Cal-i-forn-ia Girls, We're Serious Musicians.

Katy Perry is as good an artist as any of those riding the wave of female pop stars that has been sweeping pop culture for the past year. She's bubbly, gorgeous, and mass produces top-forty hits like she's T-Pain and it's 2008. So what makes Katy different from Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, and Ke$ha? She wants to be taken seriously. 

Katy has put out some awesome hits. Who doesn't love "Teenage Dream" or "E.T.," (if not the remixed version a little more so)? Her songs are the perfect recipe for sing-a-long fun: catchy choruses, big-name rap stars, and completely brainless lyrics. 

For Katy, however, these songs represent something much deeper--mostly because Katy considers herself a very deep person. "I'm a normal woman with big dreams who shows girls they can be a larger-than-life cartoon," she professes. I don't know about you, but I always wanted to be a Powderpuff Girl when I grew up; I'm just glad I have Katy to keep that dream alive.

What these female pop stars need to understand is that there's nothing wrong with putting out stupid, catchy songs and making millions of dollars off of them. Ke$ha, for instance, has it right. She gets a lot of shit for being a stupid party animal, but that's just it--she makes stupid party music. What do people honestly expect???

Why does this

deserve more respect than this?

Well, whatever people expect from Katy Perry (a booty-shakin' club anthem), it hardly adds up to what Katy Perry expects of herself. "If I'm going to make a dance song," Katy told Rolling Stone in July, "I want it to have purpose, so that you're dancing with purpose, so it's not so materialistic and void-feeling and leaves you feeling inspired rather than feeling kind of empty."

Yes, Katy, that's what we're thinking about when dancing to "California Girls" in a hot, sweaty club on a Friday night--how inspiring it is, not how our miniskirts are riding up our asses.

 Bottom line: "Firework" will simply never be our generation's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." No one is going to sit around dissecting the finer emotions depicted in "Teenage Dream." In short, Katy Perry needs to embrace the fact that she makes good, brainless music about absolutely nothing significant whatsoever--and that we love and appreciate her for just that.