Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.
As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatles’ songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.
So with that, let’s get started.
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, California. Her parents were pastors, becoming born again Christians after each of them turning to religion after a “wild youth”. From ages 3 to 11, Perry often moved across the country as her parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps during her elementary years. Growing up, Perry and her siblings were not allowed to eat the cereal Lucky Charms as the word “luck” reminded their mother of Lucifer, and had to call deviled eggs “angeled eggs.” In case you couldn’t tell, Katy’s parents were a little loony. In the least shocking development in this blog, Katy grew up only being allowed to listen to gospel music. She discovered popular music through CDs she got from her friends. Katy began singing in her parents ministry’s at the age of nine and began taking vocal lessons soon after. Perry completed her GED requirements at age 15, during her freshman year of high school, and left high school to pursue a musical career. Her vocal talents caught the attention of a label head based in Nashville and she moved there to improve her writing skills. In 2001, at the age of 17 she released her debut album, Katy Hudson, a gospel album. The record label she signed to went bankrupt 6 months later and Katy moved back to LA shortly after. She took the name Katy Perry, her mother’s name to avoid confusion with Kate Hudson. After bouncing around various record companies she met and began dating Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes who allowed her to star in the music video for their hit song, Cupid’s Chokehold. This allowed her to get introduced to Dr. Luke (yes the same one who Kesha sued) who would make Katy a star. Her second album, One of the Boys was released in June 2008. The album was a commercial success, selling 7 million copies. The album had songs go number one (I Kissed A Girl), number three (Hot N Cold), and number nine (Waking Up in Vegas). How do you follow up your very successful “debut.” More often than not, we see artists come out of the gates, guns a blazing only to fizzle out by their second release. Katy Perry avoided this sophomore slump by following One of the Boys up with one of the most commercially successful albums of all time. I am not saying that to be hyperbolic, I am saying it because it is a fact. Teenage Dream (the album) was released in August 2010. The album spawned FIVE number one hits (California Gurls, Teenage Dream, Firework, ET, Last Friday Night). Teenage Dream (the album) became the second album to ever spawn five number one hits, putting her alongside Michael Jackson’s 1987 album, Bad. On top of these five number one hits, it also had a song go number 3 (The One That Got Away), making this the only album to have six top 3 songs on one record. The album is one of only three albums to produce 6 or more top-five singles along with Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 and George Michael’s Faith. Perry became the only artist to spend over 52 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100, and later heightened this to 69 weeks (nice), smashing the previous record of 49 weeks. The album and its singles earned Perry seven Grammy Award nominations including Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Record of the Year. Deciding to capitalize on all the success the album had, her record label decided to re-release the album two years later to include some “leftover material” from the original recordings. Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection in February 2012. Katy Perry described this as the “complete story” of the original album. She added that the expanded album would contain three newly recorded songs and four additional remixes to supplement the standard edition of the original album. Out of the three new songs, she had ANOTHER song go number one (Part of Me), and had another go number two (Wide Awake). So to recap: all in all, Teenage Dream spawned six number one hits, a number two hit, a number three hit, eight Grammy nominations, and grossed 70 million on the albums tour. Obviously the success of that album will never be topped, so Katy is playing with house money here. Not having to worry about topping your previous album allows for more creativity from artists, more experimenting of different sounds. That’s exactly what her fourth album, Prism was. Released in February 2013, as I mentioned above, it was never going to match the success of Teenage Dream, however, if you look at this album in isolation, you’d say this was an incredibly successful album – two number one hits (Roar, Dark Horse), and two top 20 hits (Unconditionally, Birthday). It earned her two more Grammy nominations and was the best selling album by a female artist in 2013. Oh and the subsequent tour she went on to promote this album grossed $200 MILLION DOLLARS. To cap off this highly successful four year run Katy was on, she performed at the Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show in 2015. Her performance was met with critical acclaim, with viewership for her performance being higher than the game itself, and being the most viewed halftime show ever. Usually when you have this amount of success you try different things – whether it judge a singing competition, act in a couple movies, start your own record label, and release your own fragrance line, and if you’re Katy, you do all the above. She didn’t find herself in the studio much for the next couple of years outside of writing a song for the 2016 Winter Olympics, which went on to hit number 11 on the charts (Rise). She didn’t release her next album until 2017, when she released Witness that February to mixed reviews. It became her first album to not have a song go number one, with the highest hitting number four (Chained to the Rhythm). It did have some other fun bops but nothing charting in the top 20. Despite being her weakest album by a long shot, Katy was still cashing these checks – the subsequent tour grossed $55 million and she was brought on to judge American Idol for a smooth $25 million a season. During 2017 she was also featured on the top 20 Calvin Harris hit, Feels, alongside Pharrell Williams and Big Sean. 2019 we began to see more music from Katy, with an album expected to be released sometime in 2020. In April 2019 she appeared on the top 20 Daddy Yankee song, Con Calma, and in May of 2019 she released the lead single for this upcoming album which hit number 15 on the charts (Never Really Over). On March 5, 2020 she released a new song, Never Worn White, announcing her pregnancy to Orlando Bloom. I assume that song will do well and I might update this blog when this upcoming album comes out.
