"California Gu(i)rls": This song is utterly atrocious, and if you like it, then your subjective opinion is objectively wrong. Also, your head should be examined, preferably after it’s been removed from your body.
I’m sorry, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Now that my blunt, gut reaction to this miserable louse of a song is on the table, I can now step back and express exactly what about it makes my ears bleed.
First of all, everyone knows this, but the song IS pretty much Tik-Tok by Ke$#@, or K&Z$!-!^ or whoever. There, I said it. No need to elaborate, because everybody else has already noticed.
Second of all, I don’t mind Katy Perry as a singer, but I get the impression that she is almost entirely auto-tuned and doesn’t really have much natural singing ability (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDebwTnsud0). Her main strengths seem to be looking like Zooey Deschanel and having a cute personality. “I Kissed a Girl” kind of works, because it plays off of that quirky, fun personality. She doesn’t sing it brilliantly, but in terms of attitude she sells it pretty well. That’s saying a lot considering the acting ability of most pop starlets.
“California Gurls”, however, is clearly written solely to get Katy Perry to say sexual things. It’s not a big surprise, really. This is how 90% of the music of today is produced. It’s catchy enough that morons will be able to sing along with it at parties, and that’s about all that’s required of it. There’s nothing creative about it. It doesn’t just sound like “Tik Tok”, it sounds like every pop single released in the past five years.
But you didn’t come here to hear me talk about the unchanging, monotonous rhythm, Katy Perry’s lack of vocal range, or the utterly horrid music video set in candyland. I’m not a music expert, and I don’t give a shit about music videos. I know enough to get by, but I’d much rather shit all over the idiotic lyrics that this piece of tripe tries to pretend is the English language.
Let’s go through it piece by piece, shall we?
“I know a place/where the grass is really greener”
Than what?
Are you referencing that old idiom about the grass on the other side of the fence? If so, than is that really what California, the entire state, prides itself on? Its green grass? Whatever, maybe it’s kind of poetic in a third-grader kind of way, so I’ll let it go.
“Warm, wet and wild/there must be something in the water”
Wait, isn’t “there must be something in the water” usually something you say to disparage a place? For example:
Todd goes to New York to find that everybody there is a pushy, self-centered asshat. As Todd is hit square in the face with an egg the second he steps out of his car carrying his brooks-brothers suitcase, he shrugs his shoulders with the gracious acceptance of Job, and sadly muses “there must be something in the water”. And then his suitcase is stolen by a skateboarding hooligan.
The whole point of water is that you don’t want things in it. You just want water. Moving on.
“You could travel the world/but nothing comes close to the golden coast”
I skipped ahead a bit, to the one part of the song that actually sounds nice, melodically speaking. On the other hand, it also sounds like something Jason Bateman’s character in “Juno” would be hired to write for the state of California; a stupid, shallow jingle filled with jingoisms and clichés. Here, Juno Bateman explains to us thick pillocks that no matter where you travel to in the entire world, you will not find a place exactly the same as the golden coast, or possibly California as a whole (it’s not really clear which he means, although if he thinks that there are no coasts like California’s coast, than he has never left the state). He doesn’t tell us if we would be travelling the world looking specifically for a place like California, just that we wouldn’t find such a place. Does that make it the best place? We don’t know, because we don’t know what would make it so superior or in what sense it would be superior. So really, we’re left with an empty cliché, designed to excite the easily stimulated puppy-dog part of our brain, and silence the frowning schoolmarm part of our brain that does most of our thinking and reasoning.
“California girls (gurls)/we’re unforgettable”
I hate the title of this song. It’s like somebody is trying to sing the superior Beach Boys song “California Girls” while throwing up. Also, this chorus is horrid and I’m so happy I made it this far.
“Daisy Dukes/Bikinis on top”
Wait, what is the bikini on top of?
Is it on top of the Daisy Dukes? Are you wearing your bikini bottoms over your Daisy Dukes? That probably looks really stupid. You probably look like a crazy person.
“Sun-kissed skin so hot/ We’ll melt your popsicle”
Wait, your skin is so hot you’ll melt my popsicle? That’s really mean. I was enjoying that popsicle.
So I was eating a popsicle on the beach, minding my own business, when an army of slutty girls wearing their bikini bottoms over their daisy dukes ran up to me, grabbed my popsicle, and started rubbing it all over themselves. I was instantly disgusted by this, because not only was my popsicle melting, the girls were getting sticky and sugary (not in a good way). I walked away, hoping to find a road so that I could hitch a ride back to the East Coast.
“California Girls/We’re undeniable”
“Wait!” Screamed the sluts, flashing their breasts for attention. “You cannot deny us! We are undeniable!” “What does that mean?” I helplessly screamed back. “A person can’t be undeniable! A fact or statement can be undeniable, or I can deny you a thing, or I can deny you in the sense that Peter denied Jesus, but a person can’t be deniable or undeniable!”
“Fine, fresh, fierce/we got it unlocked!”
The girls than began chewing on their own hands whilst frothing at the mouth. “We got it unlocked!” “What?” I shouted back, but they had already begun rushing towards me with a look of sex-crazed hunger in their eyes. I ran for my life.
“West coast represent/now put your hands up”
Would somebody please tell California that it’s not the entire west coast? There are a few more states to go, not to mention Mexico and Canada, before we’ve got the entire west coast.
Anyway, this horrible chorus is almost over. There’s one more line to save this idiotic mass of rambling from the shit factory. What have you got for us, K.P?
“Ohh ohhhhhhhhh!!!!”
Fuck this song.
Oh, by the way; it’s about sex.
