Talking about The Album “Teenage Dream”
Just a reference you might know, Teenage Dream (2010) is a triumph in the industry which has 5 number-one singles from the album as the same as Michael Jackson’s Bad (1987). There’s only two albums in the music history of all time. If its sixth single had reached number-one instead of number-three peak, that album could change the Guinness records, Max Martin could go higher than Quincy Jones.
If you’re a songwriter or a producer, you’ve already known this album is like a great textbook of pop songs. We can learn so many things about songwriting and productions from them all. Actually I’m teaching in my class with my analysis, 5 number-one songs, the sixth single and 2 songs from Teenage Dream:The Complete Confection.
OK, Let’s talk about the song “Teenage Dream”. I’m not getting deep into any kind of music theory here, so please relax and enjoy reading. I hope you’ll find some hints at the end.
Masterpiece of female Pop Vocals
Not only this song of course, the whole album is the masterpiece of female vocals. Katy Perry is a well trained outstanding female singer. She explored her vocal ability as well as the possibility of song productions. If you are a female singer, you might try to sing this but I’m sure it never happened well. I mean, If you do it well, you could be Kelly Clarkson some day.
On this track, Katy Perry showed her outstanding ability to express her emotions for the song. Let me explain a little bit.
As soon as you listen to this carefully, you find she changed her voice from the 1st verse to the 2nd verse, “head voice” to “chest voice” for the same melodic phrases Luther Vandross did the same. And later she mixed both voices with “edge voice”. Then she sang with “mix voice” on the pre-chorus, which was such a sensitive and powerful context she expressed at the same time. Finally she got her powerful “chest voice” on the chorus and made a strong statement of the title “Teenage Dream”. Now you see how many “voices” she changed in less than 90 sec.
That’s all about how she wanted to express the lyrics, theme and heart of the song. Well, this is Katey Perry, one of the greatest pop singers of all time. Well trained vocalist. It’s not about vocal dynamics but the color of voice. Her extraordinary vocal technique made it easier to produce such a heavy-weight dance tune.
Lyrics goes straight into fans’ heart
And the song will be young forever! She sings something everyone experiences in their teenage years, kind of sweet, bitter, passionate, fast and pure love. These are meanings deep in life but she expresses them in such simple lyrics, which is important for pop songwriting. However, the song is absolutely not for teenagers but for adults, even for elders! Because we didn’t know what the real world was when we were young, but we remember such wonderful, brighter days we went through. And we are sure we didn’t ever look back!
When a song becomes a great hit, it must be loved by the whole generation. This song obviously deserved it. No wonder teenagers in 2010 loved it by the sound even though they did not recognize what a teenage dream is anyway.
One each melodic hock for verse, pre chorus and chorus
Let’s talk about melody a little bit, but not any scale matters. The song has pretty simple melodies on each section, using many repetitions. It seems like almost “one phrase” for each section that makes it easy to remember. (difficult to sing like Katy Perry though) This technique makes lyrics more clear to hear. Actually, the simplest melody used in the chorus section. Shall we sing it now? “You make me….” “Teenage dream…”, “I can’t sleep…” How simple but effective the melody is!
After she knocked us down on her strong chorus, she relieved our hearts so tenderly with a short refrain which has a beautiful lyrical and melodic context. “My skin-tight jeans” turned into a killer hook both lyrically and vocally. Men, she changed voice again!
Well planned production, fully dynamics
Let’s listen to this song with the best sound system you have. Larger speaker and loud max.(don’t let neighbors call 911!) CD is the best media, but I let you go with streaming today. Listen to the first guitar riff, pay attention to it throughout the song, you’ll find it never changes the volume, however it is hardly heard on the chorus section. Now you see how the dynamics, width and height has been changed!
You may also find there are many sets of “Kick and Snare”. 1st, 2nd verse and pre chorus, 1st chorus, 3rd, 4th verse and pre chorus, 2nd chorus. I see Gods in Every Detail, men. That’s the highest production, isn’t it?
If you listen to it in the studio mixing room or well-tuned room, you may find the distortion guitar went lower than the bass, doubled with synth. This range may disappear with small speakers. However it comes out as such a heavy fundamental on the club speakers and headphones while it never ruins her beautiful vocal phrases.
The Art of Pop Song
So far I explained how Teenage Dream deserves to be a great hit. I’m so glad to live in this era where I can experience such great songs. Its melody, lyrics, singing, production, everything is art. They gathered such a tremendous effort and life experience for creating a song. I believe the hit songs always have their reasons. And we can find them out in music. Let’s keep exploring more in the art of pop songs!
If you’d like to learn more about musical aspects such as melodies, chords, sounds, producing, lyric writing, we provide lessons for the subjects. Please visit our coaching page.
