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She may not be the best singer in the world, and has spent an awful lot of her career trading off assets other than her music skils, but when it comes to a believable popstar, there is something about Katy Perry that seems to make sense.
Listen to Prism below
Unlike Britney Spears there's no sense she's being forced into it. Unlike Lady Gaga, Perry doesn't pretend her work is of any greater cultural relevance than simple pop tunes. Unlike Rihanna Perry is covering up instead of revealing more and unlike Beyonce, she's actually got a record on the shelves.
Prism is no great work of genius and Perry's vocals are largely thin and underwhelming, but despite her lack of range and power, the 'Roar' chart topper delivers every track with conviction, gusto and above all, personality. Perry masters cheeky and sexy with ease, and never slips into desperate and slutty like more eager-to-please young stars.
As for the music? Well there's at least 12 months of pop hits on Prism. New single 'Unconditionally' is a formulaic but passable mid-tempo ballad which will see the star through the winter season, while punchy party anthem 'This Is How We Do' is the naturally successor to her 'Last Friday Night (TGIF)' hit.
In the build up to the album's release, Perry seemingly went to great effort to shake off the bubblegum pop of previous album, Teenage Dream, but lyrically, she hasn't made much of an advance, and the album is peppered with cliches and tongue-in-cheek references to her breasts. Perry is credited as a co-writer on every track on Prism, resulting in lyrical gems such as 'It's time to get you in your birthday suit / It's time to bring out the big big big big big big balloons'. It doesn't take a genius to decode that one.
The album, while varied (trap influences on 'Dark Horse', 90s house on 'Walking On Air' and a touch of Daft Punk on 'International Smile'), has sense of trying to tick every base, the only sense of continuity being Perry's personality, which is the true star of the album, not, as might have been expected, her chest.
