Stuck in Hell With Katy Perry

Pictured: Katy Perry in Concert

Am I the only person on Earth who thinks Katy Perry sounds like a braying ass when she "sings"? (I use the term loosely)  I tend to avoid autotuned pop garbage, but when you're sitting in a Waffle House in Tennessee (State Motto: "Welcome to Hell!  Now Starring Elvis!") and "Firework" comes on, well, the victim cannot be blamed for the assault.  You can just hear the autotune straining to keep her screaming to a banshee minimum so as not to cause mass ear drum explosions.

I know a lot of stupid songs.  A lot of them.  But wow, this one takes the cake for utter and supreme awfulness.  Not just because it's generic feel-good "you are so special and everybody loves you" garbage designed to make ugly, pimply-faced adolescents attain a sense of superiority they haven't earned and will never deserve, not because it's pre-Glee-a-fied for high school show choirs to sing at graduation (like they did at my sister Beth's graduation last month), but because it's actually factually wrong.  A sample:

Just own the night

Like the Fourth of July
Cause baby you're a firework
Come on show 'em what you're worth


Oh, Snap!

For starters, People Who Write Katy Perry's "songs" (again, I use the term loosely) For Her, the commonly vernacular is "fireworks"--the singular has been phased out.  You don't buy a single "firework," even if you buy one single solitary Black Cat from a tin shack along the highway outside of Purcell, Oklahoma, it's still fireworks, plural, unless you want to sound like a moron. 

Here's the thing about fireworks.  They're pretty for a second and then they burn out almost instantly.  They have no substance, nothing memorable, just a loud noise and some sparkly lights and then blackness and silence.  Not exactly a metaphor for being super-ultra-special . . . more like a metaphor for Russell Brand's career as an American movie star.

No one ever really remembers a fireworks display.  You remember that they happened and that maybe you scored behind the bleachers during them, but you can't exactly remember what each one looked like as it went off.  It's a group effort (after all, a lone firework would be really, really dull), and after awhile, they all look the same, like girls who shop at Hot Topic, or scenes in a Michael Bay movie.  So much for being super-ultra-unique and individual.

Additionally, fireworks irritate people, they frighten children and make people with Hyperacusis cry out in pain.  So Katy Perry's singing about herself, I assume.

Fireworks aren't worth much.  Again, they burn out quickly, leaving only some smoke and charred cardboard.  They cost almost nothing and can be bought at every gas station and roadside shack from Pennsylvania to New Mexico (can you tell who just took a road trip?) so they have no real value in trade or economic worth.  So the line "show them what your worth" is actually a horrible insult--you are worth nothing, kid, and you will be forgotten almost instantly after you explode and burn.

We can only hope the same holds true for Katy Perry . . . she's such a pathetic case, clearly a Lady GaGa knock-off without any of the charm, uniqueness or talent. Quite possibly, she's not even human.  My friend Matthew is convinced she's just a sex doll with a bad voice box attached.  She is, in essence, a firework--destined to burn out quickly and be forgotten like every other pop star. . . .but not quickly enough.