issue 178
MUSIC - 65
N O S R A E Y 0
1
eenpop t t s e b e till th s s i m a e age Dr n e e T s ’ y NG Perr ign by: JOSH O and Katy ll time. words and des fa album o Things were simpler a decade ago; socialisation came in groupings of full fringe-cladden preteen boys in the local McDonalds, One Direction had held their first X Factor auditions, and the infamous Jesus bracelets were soon to make their debut as a must have accessory. To the best of my memory, the year was pretty favourable overall. But musically, it also birthed the pinnacle album of an entire sub-genre, Teenage Dream. Leading up to 2010, the market for teen-pop was incredibly saturated. From Kesha’s Tik Tok to Mr Worldwide’s tales of the splendour of swampy Florida, the prevailing sound of strictly 4/4, clean formulaic ‘radio friendly’ tracks dominated the charts. Looking back, it’s understandable to see why; the formula worked, and still does. The entire era stood as a testament to contemporary pop hooks and effective musical simplicity that could earworm its way into society. Teenage Dream saw this formula perfected to a near tee. In short, this album served as a way of testing the limit of how far you could take this form of unabashedly positive-minded quad-chordial bops, without making them entirely devoid of anything beyond surface level noise. Immediately from the opening titular track you are blessed with an immediate statement of what is to come. The song draws from explicitly teenage lyrics from a not-so-teenage Perry who draws inspiration and nostalgic fondness from her own younger days. This is only further continued straight into Last Friday Night, arguably the platonic ideal of any modern pop song; simple chords, a memorable hook, and even a bridge devoted entirely to a place for listeners to chant along. The following two tracks, California Gurls and Firework, result in a starting quadruple threat that could dethrone any charting artist to date. “But making pop music is easy isn’t it? All the lyrics are always just the same”. Not quite. Diving deeper into the lyricism across the tracks, these aren’t simple soulless and deliberately machined hits. Aside from the fact that so many of these songs exude irrefutable positive energy and promise, they are matched by demonstrations of lyrical excellence by Perry and co. Where perhaps the devastating lyrics might not be encompassed in the slower ballads akin to Taylor Swift’s All Too Well, the merit of this album is in its ability to interweave these into bops. Stripping away the drums and piano hook from The One That Got Away, and you are left with a sombre song of forlorn and faded romanticism. The breadth and depth of this album saw it gain an accolade,
matched only by Michael Jackson, of having five number one singles from the same album. Beyond the instantly recognisable singles comes a swathe of deeper cuts and b-sides, such as Hummingbird Heartbeat and Who am I living for?, all of which hold their own in serving as anything more than filler tracks. In a previous article about genre fluidity, I mentioned how teenpop was subsequently abdicated by the sad girl boppop, spearheaded by Lorde’s Pure Heroine in 2013. So, if Teenage Dream was so great, then why was its genre almost entirely wiped out from mainstream music just a few years after? There were a few reasons for this; society’s taste tends to change every few years anyways. However, in my eyes, the main reason for this decline was simply that this album created the ultimate teenpop album. This album was beyond extravagant and was ridiculous by design. From cotton candy clouds through to oddly daemonic cat mascots, the visuals bled rainbows through every orifice. The accompanying California Dreams tour, visualised in the movie documenting this period, Part of Me, only drove home further this desire to appeal to inner childishness. Perhaps more successfully, this album has stood the test of time, and still provides enjoyment to those who have since escaped their teenage years, or more yet, those who are becoming teenagers in today’s very different musical climate. So, this summer, on the decadal anniversary of its release, I reflect on the profound joy that this album managed to conjure amidst an already densely populated market. Teenage Dream finds its ultimate success in taking the formula of teenpop and whittling it down to its core functions. What resulted was an outrageously over the top masterpiece of pop exuberance, one which has yet to have been matched in energy, and probably never will be. Teen-pop’s mainstream position has long since passed, but this album has stood as the monument to unbridled positivity and joy of pop music of that era. My appreciation for this album has only grown over time, and I don’t think it’ll diminish any time soon.
