This Week On Billboard: Katy Perry – Firework

This Week On Billboard is where I unabashedly critique the current no. 1 hit on Billboard.com, the major yardstick for what's "hot" in music today. In order to simplify the review for those who don't want to read the whole article, each song is given a "!" rating, in which the finest grabs five of them. It's been gone for a while, now it's back after a 22-month hiatus.

A review of this week's number one single right after you shoot across the sky-y-y






The reason why I haven’t been posting anything in Let’s Touch Fives! recently other than these This Week On Billboard entries is due to the fact that I’ve been working diligently on year-end lists that will review my 2010, so stay tuned for that. With that revealed, I really wish I could’ve fit in Katy Perry somewhere in there because, other than Rihanna, there’s no other female pop star that had a bigger year commercially than Katy Cocktease. All three of her singles in 2010 went number one, including This Week On Billboard’s “Firework”. Her 2010 album, Teenage Dream, debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with 192,000 copies sold on its first week, and it received a Grammy nomination for next year’s awards. To top all of that success, she also married her long-time boyfriend Russell Brand.

And then there's her boobs, which were massively ubiquitous in 2010. I would say that they are this year’s second most valuable set of twins (*). I’m not a gigantic Katy Perry fan—I always saw her as a less subtle Zooey Deschanel—but everywhere I looked, there she is flaunting them, and it always seemed like they were making headlines every time they showed up, and it’s definitely hard to ignore their popularity. There they are as a guest judge on American Idol, there they are hanging out with Rihanna on Vegas, there they are performing in the annual Victoria Secret fashion show, there they are animated in The Simpsons, there they are polluting Elmo’s eyes on Sesame Street, and there they are parodying her Sesame Street appearance on Saturday Night Live. Obviously they’re also being showcased in her singles’ music videos, and her boobs’ exceptionality is confirmed in the video for “Firework” as they are shown shooting pyrotechniques in the skies to draw out the confidence hidden in every ordinary people.

(*) the 2010 twins rankings: (1) Vancouver Canucks’ Sedin, (2) Katy Perry’s boobs, (3) the Salamanca twins from Breaking Bad, (4) Playboy’s Shannon Twins, and (5) Minnesota Twins’ Joe Mauer. The Winklevoss twins from The Social Network are disqualified for being portrayed by the same person.

According to Katy Perry, her inspiration for “Firework” came from a passage in Jack Kerouac’s novel On The Road, a passage that talked about admiring exciting and enthusiastic people who sparkle like a firework. Looking at Katy Perry’s single discography, the inspirational lyrics of “Firework” seem like an anomaly among a group of songs that expose Katy as a teenage dreamer, a girl kisser, or a Golden State supporter. Having said that, it’s actually a common tactic for a sexual artist like Katy Perry to reveal a life-affirming anthem at this point of her career. In order to show the public that she’s more than a singing pin-up girl, she has to at least release one serious song like this, sort of like when Christina Aguilera released “Beautiful” as a follow-up to “Dirrrty”.

Clearly, being all positive and inspirational and be-proud-of-your-inner-beauty uplifting doesn’t automatically make a single perfect. In fact, “Firework” is miles away from flawless. Katy Perry still sounds like a broken down fire engine siren when she sings, and like “Teenage Dream”, this song would’ve been amended if a more skillful vocalist like Kelly Clarkson was belting it out. And the separate elements of “Firework” is strangely similar to parts of different songs, like how the jangling intro sounds like the beginning of New Radicals’ “Get What You Give”, and how the refrain sounds like the refrain of Erasure’s “Always”, and how the chorus sounds like Lifehouse’s “Hanging By A Moment”. I’m certain that the similarities are purely coincidental, but it is a bit distracting, like how I couldn’t enjoy The Town as much because every time Jon Hamm is in a scene, I keep picturing him as Don Draper.

But if you’re able to get past that, you'll notice that the effervescence of Stargate's sweeping strings and heart-pumping beat is undeniable. This also happens to be Katy's most melodic arrangement out of all her recent singles, a refreshing recess from her usual two-note choruses. At the end of the day, "Firework” is exhilarating enough to ignite the self-esteem within, a satisfactory revelry to an eventful 2010 for Katy Perry and her boobs.

(t5!) score: !!!