Katy Perry: Then and now

Before Katy Perry exploded onto the pop charts with her 2008 album ‘One of the boys,’ she was a ‘gospel singer,’ for lack of a better term. She had one album to her credit, ‘Katy Hudson’ (her real name), released in 2001, which consisted of Christian themes of salvation, forgiveness and grace.

The contrast between her bad girl persona now, and her ‘born-again’-ness then, as well as the difference in musical content from her indie debut and her later success, is quite striking. The only parallel I could think of is how heavy metal band Pantera changed from a ‘glam’ band in the 1980s, complete with makeup and lame nicknames, to one of the heaviest and most ‘bad-ass’ thrash groups that ever existed.

The present article focuses on Katy Perry’s musical evolution, with only secondary regard for her particular image, reputation and personal life.

Even stripped of the lyrical content, we can see a huge, positive leap from her 2001 debut to her 2008 and 2010 albums, in terms of songwriting and production. Part of this can be attributed to Katy’s maturity, since she was only 16 when she did ‘Katy Hudson.’ In the time between her first two albums, I am pretty sure that she picked up a thing or two about writing good songs, how to develop musical themes and structure them appropriately.

But I believe a larger part of this improvement in songwriting has to do with the larger capital at her disposal in doing a major label album. Back in 2001, she was signed to Red Hill Records, a Christian music label that incidentally folded up in the same year. It’s no wonder that she didn’t have too many resources at her disposal.

In writing ‘One of the boys’ seven years later under Capitol Records, she not only had more personal experiences and musical education, but she also had access to the most renowned and established songwriters in pop music history. When you hear something like ‘Waking up in Vegas,’ there are some subtleties in the chord changes, and a seamlessness to the arrangement, that tells you that a 24-year-old hottie could not have written it by herself. Sure enough, we find that she had co-writers for the song, in particular Desmond Child, whose success in the 1980s with Bon Jovi and Aerosmith resulted in tens of millions of records sold. 

It is a wise rule of thumb to underestimate an attractive young lady singer’s role in composing a song, and to look to the producer and other people involved in creating the record, to determine who is responsible for the fine quality of songwriting.

This is not meant to be a sexist dig; it’s just a fact that a lot of musical performers get by and sell tons of albums largely on their looks. This is also true for boy bands. If anything is to be criticized, it’s the shallow standards appreciated by teenyboppers and ‘emo’ kids who know nothing about real music and have no sense of musical history. Oh well, whatever makes them happy, right?

But going back to the issue at hand, oftentimes, the performer of the song, in this case, Katy Perry, is credited more than she is responsible, for having come up with the song. It is likely that she hummed a tune, maybe came up with basic and tentative chords underneath, after which the song was ‘refined,’ perhaps even overhauled by a producer or professional songwriter, to come up with a superior final product.

Oftentimes, the performer merely comes up with lyrics and already she is credited with writing a song; this serves to prop up the performer’s image as genuinely musically talented and not just an airhead bimbo stooge of record executives (it is not Katy that I have in mind when I say this).

I wouldn’t want to generalize, so if there is any way to show that Katy did come up with something like ‘Thinking of you’ (for which she receives lone credit) truly on her own, then I will take back what I said about the degree of producers’ input in her case. But the general principle still holds: Underestimate the hottie’s songwriting ability. And do not lump singing or lyrical talent with songwriting talent; they are different skills for the most part.

Michelle Branch, a teen pop sensation in the early 21^st century, is another example of the importance of producers in crafting a great record. Her first indie album, ‘Broken bracelet,’ a largely acoustic, unembellished work, is largely repetitive in musical ideas, with an incessant I-V-vi-IV chord progression that largely sounds uninspired and makes a large part of the album sound largely like filler material.

Fast forward a year later, and producer John Shanks comes into the picture. ‘The spirit room,’ released in 2001, features some of the better ‘Broken bracelet’ material; the difference in musical quality compared to the early mediocre work is obvious.

Using the same John Shanks formula, Michelle released ‘Hotel paper’ in 2003. It could be that Shanks merely tapped Michelle’s potential, but I find it more likely that he himself is responsible for the decisions with regards to chords, arrangements and melodies that made for Michelle’s strong minimal-filler albums.

Going back to Katy Perry, the most obvious difference between her Christian album and her two later albums is the lyrical content. In itself, having Christian themes isn’t something of which to scoff, but Katy Hudson does a pretty bad job in my opinion. I think even apart from the goodie-two-shoes themes, Katy would be embarrassed about the album. Look at some of the lyrics:

How could I see you when I was so blind
How could I grasp you when I was far behind
How could I hear you when I was so deaf
How could I get up when I had been left
(From ‘Trust in me’ by Katy Hudson/Mark Dickson)

or how about

You could throw me in the fire
And I won’t be burned
(From ‘Faith won’t fail’ by Katy Hudson/Mark Dickson)

All she does is mention opposite concepts, in a paradoxical manner, and it’s supposed to be so profound but it just comes across as lame, especially when you imagine how Ms. Hudson wrote it while crossing out lines here and there in her diary, to come up with something that best expressed her feelings for Jesus.

I think she does a better job with her lyrics now, but only because she doesn’t write things that make you squirm in their corniness. In both ‘One of the boys’ and ‘Teenage dream,’ she likes to make use of shock in talking frankly about lesbianism, threesomes, altered states of mind under the influence of certain substances, and just content that is bound to offend a sect or two.

Now all that’s fine, and I find it amusing in fact, but I believe that once she gets this rebellious backlash out of her system that she’ll be better able to come up with lyrics that don’t rely on violently subduing the listener’s senses or their sense of propriety. As it is, she isn’t completely dependent on shock appeal, so good for her. 

I’m looking to Katy Perry to continue releasing quality, no-filler records in the years to come. Whatever assistance she gets from others in the crafting of her songs should be welcomed; my analysis of the producer’s importance is only meant to put things in perspective as to what talents recording artists actually have. If she lasts long enough in the industry, I’m sure it will be because of musical quality and not so much her bad girl image, which is bound to get tiring after a while.