Katy Perry

Cali cutie Katy Perry exemplifies the sassy, saucy alpha female on her sexually charged, best stiletto forward new platter, One of the Boys. Perry brags about kissing girls for experimental fun and makes seamless pop culture references to things like MySpace, H&M and cherry ChapStick in a breathy voice that has only the range of someone like Britney but the chutzpah of Madonna. That's a tried n' true formula for success and Perry could go far on the strength of her studio-treated vocals, her studio-created tunes and spunky 'tood. For a grrl, Perry sure has balls.

Miss Perry isn’t the poster girl for lesbianism, despite the bi-cuirous, semi-Sapphic first single, “I Kissed a Girl,” where she doesn’t hesitate to say she smooched a fellow gal and liked it! Rather, she’s the pin up grrl for the subversive, edgy femme fatale who isn’t quite a Suicide Girl but certainly isn’t the vanilla girl next door, either.

Perry is a colorful, unapologetic amalgam of Alanis, Avril, Ashlee and Pink on romps like "Waking up in Vegas," "Mannequin" and the button cute "Ur So Gay." Perry isn't afraid to get a little controversial in her lyrics and set them to dancey, canned beats and a whole lotta electro synthery. While Perry's music and her image could come dangerously close to appearing carefully manufactured in a cavernous conference room on the top floor of a major label office complex, there’s more than enough estrogen and blood pumping through her voice and her vibe. That should connect Perry with her peeps. (Her peeps being post-pubescent, "No longer a girl, not quite a woman" young ladies that like Emily the Strange, Sylvia Plath and Zooey Deschanel, of course.)

Perry provides the upbeat, sonic jolt that darker, smarter girls need when they like to shake a leg to Gwen Stefani's tunes, but can't fully relate to her. Perry more than adequately fills that gap.

— Amy Sciarretto
06.12.08

Katy Perry, who distills every reprehensible thing about the age of The Hills into one pop album. She disses her boyfriend with gay-baiting; she makes out with a girl and she doesn't even like girls; she brags to a suitor that he can't afford her, parties till she's face-down in the porcelain, drops brands as if they were weapons, curses casually, and trades under-the-table favors. In short, she's styled herself as a Montag monster. Perry is not untalented -- she writes like an ungarbled Alanis and has an eye for details -- but that only accentuates how her vile wild-child persona is an artifice designed to get her the stardom she craves. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi