sign in sign up
<<
Home , California Gurls, Hummingbird Heartbeat, Jagged Little Pill, One of the Boys, Pras, Russell Brand

Culture MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 2010

an you read ?” asks Katy a rocket and you’re hanging on for dear and Perry as we climb the stairs of a photo you’re like, ‘Gooooooo!’ The second record I’m studio on Broadway. more buckled in because, God, how many times do “A little,” I say. you see people slump on their sophomore record? She stops and holds out the edges ’s Nine out of 10. But I’m still working, like, 13-hour “Cof her dress, patterned with a series of ascending days, , six days a week and singing on top of it. quavers and semiquavers. “Then what song am I?” she And knowing that there’s someone right behind me, asks, twirling. ready to go, ready to push me down the stairs, just “Three Blind Mice?” like in Showgirls.” “The Girl From Ipanema,” she says, before The middle child of three, her parents were breaking into song. “I feel like I’m squeezed into a pinup both born-again Pentecostal ministers in southern giant condom in this dress,” she adds. — Christian camp, Christian friends, no Retro pop reference, modern twist, smutty MTV, no radio — but press stories of a parental punchline: I’m with the right Katy Perry, then. It’s a rift over Perry’s lyrics ignore the “born again” bit. sweltering day in Manhattan — temperatures are in Before they came to their faith, her parents were the 30s — but Perry, who arrived from perfect 60s scenesters, her mother briefly dating Jimi a few days ago, isn’t complaining. “It’s good for my Hendrix. Her father took acid and hung out with voice,” she says of the humidity, as a team of make- Timothy Leary. “They’re kooky little critters,” she up artists and hair stylists buzz around, preparing She swears like a sailor, says. “Of course they’ll hear a song like Peacock, for the shoot. and there’s a little moan that comes out of them: She concentrates on the mirror in front of her: poses naked and is no ‘Ooooh, Katy.’ Or when they see a magazine cover, Her eyes are huge, like an anime character’s, with stranger to a suggestive song they’re like, ‘Put some clothes on.’ But we get lashes so thick you could use them to rake a lawn. along fabulously. There’s no disowning. They know She is wearing a platinum-blond wig; on her left lyric. And now she’s engaged that the best thing they can do is support and love hand is an engagement ring from Russell , to bad boy . me and pray for me and not judge me. That’s why whom she met last year at the MTV music awards, you don’t see me having a breakdown. That’s why an event at which she was lowered on to the stage How did a nice Christian I’m not hooked on drugs.” atop a giant gold banana. (“I like fruit,” she shrugs.) girl like Katy Perry turn out At 17, she started traveling back and forth to With her Vargas girl looks and thrift store-bombshell Nashville to record an of Christian rock, aesthetic, the singer wouldn’t look out of place on like this? but when her record company went bankrupt, the nose cone of a second world war B-17 bomber she moved to Los Angeles to start again, this time — or rather the nose cone of a B-17 bomber as by Tom Shone getting as far as an actual record, with actual sleeve painted by Roy Lichtenstein. , notes, before that deal, too, collapsed. Broke, she “I don’t feel like I’m very pop-star lame, but got a job in A&R at a small just outside I’m definitely not hipster-cool,” she says. “I’m Los Angeles. somewhere right in the middle of it all. Because, for “That was the most depressing moment of my me, I want to sell out, but just not in the ‘I’ve sold hustle,” she recalls. “I was sitting there in a cubicle, out’ kind of way. I want to sell out arenas and sell with 25 other trying-to-make-it-some-failed-artists in a millions of records.” box listening to the worst music you’ve ever heard in The cover of her new album, Teenage Dream, your entire life. Having no money, writing bad checks, features the singer semi-naked draped on a bed of renting a car after two cars had been repossessed, pink tufty clouds. Perry had each cover individually trying to give people constructive criticism and hope, spritzed to smell like candy floss. “It actually when really I wanted to jump out of the building or smells a bit like My Little Pony,” she says, a frown cut my ears off and say, ‘I can’t help you! I can’t catch threatening to form. “You know, the toys?” The a break. What am I gonna say to you? And you sing frown disappears. “So it smells of your childhood, off tune.’” which is always endearing.” By the time fished out an old Perry is plenty endearing herself — unguarded, demo of hers from the slushpile, she was ready. unpretentious, flirtatious in a slightly camp way. She “I was like, someone throw the ball. I will hit that swears like a sailor, rattling off the first thing that home run. I knew was going to pops into her head, although her loose tongue