Voted Most Likely to End up on the Back of a Milk Box Drink

Certainly by now you have heard the not a Jill Sobule cover I Kissed a Girl or the ode to Ryan Seacrest You’re so Gay by Katy Perry (I featured the former in a battle of the not cover songs last week). Calling the reviews for her album One of the Boys mixed would be an understatement. Billboard said, “Not since Jagged Little Pill has a debut album been so packed with potential hits,” while Rolling Stone labeled it “boring.”

The Alanis Morissette comparison could come more from the appearance of Glen Ballard who co-wrote her debuted album and hasn’t been heard since help making the worst Dave Matthews Band album of their career. But a much better comparison would be Avril Lavigne if she let her keyboardist have too much control in her band. Not surprisingly, sometime Lavigne producer Dr. Luke also shows up on One of the Boys.

This is not to disrespect Lavigne who has been able to create a few catchy songs in her career and can actually carry a tune. Perry on the other hand has a voice that gets grating fast sounding like the leader of a bad new wave band from the eighties and as Rolling Stone were point on by calling the album boring; it is just one paint by number angst track after another. The only tracks that stand out are the two novelty tracks previously mention, but Perry’s novelty wears thin a lot sooner than even Who Let the Dogs Out as each got tiresome about the second listen.

It is funny that Perry makes fun of emo rockers in You’re So Gay, because if a dude sang any of her songs, he’d definitely wear guyliner and be signed to Pete Wentz’s label. Self Inflicted is so laughable as a song you have to wonder if it is supposed to be as tongue and cheek as her novelty songs. And her love for eighties new wave, a precursor to emo, almost goes over the edge on If You Can Afford Me which changes enough notes from The Cure’s Just Like Heaven to avoid a copyright suit.

Song to Download - I'm Still Breathing - One of the Boys

One of the Boys gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.