Dear Reader
R Taylor Grow
Listen, guys! I feel compelled to express, in approximately 567 words, that I am overflowing with something that I can only describe as ecstasy.
But why, Taylor, is ecstasy gamboling through your rainbow-tinted veins?
Why, imaginary voice that I have conjured for narrative purposes? I am glad you have asked! Put simply: I suspect that this going to be a good year for pop music.
We already know how I feel about Miley Cyrus and Bangerz, but I am not talking about the 21-year-old girlies of pop music. Oh no! I am talking about the royalty. Oh, loyal readership, I am talking about the queens of my iPod; the stars of my internal (and often external) dance party, the cover-girls of my rudely published magazines: Miss Katy Perry and Lady Gaga.
If you are a human, then you know that Katy Perry’s album was released this Tuesday. And even if you are not human, you should have heard, perhaps from a chattering bird or a babbling brook, that Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP is set to release on Nov. 11.
Unfortunately, because this article was composed on Monday at roughly 5:30 p.m, and, therefore, not at a time when I could subjectively assert the brilliance of PRISM or ARTPOP, I can only say that I expect these albums will be glowing examples of pop glory.
But why, Taylor, can you so confidently assert opinions without a substantial musical foundation? Well, voice in my head, I do have a substantial musical foundation: promotional singles!
Both Katy Perry and Lady Gaga have recently exposed three songs from their respective albums into the voracious public — and voracious we indeed are after the let down that was Britney’s “Work B***ch” this September and Christina Aguliera’s Lotus last November. Despite the banality that gilds Katy Perry’s radio-ready “Roar,” “Dark Horse (feat. Juicy J)” and “Walking on Air” transform my grimace into something more wonderful (I have not yet had the opportunity to determine what expression marks my face, for I have been dancing and pirouetting too vigorously to peer into my looking-glass). And if “Applause” was already taking the place of “Bad Romance” as Gaga’s most delicious musical morsel, then “Aura” and “Do What U Want (feat. R Kelly)” have reconstructed the entire menu (though more the latter than the former).
I suppose I am being a bit premature — I do feel a looming fear that PRISM is going to fall as flat as Lotus, perhaps because neither One of the Boys or Teenage Dream seemed to land in the magical realm of the eternal pop over-soul where Gaga’s The Fame nearly took us almost five years ago. And perhaps I feel nervous that Gaga still hasn’t fled from the shadow-world of Born this Way and that ARTPOP will continue to make odd references to Biblical figures that I simply do not care about when it is time to bust my stagnant collection of shattered moves. But if these singles are any indication, I want to believe that it is a time for a pop rejuvenation.