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.

Toss Up: Katy Perry vs Charlotte Sometimes

Every couple days I troll the internet for new music video and usually I still to acts I already know unless there is a big buzz around a new artist or if a title just catches my eye. Videos by Katy Perry and Charlotte Sometimes basically caught my eye for the exact same reason, I thought that I Kissed a Girl and How I Could Kill a Man were covers of Jill Sobule and Cypress Hill respectively and was severely disappointed when it turned out neither were. So let’s break them down individually to their predecessors:


I Kissed a Girl - Katy Perry




I Kissed a Girl - Jill Sobule



What a different a decade makes. The Jill Sobule version would have been shocking had it not have been so cheesy. Not we have Katy Perry presumably trying to be shocking with her Girls Gone Wild video with all the good parts taken out. But you can find more shocking things on ABC Family in primetime these days. They you replace upbeat pop with dirty techno. Even worse: no Fabio cameo.


How I Could Just Kill a Man - Charlotte Sometimes




How I Could Just Kill a Man - Cypress Hill



With MTV’s anti-violence stance it was shocking when Yo! MTV Raps started spinning the Cypress Hill song back in the early nineties. But ever since the Dixie Chicks said goodbye to Earl, it seems like every pop tart from Kelly Clarkson to that arsonist Taylor Swift want to do bodily harm to a jilted ex, so again, not so shocking over a decade later.


Okay, I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that neither could stack up to the original. But as for the premise for the Toss Up between the two new songs, the clear winner is Charlotte Sometimes as her song is at least remotely catchy.