We used to know who Katy Perry was. A good Christian girl gone wild, shooting whipped cream out of a candy-cane bustier, cruising in her Jeep, and getting freaky on the weekend. A beach babe in search of good times and cheap thrills. Over a decade ago, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, Perry satisfied our national appetite for youth, frivolity, and hedonism. She represented pop music as a sweet escape, producing some of the best, most era-defining songs of the 21st century. Teenage Dream, her smash 2010 album, tied Michael Jackson for most No. 1 singles; half of its tracks went Top 10. If called forth at karaoke, basically everyone can sing, verbatim, “Last Friday Night,” “Firework,” and “Teenage Dream.”
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