Pop Psychology

Katy Perry's (non-Madonna) influences: Pat Benatar, Blondie & Cyndi Lauper

Ringing alarm bells in some conservative circles of southeast Texas, Katy Perry brings her personal brand of 21st century pop-rock to Houston Friday. Two albums into her career as a mainstream superstar (following a previous incarnation as Christian rocker “Katy Hudson”), Perry has received a seemingly equal amount of praise and criticism for both her songs and the signature style in which she presents them.

Perhaps that’s because Perry, in a performative context, has never been abashed to showcase her truly huge… act… and through her videos and live performances, she has certainly cultivated an outsized stage persona that rivals any of her modern-day peers not named “Gaga.”

Before Perry sweeps Houston off of our collective feet, now feels like the perfect time to revisit some forgotten touchstones of a sound that helped define the once-glorious genre that she now rules.

And while Perry certainly possesses a theatrical streak that, at times, verges on the positively avant (kinda? almost?), her music remains roughly twice as derivative as it is catchy. Almost from the jump of the bisexuality-baiting hook in her breakthrough hit single, Perry’s detractors intoned from the cultural sidelines that: “We liked this phase better when Madonna was going through it. Twenty-five years ago.”

Yet great hoardes of humanity will flock to the Toyota Center this weekend to spend a night basking in the glow of a starlet for whom everything old is once again a part of the “Teenage Dream," because — by today’s standards of popular music — Katy Perry really is just “so unusual.”

So, before Perry sweeps Houston off of our collective feet, now feels like the perfect time to revisit some forgotten touchstones of a sound that helped define the once-glorious genre that she now rules:

She’s So Unusual – Cyndi Lauper

Before she settled into a comfortable career rut as the new-wave Bette Midler, Lauper exploded into international stardom with one of the great debut albums of the 1980s: She’s So Unusual. Although Lauper also found herself initially dismissed as a Madonna re-tread (in 1984!), the infectious potency of “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” was no more deniable then than Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” is today.

But the real genius of She’s So Unusual is in its proudly amateurish central talent. Lauper’s voice cracks and goes off-key as it’s dressed up in increasingly ecstatic production and synth-heavy arrangements. Tellingly, Lauper received no writing credits on any of the album’s five hit singles, yet she deservedly became the instant icon of the MTV generation on the strength of covers, like her version of Prince’s “When You Were Mine” and The Brains’ achingly profound “Money Changes Everything.”

Eat to the Beat – Blondie

Eat to the Beat is Blondie’s Exile on Main St., in that it somehow manages to endure as possibly their best, most consistently rewarding album without serving as home to any of their ten or twelve greatest hits. Instead, Debbie Harry and company revisit the up-tempo rockers that fueled Parallel Lines even as they look ahead with experiments in island sounds (“Die Young Stay Pretty”) and unadulterated bombast (“Victor”) that characterize the future singles that would fill out their “Best Of” compilations. The closest thing that comes to an enduring favorite on Eat to the Beat is “Atomic,” which integrated driving rhythm and disco beats in a more convincing synthesis of Blondie’s style with elements of trendy dance music than their novelty hit “Heart of Glass” ever did.

Crimes of Passion – Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar’s debut album offered the promise of a female artist that could hang around the American charts in an era still largely defined by “big dumb guy rock,” but it was Crimes of Passion that fully delivered her as the solo power-pop rocker that would dominate the early ‘80s. Alternating between the “tough as nails exterior” (“You Better Run,” “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”) and the “tender heart beneath it” (an excellent cover of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”) dynamic that typified her media image, Crimes of Passion remains in many ways the definitive Pat Benatar album, a resonant moment in pop history that deserves to be bettered remembered than perhaps it is. A classic.

Katy Perry is at the Toyota Center Friday with special guest Robyn.

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Movie Review

Supergirl fails to take flight in a movie weighed down by grief

Photo courtesy of DC Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures

Milly Alcock in Supergirl.

Last year's Superman reboot brought a renewed sense of optimism for, if not the concept of the comic book movie, then at least the DC Comics universe. After more than a decade of DC films that felt mostly creatively bankrupt, the leadership of James Gunn gave the story a sense of fun. That included the brief introduction of Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, who’s now getting her own showcase in, naturally, Supergirl.

When we first met her in Superman, Supergirl was in rough shape, arriving at the Fortress of Solitude visibly inebriated. Nothing has changed at the beginning of this film, save for her aimlessly traveling around the universe with her rambunctious dog, Krypto. One of her random stops puts her in the same bar as Ruthye (Eve Ridley), who is looking for help tracking down Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) and a group known as the Brigands after they brutally murdered her family.

Kara is initially loath to offer aid, but when Krem shoots a poison dart into Krypto while escaping, her motivation goes way up, especially since Krem holds the antidote. Kara, with Ruthye doggedly following her, uses every means available to her to find Krem, a journey that is hampered by galaxies having different colored suns than the one that gives her powers, the yellow sun.

Directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueira, the film is a big step back in the fun category, not least because Supergirl is deep in her feelings for much of the film. Her personal trauma, which is detailed in occasional flashbacks, gives a reason for her depression, but fails to land fully. The story seems to want everyone to be sad, as it includes a child trafficking ring and multiple instances of families being murdered.

Milly Alcock and Krypto in Supergirl.Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

To try to counteract that downer material, the filmmakers give Supergirl many opportunities to show off her fighting skills. While still CGI-heavy, the action scenes contain enough of a semblance of reality that they feel exciting. Unfortunately, this is undercut by the inclusion of several slow-motion sequences, giving the impression that the filmmakers didn’t trust the actors to deliver the goods on a consistent basis.

Superman (David Corenswet) makes a handful of appearances in the film, and while his presence is welcome given how well the character came across in the previous movie, it also doesn’t allow Supergirl to become her own person. Almost everything she does is colored by either her cousin or her parents, and since her powers are identical to those of Superman, there is very little that makes her story unique aside from how she’s dealing with the fallout.

Alcock (House of the Dragon, Sirens) gives an appealing performance despite her character being drunk and/or moody most of the time. She definitely sells what Supergirl is going through, so if given a better story in a future film, she’s proven her capability. Schoenaerts makes for a pretty good villain, although he’s aided by a look that includes a face full of studs. Jason Momoa has a memorable supporting role as the bounty hunter Lobo, even if his character doesn’t add much to the story.

While not a full-on disaster, Supergirl does not continue the momentum that Superman started. With a story that’s more concerned with showing audiences death scenes than a hero saving people, the film doesn’t seem to understand the appeal of a character like Supergirl or how to make her someone audiences will return to over and over again.

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Supergirl is now playing in theaters.

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