Katy Perry is living up to the lyrics of her fun and flirty hit single — as in “California Girls — we’re unforgettable.”

The song, California Gurls (not Girls) — from her new, more dance-oriented album Teenage Dream, which goes on sale Tuesday — has become the party anthem of the summer. Snoop Dogg playfully raps alongside her on the tune.

What more could a Santa Barbara native (raised by born-again Pentecostal ministers) want? After the success of her first album, 2008′s One of the Boys, and its breakout hit I Kissed A Girl, this is her time to capitalize. And she obviously had a lot to say on album No. 2.
“I felt like I needed these anvils to come off of my chest,” Perry, 25, said earlier this summer while nestled into a couch in a makeshift dressing room at a Toronto lakefront club, in an exclusive in-person interview with QMI Agency.“There were some pent-up emotions that I needed to sing about. I felt like I got the songs that really represent me now, that make the picture complete, the snapshot of where I am. And I don’t feel like I’m lacking a thing cause I wouldn’t have done it this fast. For a while I was saying, I have a lot of jewels but I don’t have a crown.’ And I needed to have the full complete crown.”

Perry came to Toronto to preview some of the tracks off Teenage Dream at a listening party held the same weekend as the MuchMusic Video Awards.

Playful and provocative as usual in front of the small crowd, Perry was dressed in a black mini dress with suggestively placed, cutout, beige-coloured hands on it, and wore black high heels. Her long black hair was in a ponytail. She sipped a Budweiser between each song and joked, “I’m Katy Perry and I’m an alcoholic.”

Granting one-on-one interviews isn’t commonplace when an artist is super hot. Perry is trying to be particular about it now.

“With the first record, I did a lot more one-on-ones because there was time to build the album — and this time it’s just like a straight shot. So instead of saying, F—you, I’m famous,’ it’s more like, No, I know my existence is reliant on these types of relationships and these people,’ and that’s why I’m inviting people out.”

California Gurls is among the more frothy songs on Teenage Dream, which also includes more serious love ballads Hummingbird Heartbeat and Not Like The Movies, influenced by her fiance, one-time British bad boy, comedian and actor Russell Brand (Get Him To The Greek, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), whom she met halfway through recording the album.

“Of course, (California Gurls) is not the (deepest) song in the world, but that’s not what I intended to do necessarily,” said Perry, who appears semi-naked lying on top of cotton candy clouds on the cover of Teenage Dream.

“This song is just especially for this summer season. Everybody’s on vacation, or out of school, and they just want something that’s a bit easy-breezy, and makes them feel sexy and isn’t trashy but kind of puts a smile on their face. I think there’s some imagery on the song that’s just cute and fun, and (the lyric) melt your popsicle’ is a big innuendo.”

So is the sight of Perry attaching whipped-cream cans to her bikini top and spraying whip cream out of them in the naughty Candy-land- inspired video.

“Oh, my God, I had that idea since last summer,” she said. “I had this idea to do this Candyland tour, which God knows if that will actually happen but I’m always thinking about the next step. And so I had this idea for lollipops that were on the boobs that you could pop off and lick and give to one of the audience members. And then I had the idea for the whipped-cream- cans bra and I just never had a chance to use it. It was perfectly used (in the video).

“I think for me I don’t ever really want to do what people think is going to be done. Like, when you hear the song, you think, Girls at the beach, in bikinis, and next to nothing’, the same treatment you’ve seen for a lot of different music videos. And I just think it was time to step up my game and the whipped-cream (breasts) were all a part of it.”

At the listening party, Perry joked that the video — which also showed a Gummy Bear flipping Perry off — was “as innocent as Miley Cyrus.”

Katy Perry’s upcoming nuptials to British former bad boy-comedian-actor Russell Brand follow him proposing to her in India earlier this year.

“I’d like to get married this year but he just had his movie ( Get Him To The Greek) come out so he has all that to do and this record ( Teenage Dream) seems like it’s going to start another sleepless year,” Perry said.

Source: ST Thomas Times Journal