Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg “California Gurls”
Even with Katy Perry‘s 2008 breakout album, One of the Boys, managing to strike platinum and peel off four Top 30 US hits (two of which-“I Kissed A Girl” and “Hot n Cold”-we’ll most certainly be hearing at least once a week for the rest of time), it’s huge success never really solidified the idea of the shtick-reliant singer being necessary beyond it.
If anything else, Perry seemed to be one of those flash-in-the-pan types who would fade away back into obscurity, only to make re-appearances in I Love The ’00‘s-type pop culture retrospectives or future “What ever happened to her?” coffee table conversations concerning the year-long time she somewhat ruled the pop roost.
That being said, it’s not only surprising that Katy would re-emerge with a new record on par with the sugary irresistibility of her biggest cuts and that it would speed it’s way to a spot on the top of the pop charts (and plenty of people’s current summertime guilty pleasure lists), but-and here’s the main shocker-that we would actually be welcome to her return.
Yearning for an explanation? Well, to put it simply: The past year has produced so many forgettable one(and sometimes two)-hit wonder plastic-pop sensations, it’s kinda of nice to have an “established” act of the genre around. Yeah, if you found Katy annoying before (whether because of all the overly-cutesy stage persona tics or her odd, caterwaul vocals), you probably still won’t have much tolerance for her, but if not having her back means more pop radio space for lesser-forgivable entries from the Ke$ha’s, 3OH!3′s and Jason DeRulo’s of the world, than we say “hurrah” for “California Gurl”‘s existence.
Besides, if you look past the titular’s awful spelling of “girls”, the lame Snoop feature, the lyrics’ lazy (and/or awkward) “Cali is the place to be” signifiers and…hell, it’s overall corniness (the West Coast answer to “Empire State of Mind”,as it has been proposed, this surely is not), the track’s effervescent disco-ish sparkle can work wonders on a bad day.
Catch “California Gurl”‘s Candyland-inspired clip below, then afterward grab The White Panda crew’s mash-up of it with Trey Songz’ “Say Ahh”.
DL: The White Panda “Ahh California (Katy Perry x Trey Songz)” (alt)

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