has have an impact. It was hooky for me. I couldn’t stop landed her in trouble in the past. When she described singing it.” Her innuendo-laden floor filler, released Katy Perry and boyfriend Russell Brand pose at the premiere herself as a “fatter version of and in 2008, topped the charts in 30 countries; while the of , a comedy in which Brand plays a a thinner version of ,” Allen came out album from which it was released, , debauched rock star, at the Greek theater in Los Angeles on blasting, “It’s like, you’re not English and you don’t went platinum, selling more than 7 million copies. May 25. photos: reuters and Bloomberg write your own songs, shut up!” Promoting the follow-up, Perry will soon leave for In fact, she writes her own lyrics; a producer you’re 35 and trying to do good work.” Malaysia, Singapore, then Australia, Japan. “My air helps flesh them out into songs. Teenage Dream They met while she was recording her album miles are impeccable,” she says. The biggest challenge features the already released single , — exactly halfway through the writing of the title faced by her and Brand, these days, is scheduling. whose Velcro hook has probably already attached track, which means the intriguingly personal verse- Though she was miffed to find her fiance beating her itself to the inside of your cranium, and a handful of lyrics (“You think I’m pretty without my make-up to the cover of . love songs — , Not Like the on”) were written pre-Brand and the anonymous “I was like, ‘You bitch! I was working in America Movies — inspired by Brand. chorus (“You make me feel like a teenage dream”) first!’” she says, faux outraged. “For his birthday “One of the things that attracted me to him is post-Brand. invitation, I did an e-vite superimposing my face on his brain,” Perry says. “He’s one of the smartest “It’s about that feeling that I think so many people his Rolling Stone cover. ‘Come to my birthday party.’” men I’ve met. I feel smarter just standing next to relate to,” Perry says, “when they get to their 20s and What do her parents make of him? him.” At the MTV music awards, she engineered 30s and remember being a teenager and putting all or “My mother’s in love with him. And my father, I an introduction by throwing a bottle of water at nothing into a relationship, and usually getting hurt, think he sees a lot of himself in him.” his head. He tried to get her into bed; she insisted but it was such an amazing feeling — and Perry and Brand have just bought a US$3 million on dinner, and a few weeks later they were on lovely and raw.” home in Los Angeles and are looking for a place in holiday together in . There’s been a rash This unarguable truth — that there is New York. When I ask whether this onrush of domes- of speculation about how she “tamed” the self- something pure and lovely and raw about teenage ticity is likely to have any influence on her music, she proclaimed “S&M Willy Wonka,” although such talk emotions — is the driving force behind the Perry groans. “Everyone asks me that. You look at someone misses the fact that Brand is the reformed hell- phenomenon; a success story that seems custom- like Beyonce singing Single Ladies, when we all know raiser, 25-year-old Perry the pin-up for “gin-n-juice” made to make the heads of New Musical Express she’s married. Some of it is just for entertainment.” hedonism. You wonder how that combination is paper readers explode like melons. For But you can’t stay singing about being a going to work. all the retro stylings, her lyrics are cut with just teenager forever. “He knows that I’m young and have friends and enough realism to satisfy tween “Oh, I will always be honest with my music,” she a social life, and he was attracted to me. Not, ‘Oh fans that they’re not just being fobbed off with fluff says. “The records are black boxes for me. Like if you let’s find a version of myself in a female.’ Every (“There’s a stranger in my bed/And a pounding in want to know who I am, my views, my perspective, once in a while I need to remind him of that and my head” she sings on Last Friday Night, a rousing things I love, things I hate, my convictions, my he listens. It’s all about communication. It’s not anthem to binge-drinking). Beneath the puppies- anthems. I’ve never let people’s opinions affect the about taming, because that won’t last. Everyone and-peppermint cuteness lies an unsentimental take way I write.” gets saggy tits. Not everything stays perfect. We on the industry that sustains her. Worrying about the future is not really Perry’s all start to slow down. I think he was ready for “You have to bust your ass at this,” she says, style. She’s all about the now, and right now, she change. I mean, you just don’t have the stamina to “which is why you don’t find me getting shitfaced and her music are, as the lyric to California Gurls be in bed with 80 different women a week when in bars that much. It’s so intense, it’s like you catch has it, “undeniable.”

