Stuck In Our Head: "Firework" - Katy Perry

Katy Perry's second album is very good. Never mind that her first was a diabolical mess of complete filler broken up sporadically but quite good singles, executed in the finest 90s tradition of releasing albums with the sole aim of having a couple of number one hits and not really bothering with the rest of the LP. Album #2 greatly improves and thankfully nips in the bud something which could have become a disastrous pattern, due to the excellent success of said first album's singles. In a pmsl-able turn of events, the lead single for album #2 is entirely derivative and sadly, quite awful - thank the sweet goddess Madonna that the second single (are you keeping up? Good), "Teenage Dreams", is probably the best thing she has ever done. A soaring, lifting, breath-taking, heady dream of a tune, it is also accompanied by the worst video she has ever done. Why is Katy Perry such a mess?

Whatever. Like we said, the second album, as a whole, is very, very good. "Firework" is a song built in the model of previously mentioned "Teenage Dream" - a completely unashamed attempt to give people that feeling achieved on a dance floor when you close your eyes, completely lose any inhibition left after downing those gin lemonades, and spin until you punch an already-irritated lesbian (let's say P!nk had just been cut off by the DJ for this song - actually that wouldn't irritate a lesbian, that would send them on a murderous spree which would later be turned into a cinematic classic starring Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci) and have to calm down in a corner. It is WONDERFUL.