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Before you ask: No, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” is not a cover of Jill Sobule’s song, although by the time you get through the first verse of the above clip I bet you’ll be missing that 1995 track’s relatively subtle charms. No, Perry’s song–which I heard on New York’s top 40 station, Z100, multiple times while driving around this weekend–is a stomping bit of electrotwaddle that’s half “Rock & Roll, Pt. 2″ and half rejected Tila Tequila track with a dollop of Orgy, backed by a band who sounds like it got its start as one of those generic school-dance outfits that you see on your second-tier teen comedes. And its lyrics read as if they were scripted by a Girls Gone Wild producer who was feeding post-makeout lines to two reluctanct subjects–and then somehow made less poetic in re-editing.
No, I don’t even know your name,
It doesn’t matter.
You’re my experimental game,
Just human nature.
It’s not what good girls do,
Not how they should behave.
My head gets so confused,
Hard to erase.
“Erase” doesn’t even sort of rhyme with “behave”! But wait, there’s more:
Us girls we are so magical,
Soft skin, red lips, so kissable,
Hard to resist, so touchable.
To good to deny it.
Ain’t no big deal,
Its innocent.
In a lot of ways, “I Kissed A Girl”–with its completely unerotic attempts at being “sexy” and pleading insistence that Katy does, in fact, own her sexuality, and that her emergent bisexuality “no big deal” even though it’s clearly enough of a big deal for her to proclaim, ad nauseam, that she “liked it” to the world in her overly strident voice–is the perfect song for 2008, a year in which concepts like “subtlety” and “selling your talents” and “thinking that people who attention-whore themselves are kinda cheesy” are kicked to the curb by people like, well, Tila Tequila and Katy Perry. Surely it’s only a few more months until she gets a Blender cover of her own.
Katy Perry – I Kissed A Girl [YouTube]
i’m working on my own version called, “I Supermanned a Ho”
As bad as this is, it’s not even her worst song (”Ur So Gay” holds that esteemed honor):
Ur So Gay
between these two songs, you’d think we could get GLAAD to do something about her so we don’t have to argue the more esoteric point that her music and lyrics suck ape wang.
ps – welcome to Diablo Cody’s America.
“Perry’s song-which I heard on New York’s top 40 station, Z100, multiple times while driving around this weekend-is a stomping bit of electrotwaddle that’s half “Rock & Roll, Pt. 2″ and half rejected Tila Tequila track with a dollop of Orgy, backed by a band who sounds like it got its start as one of those generic school-dance outfits that you see on your second-tier teen comedes.”
Sold?
Seriously, I hope this blurb is attached to all of the press releases that get sent out to various radio stations and critics along with the single.
The line “I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it” suggests a total lack of understanding about men.
She’s got great boobies. I’m sold.
@westartedthis: I would actually love to hear “I Supermanned a Ho.”
“I Kissed A Girl,” not so much.
@owenmeany: most of the time that’s all it takes for me too. high fives all around.
@Stafford: You can’t download boobies.
Does she at least sing the line “And I might do it again!” with disarmingly sweet earnestness?
P.S. Is it okay for me to blame Elliot Spitzer for this mess?
I’m blaming Evanescence for this one — she sounds exactly like Amy Lee (I had to google that, thank god) to me.
@Poubelle: I can’t help it, it was the first thing I thought of! I will, however, admit that Lee is certainly better than this.
@janine: well…that could be argued. At the end of the day though, there’s always imaginationland.
I was thinking she sounded like Pink. Do you really think Diablo Cody would endorse something like this, though?
@capnbecki: Nah, it needs more misused cultural references.
Fun fact: According to her wikipedia entry she released a Christian gospel record in 2001. Her parents must be so pround.
@The Van Buren Boys: *proud
Wait, she liked kissing a girl…Whoa, I totally didn’t see that coming!
Oh my god:
“I’m curi…ous for you.”
Seriously?
@Audif Jackson Winters III: Nope.
@brasstax: Thanks for that. I’m going to go pour bleach in my ears now.
Hands down the best song on the radio since Pink’s “U + Ur Hand”.
@Audif Jackson Winters III: I had trouble detecting any human emotion at all underneath all that auto-tune.
@The Van Buren Boys: OOH MY GOD – is THAT who this is?
i’m pretty sure i read about her “transformation” (the CCM album was released as Katy Hudson) something like 4 or 5 years ago. friends, this one’s been on the shelf for a loooooong time. well, kudos to the kid for finally “breaking through.”
Speaking, when’s that Tatu movie coming out?
@dana danger: I don’t remotely like Evanescence, but that’s pretty unfair to Amy Lee, who does have a decent set of pipes to support her gothic angst.
Both do have fantastic racks, however.
She sounds like Meredith Brooks to me.
Even good boobs can’t save crap like this. Makes me wish I were straight, I swear.
i dont understand what everyone’s deal is. i love this song. i think it fits today’s world perfectly. what with tila tequila and a bunch of celebrities displaying their sexuality i think it’s totally and completely normal. i give props to Katy for being confident with her sexuality -gay, bi, or straight – and creating this unique song.
“i think it fits today’s world perfectly. what with tila tequila and a bunch of celebrities displaying their sexuality…”
thank you for making my point. (do you honestly really think that tila would be as “open” with her sexuality if it hadn’t garnered her a food-fetish-competition-filled mtv show?)
you may be right, but it’s cool she did even though it is a huge mtv show. but i’m glad to see someone else stating their opinion even if it doesn’t bring them fame and glory.
You might want to check your lyrics before bashing them.
“No, I don’t even know your name, it doesn’t matter. You’re my experimental game, just human nature. It’s not what good girls do, not how they should behave. My head gets so confused, hard to OBEY.”
While it’s not a direct rhyme with behave, obey makes a lot more sense than ‘erase’.
It’s a decent song. Sure, it’s less serious than I’d like, but it’s actually some DIRECT claim of alternate sexuality in music as opposed to the strongly heterosexual focused music industry.
I mean even T.a.T.u.’s music had as much ‘gay’ content as any other band. The only reason anyone took the song that way was because of the gratuitous amounts of references in the actual music video.
@AceGreco: Forgive me for quoting a site that wasn’t 100% certain of the lyrics.
But don’t you think that any claims of “alternate sexuality” in this song aren’t there because *she* likes it, but for the titillation of others?? She’s basically doing the “show my boobs to the girls and hope the boys like me for it” thing that so many sorority sisters have done while being filmed by Joe Francis in song. The whole thing feels absolutely joyless, an exercise in objectification that turns even the objectifier into a complete stone.
@xoblazeofgloryxo: I guarantee you Tila will cease referring to herself as bisexual within the next five years.
This song just plain ripps off Jill Sobule’s original in spirit by borrowing on her song title alone. Sure the songs are different, but I believe the only reason people would be curious about this new version is because they are confused about the “branding” of the song with Jill Sobule’s original title.
Shame on this artist and EMI for pulling that crap!
I like the original song much much better anyway.
Seems like Auto-tune has a new power user.