Teenage Dream

There's intelligence, individuality and character in abundance. But all too often it's caked in dollar-store body glitter and choked by feather boas.

She's got some distance to travel before she's a truly mind-blowing, norm-shattering pop star. She's not the new Madonna, just a very naughty girl. [Oct 2010, p.117]

Perry delivers the gurl-gone-wild stuff with requisite sass, but she actually sounds more engaged on "Not Like the Movies" and "One That Got Away"--quieter cuts that recall her singer-songwriter days at L.A.'s Hotel Cafe.

The album itself is almost incidental to the self-styled fantasy that Katy Perry sells with this entire project.

Unfortunately, the fun peaks around the time that Snoop Dogg officially hands over his thug-life card during the previously released "California Gurls," a slice of sunny disco-pop perfection that suggested Teenage Dream just might trump 2008's spotty but enjoyable One Of The Boys. Instead, Perry returned with lots of ho-hum ballads and lackluster radio fodder as limp as the discarded lover in the dis track "Circle The Drain."

After some severe front-loading, the album is filled out by songs that are too dark or lifeless to work alongside the Candyland motif of the cover and sunbeamy splash of California Gurls.

There's none of the ABBA or Cardigans influence she claimed, nor any of the fun she seems to have in real life. For now she just sounds like another of pop's Stepford Wives.

If you've heard the singles, which you probably have, then you've heard the best Teenage Dream has to offer

Teenage dreamer turns in nightmare of a second record.

By the end of Teenage Dream--hell, halfway through--it's apparent that neither Perry nor her collaborators had much to say that was meaningful, or even particularly interesting. It sure didn't stop them from saying it anyway.

I can forgive a couple of transgressions if Teenage Dream redeemed itself with songs that were more than trashy, one-dimensional pop, but, alas, the rest of the album is just as predictable as the VMAs and only marginally more entertaining.