After
scoring four smash singles off her five-million-selling 2008 debut album One of
the Boys, two-time Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Katy Perry is back with
the new album, Teenage Dream.
The Santa Barbara-born Perry
was inspired to write the album's first single, "California Gurls",
as she watched her friends go crazy at a party listening to Jay-Z's salute to
New York, "Empire State of Mind". "Everybody was holding their
drinks in the air and dancing, and I thought, 'We're not in New York, we're in
Los Angeles! What about California? What about all the homies, the gin and juice,
the swaying palm trees, the sun-kissed skin 24-7,'" Perry recalls. "I
decided that we needed to make a response. I want people to want to book a ticket
to California the first time they hear it!" And because it's practically
un-American to release a song that mentions gin and juice without Snoop Dogg,
Perry recruited the rap icon to contribute his inimitable vocals to "California
Gurls." "We thought it would sound so cool and give the song another
dimension," she says. "Snoop is as West Coast as it gets."
"California
Gurls" is just one taste of her brand-new album 'Teenage Dream', which has
just been released by EMI Music/Capitol Records in Australia.
The
album is the follow-up to Perry's blockbuster debut 'One of the Boys', which has
been certified double platinum in Australia; platinum in the U.S. and has sold
five million copies worldwide. The album spawned four smash singles, including
the back-to-back US No. 1, Grammy-nominated chart-toppers "I Kissed A Girl"
and "Hot N Cold" (both selling more than a combined eight million copies
in the US), "Thinking of You" (No. 1 Airplay in five countries), and
"Waking Up in Vegas" (2.3 million sold in the US and No. 1 Airplay in
five countries). Perry has sold more than 22 million singles, digital tracks,
and mobile products worldwide.
In Australia, 'One Of The Boys'
peaked at No.10 on the ARIA album chart and is certified 2x platinum with 'I Kissed
A Girl' (3x platinum and No.1 ARIA peak), 'Hot N Cold' (2x platinum and No.4 ARIA
peak), 'Thinking Of You' (Gold sales and No.34 ARIA peak) and 'Waking Up In Vegas'
(Gold sales and No.11 ARIA peak) all a massive success story- you could say this
is one hot superstar GURL!
Katy's success has led her to become
one of the most talked-about new artists of the past two years. Since exploding
onto the scene in 2008 with "Ur So Gay," and touring the entire run
of the Vans Warped tour, she has appeared on the covers of 12 US national magazines
(including Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Nylon, Complex, Paper, Lucky, Out,
and Billboard) and countless international publications (including Rolling Stone
Australia and TV Hits), launched a sold-out 50-city world headlining tour, appeared
on several national morning and late-night talk shows (including The Today Show,
American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance?, Ellen, The CBS Early Show, The Tonight
Show with Jay Leno, and Chelsea Lately in the US and Later with Jools Holland
(UK), Taratata (France), the Echo Awards (Germany) and many others internationally),
as well as NBC's New Year's Eve with Carson Daly.
She has
presented awards (and gotten slimed) at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, presented
at the 2010 Grammy Awards (where "Hot N Cold" was nominated for "Best
Female Pop Vocal Performance"), and performed at the Grammy Awards ceremony
in 2009 when she was nominated in the same category for "I Kissed A Girl."
Most recently, Perry has appeared as a judge on the US Fox
juggernaut American Idol and been named one of People Magazine's "Most Beautiful
People" of 2010, one of Entertainment Weekly's Entertainers of the Year,
Esquire's Women We Love and voted 2008 Best New Artist by readers of Rolling Stone.
She has also hosted and performed - twice at the MTV EMA's.
