"Teenage Dream", the second album by Cali icon Katy Perry, is full of hooks. Witness the two hits that have already been released from it, "California Girls" and "Teenage Dream", and you can't deny the immediacy of the choruses. 


I'm thinking the title track is probably even better, catchiness-wise, than the Snoop Dogg infested "Girls". When the chorus kicks in with a hair-band guitar riff, and Katy's voice soars, it's irresistable. It's like the song was written by a committee devoted to putting in just the right sounds and combinations of instruments to raise a pulse. 


And that's the problem here, especially when it comes to the rest of the record. It WAS written and arranged by a committee, albeit they're a committee of top writers and producers. And missing from that quorum .  .  . ? One Miss Katy Perry. Nowhere can I find a writing credit on any of the songs by the artist in question, although she is mentioned as "composer" in the list of nearly a hundred people that contributed to the album. I'm guessing that "composer" here means "vocal interpretation", because I see no clue that she actually had a hand in putting this whole thing together. 


You know what that makes her, right? 


Britney. 


Just slightly hipper. 


The album is frontloaded with the best of the tunes. Title track, followed by "Last Friday Night (TGIF)", which - while not exactly clever - at least is bouncy and features a short sax solo, followed by "California Girls". 


The rest of the record is all Pink mimicry run through the kinds of techno-trash loops that Lady Gaga rejected. It becomes obnoxious five tracks in with "Peacock", with a less-than-erudite sexual metaphor and a possession by Gwen Stefani's production team. 


And it gets worse with "Circle the Drain". Here's the song story : boyfriend does a lot of drugs, and girlfriend doesn't like it because she doesn't get enough sex. "I wanna be your lover, not your f***ing mother" is the line that is repeated ad infinitum. This girl is going to marry Russell Brand?


The execrable lyrical writing continues with "ET", in which the boyfriend is weird, and the girlfriend likes it. "Who Am I Living For?" is a Pink-esque serious (you can tell it's serious by the minor chords) ditty which I'm convinced is a Praise Jesus song in disguise. "Pearl" is also serious, and the storyline here is : bad boyfriend keeps inspired girl down so she can't blossom. Sample line : "She used to be a pearl/can't believe she's become a shell of herself". 


Without going into any more detail, the music consumer should know that here is an album that was designed to be popular and fun, and just like any music that was focus-grouped, it all comes off as lowest common denominator and bloodless. Nothing to see here. Move along. 


I give "Teenage Dream" a 3 on the England Swings scale of 1-10. 
 
