles in People magazine where celebrities and politicians explain that they’re currently reading the biography of some former US President when you want them to just admit that they like Nora Roberts or the Sookie Stackhouse books. I study pop music academically but even with all that knowledge I still give myself over to the experience of blasting a song on repeat by Tori Amos, or Kid Cudi or Robyn or whoever I am in love with at the moment – no matter how they rate on Pitchfork.com. Having said this, I presented a paper on Katy Perry’s oeuvre arguing that she used the figure of the queer as a ruse to distract a conservative agenda – see the entirety of the singles from her first pop album. And besides “Hot ‘N Cold” I’ve never cottoned to Katy’s lack of an actual voice – her songs are constructed out of personality and the hoarse edges of her limited voice. “Teenage Dream” reveals these flaws unlike “California Gurls” or her song with Timbaland “If We Ever Meet Again” – both singles that evacuate her voice of its character and leave it as another instrument to be tuned and played across the melody.

Maybe I like “Teenage Dream” because there’s something vulnerable in Katy baring her limited voice in such a stark manner – I’m probably just reacting to a fake notion of authenticity, but whatever. I like the song knowing that it could be a great song if someone with a voice sang it, but instead it’s sung by a performer – a pop confection that’s an experience and not a voice. I started this blog to write about songs that are overlooked but worth hearing – this song will not be overlooked, instead it will infiltrate the radio waves, the piped in sound at the bookstore, and everywhere else until you’ll be sick of it. I don’t think I’ll burn out. I’m not prescribing for everyone, but I am wondering about what songs you have had a similar experience with. What are your personal earworms? Not songs that you came to like only after three months of radio onslaught but songs that hit you once and you liked them perhaps against your own personal convictions (“But Britney can’t even sing!”). Think about it; I’ll be here, replaying “Teenage Dream.”