Katy Perry is an overlooked titan of the music industry. Her peak is something we’ve only seen Michel Jackson do. She was truly untouchable for a 5 year stretch. Teenage Dream is still the bar for pop stars this decade. She is an absolute legend and I can’t for the life of me figure out how I’m going to rank these songs. In honor of her having six number one songs on one album (I’m not sure if you know that, I’ve only mentioned it 39 times), we’re getting the top 6 Katy Perry Songs for your viewing pleasure.
6. I Kissed a Girl: Personally, Waking Up in Vegas is my favorite song off of this album but how can I make a list of best Katy Perry songs and leave the Lesbian National Anthem off of it? Also knowing what we know now about her religious upbringing her parents probably burst into flames when they heard this song right?
5. E.T. (ft. Kanye West): It was a simpler time but I don’t think we as a society will ever fully addressed how strange and human traffic-y Kanye West’s verse was on this. He also talks about alien sex and we just let him. What a time.
4. Last Friday Night (TGIF): the music video for this song is a cinematic masterpiece and was ahead of its time. The sax solo in this song deserves its own spot on the ranking the more I think about it. Kenny G did not have to go that hard.
3. Dark Horse (ft. Juicy J): Everybody and their mother knows how good this song is so I don’t need to say much about it, instead this spot on the ranking is going to turn into a Juicy J appreciation zone. On his Wikipedia it says he’s best known for his verse on this song. The man has an Oscar for fuck’s sake, put some respect on his name. What this man has accomplished over his career is the stuff of legends and not enough people realize it.
2. California Gurls (ft. Snoop Dogg): This might come as a shock to some of you, I’m not Katy Perry, but if I was I would make her gender reveal a sequel to this music video with either blue or pink frosting. Katy Perry needs someone like me on her marketing team. I also never understood why they spelt ‘girls’ with a U. Part Of Me likes to think it was a typo that they didn’t realize until it was too late so they just went with it.
1. Teenage Dream (the song): a legendary pop song for the AGES. It is timeless. A time capsule. It’s 2010 forever in that moment. Katy Perry may fade. Teenage Dream is immortal. I really really really really love Teenage Dream. I think its great. We’ll never see another song like it. I listen to it sometimes.
Ranking the best Katy Perry names if her name was based on a different fruit in no particular order
Your Turn
If you had a blog and were to rank every Katy Perry song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album |
| I Kissed a Girl | 2008 | 1 | One of the Boys |
| Hot n Cold | 2008 | 3 | One of the Boys |
| Waking Up in Vegas | 2009 | 9 | One of the Boys |
| California Gurls (ft. Snoop Dogg) | 2010 | 1 | Teenage Dream |
| Teenage Dream | 2010 | 1 | Teenage Dream |
| Firework | 2010 | 1 | Teenage Dream |
| E.T. (ft. Kanye West) | 2011 | 1 | Teenage Dream |
| Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F) | 2011 | 1 | Teenage Dream |
| The One That Got Away | 2011 | 3 | Teenage Dream |
| Part of Me | 2012 | 1 | Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection |
| Wide Awake | 2012 | 2 | Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection |
| Roar | 2013 | 1 | Prism |
| Unconditionally | 2013 | 14 | Prism |
| Dark Horse | 2013 | 1 | Prism |
| Birthday | 2014 | 17 | Prism |
| Rise | 2016 | 11 | 2016 Winter Olympics |
| Chained to the Rhythm | 2017 | 4 | Witness |
| Never Really Over | 2019 | 15 | TBD |
Katy Perry is a legend. Please respect her.
Vin'sane Thoughts 