I Kissed A Girl

So my sister sent me a link to this song. The first listen through, I thought it was kind of catchy and meant to be titillating. Then, I paid attention to the lyrics the next few times it went on rotation, and UGH - pretty much sums up my feelings. It's about as shallow and gimmicky as Madonna kissing Britney and Christina onstage at the VMAs. I mean, yeah, it'll make the guys smirk, but that's about all the lasting value it has. What makes it worse is trying to listen to her 'explain' the meaning behind the song.

200 Km/H in the Wrong Lane did it first and did it better.

Jesus H. God, this song is horrible - blunt, blatant lipstick lesbianism coming from the same craven attention whore who gave us "Ur So Gay", (a sledgehammer attempt to traffic in the sort of casual homophobia common in high school locker rooms), paired with worn-out electro beats that not even the most desperate drag queen would consider lipsyncing over.

If anything this girl's ever made comes within a mile of flirting with the idea of sincerity, it's by accident. That Christian-music phase she went through didn't pay as big as she thought it would, so the secular world got this spit-polished turd unceremoniously shoved in its face, and lapped it up. Maybe they're putting something weird in the water, but it's selling. Which means I'll not only have to deal with this ugly, insulting, condescending excuse for a song for another few months, but a few more down the road, there'll be another album.

And if that one sells, we the people can look forward to the looming possibility, like a big, fat, fecal cloud on the horizon, that Perry might spawn imitators. Ripoffs of a fabrication. Imitations of an imitation of an imitation of something that might have brushed substance at some point.

Katy Perry, stop. For God's sake (God, remember? That guy you used to be so keen on before He, in His infinite wisdom, gently tried to give you a hint by preventing your records from selling?), for the children's sake, for Susan Sontag's sake, for Patti Smith's sake, stop. You're not a lesbian, you're not a musician, you're not a Christian, you're just embarrassing.

While the song title caught my attention when first hearing this song (hey, that's a girl singing!), it was the power-pop production that held the singer-songwriter part of me in. Crunchy guitar, piercing sexy vocal, solid back-beat and a fun melody. But there was something about the song that I couldn't identify so I picked up my acoustic guitar and started playing along with the song. Sure enough, I had heard this song, at least the main chord progression, before. It was from the song, Heartbreaker, released by Pat Benatar in 1979 (the progression is actually a fairly standard pop/rock one, although IKaG has left out a passing chord). While sharing the same main chord progression and tight rhythm guitar, the slower tempo and different melody make IKaG more pop than rock. Re-listening to Heartbreaker, it doesn't have the same sound quality that IKaG has (high compression and crystal-clear, digital recording), but you know that the vocals are all Benatar's, no need for pitch correction or excessive vocal processing (think warbly vocals), thank you very much. Still, I like both songs a lot for different reasons.

Mmmm, cherry Chapstick!

I don't care about lyrics. Life is too short to get upset about that. For those with kids, it's nothing a parent can't explain. I'm surprised at the negative reviews because this is a GREAT song. It has a fantastic beat, and one of the few songs that I regularly hit the |<- (repeat) button on my MP3 player over and over. Much better than most "garage band" music that's out in recent years.

This is a song that I would not want any of my teenagers listening too. I won't listen to it again!