TOP FIVE MANDARIN P L A N E T POP July 30 to Aug. 5 frontman burst back back surgery in May after injuring survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake. that he wonders why Jean doesn’t take order bars 41-year-old Thomas Weldon onto rock’s center stage on himself. His subsequent rehabilitation plans to support Jean’s a commercial flight, since the money from coming within 100 yards of Bullock, Friday after a two-month forced the band to delay the North opponent, Michel “Sweet Micky” saved can help displaced families. her adopted baby boy and the three U2absence for a back injury, as the Irish American leg of the tour until next year. Martelly, who he said is better suited to He added that he loves Wyclef children of her ex-husband Jesse James. band resumed what its manager predicts ’s tour is widely expected to be a run the country. “dearly,” but he just doesn’t support his Los Angeles Superior Court Judge will be the most lucrative concert tour strong point in a weak concert season “He’s more popular in than policies. Carol Boas Goodson had issued a in history. hit by low sales. Wyclef,” said Pras. Also on Friday, a California judge temporary order against Weldon on U2 shook a packed Olympic stadium “This tour by the end of this year Jean’s publicist, Leslie Chasky, didn’t extended for three years a stay away July 19, after a previous stay away in Turin, Italy, as Bono strutted, will be the biggest-grossing music tour immediately return a telephone call on order against a man who order expired last year. pranced, jogged and danced with little by anyone of all time,” McGuinness Friday night seeking a response to Pras’ is accused of stalking “This is clearly a case of a fan going sign of being a 50-year-old rock star just predicted. “And we will still have comments. Oscar-winning actress beyond being a fan,” Goodson said. 10 weeks off spinal surgery. another 30 shows next year, 20 to 30 Jean is currently regarded as the Sandra Bullock. “This is the downside of celebrity.” Han Geng (韓庚) and Geng Xin “I don’t really know how to hold back, shows next year.” front-runner in the country’s Nov. The restraining Weldon allegedly showed (庚心) with 33 % of sales is the problem. You have to let the songs He added that the group would 28 election. But he has come under up at a house Bullock keeps in 1 sing you at a certain point,” Bono said just probably gross somewhere between scrutiny since officially announcing his Wyoming this past June, saying before relaunching the second leg of U2’s US$650 million to US$700 million by the candidacy on Thursday. he had driven there to meet her. 關穎 Terri Kwan ( ) and The Secret 360 Degree Tour, so called because fans time the tour ends next year. Actor Sean Penn has accused Jean The previous orders were issued That Can’t Be Kept (關不住的秘密) surround a giant circular platform. That would top the record US$558 of not spending enough time in Haiti for similar attempts he made to 2 with 10.7% U2 and Bono, who said he had done million generated by the Rolling after the quake and misappropriating meet the 45-year-old actress, who rehabilitation work for three to four Stones’ 2005 to 2007 Bigger Bang tour, US$400,000 of the US$9 million his won a best-actress Oscar for her Delia, aka Ring (丁噹), and hours a day, kicked off a rousing set according to music industry publication charity, Yele Haiti, raised after the role in football film, The Blind Side. Fu Good (下一站 天后) with Beautiful Day and Magnificent. Billboard Boxscore. disaster. Bullock’s attorney Edwin F. 3 with 4.81% They also played two new tracks called While Bono is ready to rock, ex- Jean told the Associated Press McPherson said Weldon is currently in a North Star Acoustic and Glastonbury. star Pras says childhood friend on Thursday: “I just want Sean mental health facility in Wyoming. 張芸京 Jing Chang ( ) and Bono thanked the cheering crowd and former bandmate is not Penn to fully understand I Bullock, who recently The Opposite Me (相反的我) for letters and e-mails he had received ready to be president of Haiti. am a Haitian, born in Haiti relocated to Texas from the Los 4 with 4.12% wishing him a speedy recovery. The Haitian-born musician says he and I’ve been coming to Angeles area, was not present “This band is like a family. It’s a family will not back Jean because he lacks a my country ever since for the hearing. — Agencies C.D.W. (東城衛) and self-titled business, U2. I am the prodigal son. I definitive plan to bring the island nation [I was] a child.” album with 3.73% would like to thank my brothers for their into the 21st century. Pras said that 5 patience,” the leather-clad Bono told the “You’ve got 1.2 million people living Jean uses a private U2 is again after Bono’s recovery from back Album chart compiled from G-Music (www.g-music.com.tw), crowd, referring to his bandmates. in tent city right now. What are the plans jet for his frequent based on retail sales The singer underwent emergency to get these people out,” Pras said of the trips to Haiti and surgery. photo: Reuters