I’ll have a go myself here and now.

Here is a girl who has used every move you could imagine to sell herself. From slagging off more talented artists in the press (Winehouse and Allen) to using male chauvinism as a marketing tool, (“I Kissed A Girl”) and dressing exclusively in lingerie, (though in this she is far from alone).

Katy simply serves that age old maxim, “sex sells.” Remove the conceit of the lyrics to “I Kissed A Girl” and you’re left with little more than a direful pop song; begrimed with grunge synths and hectoring vocals which stink of torrid, attention-seeking behaviour.

The uglier side of the singer is her rank and odious use of homophobia in her single “Ur So Gay”. All of us, I would presume, have encountered that playground taunt wherein the word gay is -wrongly- employed as a pejorative. That its used at all in this way is bad enough, but Perry is 24 and quite removed from the playground setting, isn’t it time she grew up?

Perhaps it is wrong to make Katy Perry the focus of such criticisms. I feel more certain that she is simply a girl who wanted a pop career and was willing to do whatever her record company asked of her. Her success, and the way in which it has been achieved, smacks more of the evils of A & R, marketing and big business which large record companies have become synonymous with. Ambition is her only crime, and ambition applied in a capitalist society, as “Paranoid Android” teaches us, makes you look pretty ugly.

Perry pathetic fabrication or quirky pop starlet?  Lipstick lesbien or genuine both-wayer?  Is she any worse that Lady Gaga/ PussyCat Dolls et al??

Posted In Comment, Apr 16 2009. Words - Richard