Here's the playlist from Sunday's show : You Me At Six - Stay With Me (Hold Me Down)Example - Last Ones Standing (Won't Go Quietly)Eurythmics - Here Comes the RainOrchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark - If You Want ItRumer - SlowI Blame Coco - QuickerDonovan - ColoursTremeloes - Even the Bad Times Are GoodThe Fab Four Freakout : Beatles - Three Cool Cats (Decca demo)Beatles - Baby It's You (Please Please Me)Beatles - Run For Your Life (Rubber Soul)Beatles - For No One (Revolver)Beatles - In My Life (Rubber Soul)Wombats - Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)Hoosiers - Sarajevo (The Illusion Of Safety)Kinks - Low Budget (Low Budget)Adele - Make You Feel My LoveMylo - Destroy Rock and Roll (Destroy Rock and Roll)Zen - Hair...and this week's top 5 songs in the UK :5). Flo Rida ft. David Guetta - Club Can't Handle Me (-2)4). Eminem ft. Rihanna - Love the Way You lie (-2)3). Taio Cruz - Dynamite (-2)2). Katy Perry - Teenage Dream (new)1). Olly Murs - Please Don't Let Me Go (new)TOP 5 ANALYSIS and REVIEWThe old guard begins to drop out this week, and two new songs enter the top 5 at numbers one and two respectively. There's another new song at the top, which continues the rapid pace of turnover that's been evident throughout the year in the UK. At number five, and inside the top 5 for six weeks now, Flo Rida's paean to being too awesome for the "club" drops two places. This song is a perfect example of the transatlantic sound nowadays - it's a hybrid of R&B, rap, and EuroTechno that seems to have caught on not only in England (where it's actually been around for years), but in America as well. This song is climbing the charts in the USA, currently at number 16. It's smooth, it's hooky, and has that distinctive deep sound that most Guetta-produced songs have. It didn't seem as if the rough-edged Flo Rida would be a match for this, but he carries through with panache. On the England Swings scale of 1-10, this gets an 8.Once again, I won't go into another diatribe on the inferiority and just plain nastiness of the Eminem and Rihanna track STILL in the top 5 in the UK. I'll say this, though - clinky acoustic guitars, morose strings, and a clattery drum track are the only real backing on this rant. I didn't like it to begin with, and nothing has changed my mind over time, even the fact that the song has topped the American charts for seven weeks. That's expected from the USA, but there's no excuse for the British to have kept this track around so long. They should know better!I'm going with a 2. Now, our erstwhile Yank-sounding Taio Cruz, British by way of Nigeria and Brazil, has also managed to keep his track "Dynamite" high in the American charts at number 3, which, coincidentally enough, is the position he has in the UK this week as well. That's a drop of 2 from his number one hit last week. Again - and much like the above Flo Rida - we've got a crossover track with a techno beat and R&B overtones. That's the way to go nowadays! I'm betting most Americans have no idea that Taio is British. It's nice to see an English artist with success in the USA that's not, y'know, Leona Lewis or James Blunt. I give Taio a 7 for this track.Now we come to the new entries - one of them is also an American hit, and the other is someone that the USA has never heard of. Katy Perry has a second smash this year with "Teenage Dream". If anything, the chorus of this song is even stronger than that of the previous "California Gurls". Plus - no Snoop Dogg. Katy is, in some ways, coming off as Gaga Lite with her second album. See tomorrow's blog for a full review of the album, but for now, let's give this song a 7. Now we come to the number one song in the UK this week, and this will take a moment of explanation for anyone not in England, Scotland, Wales, and possibly Ireland. There is a show called X Factor in the UK, which is similar to American Idol in many respects. Singers vie for the title each year, and there is inevitable chart success around the end of the year as the contest ends. This year, the winner was Joe McElderry, a wisp of a middle-of-the-road performer that made a just-after-Christmas number one with a remake of Miley Cyrus's "The Climb". The runner-up of X Factor this year was Olly Murs. "Please Don't Let Me Go" is his debut single, and it's not nearly as bad as it could have been. The winner of the contest almost always ends up scoring with a sappy, Simon Cowell-chosen ballad, but anyone else in the contest can actually be a little clever and explore other musical styles. Thus, Olly becomes a reggae-lite star with this song, and while it's no great shakes, it's not obnoxious and overproduced. It's actually a bit breezy, with an adequate vocal, and even an old-timey vinyl feel at the beginning. I'm giving Olly a 6.5.Album review tomorrow!
 

It's Labor Day weekend here in the USA, which - for those of you not in America - is a consumer free-for-all that takes placed even in a recessed economy. Sales everywhere!


But some of the best things in the life are still free, and that includes the England Swings Show, where we bring you the best, brightest, newest, and coolest music from the United Kingdom. You can find us : 


In Northern Virginia at Cox and Verizon digital cable channels 37 and 837
In Reston, Virginia at Comcast channel 27
Anywhere else in the world at http://www.fcac.org/webr


 . . . and we have all sorts of wonderful stuff today! We have new tunes by You Me At Six, the Wombats, and I Blame Coco. We have older songs by Donovan, the Tremeloes, and Eurythmics. And that's just the start!


Our special features include :


The Fab Four Freakout : Beatles songs!
UK Music News : plans for a reissue of John Lennon's solo work
Top 5 Countdown : the most popular songs in the UK TODAY, with a new number one!


What better way to keep from spending money than to stay home and listen? Hope to see you there!