Only two cents I’d like to add is…why is our choice down to crappy phony-rebel bitchpop or over-the-hill blandrock? Can’t we vote both out and just move on?!

Ugh..the election is affecting my view of everything.

@Maura Johnston: I’d like to think she says corny shit like that because she came from a strict Christian background. She’s “rebelling” at the moment, even if it is a little weird seeing a 24 year old who equates yelling “penis” with being edgy.

I wouldn’t argue that Katy Perry’s really GOOD, sociologically or musically. But she’s not as bad as she’s sometimes demonized to be.

I, too, would hope we were past the “gay as synonym for stupid” stage in sociological development, but as an 18-year-old male, I can tell you it’s alive and well, along with more vulgar terms.

And, yeah, she’s almost antiseptic as far as her sexuality goes, what with the taste of cherry ChapStick probably the hottest bit of sensuality in “I Kissed a Girl,” but that doesn’t mean she isn’t playing on her sexuality by never showing up anywhere without thigh-to-toe leg or, well, this.

I’d agree with you on the retrograde thing, though; we’re in a “Since U Been Gone” stretch of what I would hope is the Kanye/Justin/Beyonce/Timbaland/Danja Era of pop, and there’s not going to be another anything on par with that wonderful, fantastic song. The best thing not named Carrie Underwood that Idol’s produced.

I’m just wondering if we aren’t yet past the use of gay as an epithet (Ur So Gay), and if we aren’t encouraging at least a tip o’ the hat to the bad old days by letting it pass as acceptable, especially when similar stupid shit pops up in every song whose lyrics I’ve cared to look at. That’s what I mean by hetero-normative. Granted, I’ve disliked her from the first song I heard, so I’m probably not giving this song a chance.

By her music being retrograde, I would say that her music sounds like 5 years ago, except that Dangerously in Love and Justified sound much fresher.

I can comfort myself in knowing that she will have no longevity in dance music without the gays.

@crippledmark: As a college student from a middle class background, being around upper middle class people and seeing Prada sunglasses on a girl today, I’m going to say that the kids in the middle America Perry’s handlers are aiming for is much more like Fresno than Fargo.

This song always sounded like a song by The Sounds, but you know, with a way hotter singer and a video featuring a wacky inflatable arm flailing tube man. I love it!

Do kids in middle America even have the money for Diesel?

I’ll take glammed-up, trashed-out pop nine times out of ten over soulless, cookie-cutter modern rock.

I would personally rather have the person benefitting from exploitation of female sexuality at least be the woman throw to the wolves for the exploits; listen to “Too Drunk to Fuck” or “Lips of an Angel” and you can hear the same cock-rock principles that guided Mick back in the day. Would you rather have assholes or faux lesbians glorified?

Perry comes off as really, really processed, but so did Britney, and Mariah, and Celine; certainly, she’s nowhere near any of those levels, but she’s probably on Jessica Simpson’s, and I enjoyed some of her stuff, too, for its musical value as throwaway pop.

What, exactly, do you mean by retrograde?

Next stop: The new Gym Class Heroes! Come on, you know you want to…