In The Quantity Ones, I’m reviewing each single #1 single within the historical past of the Billboard Scorching 100, beginning with the chart’s starting, in 1958, and dealing my method up into the current. E book Bonus Beat: The Quantity Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the Historical past of Pop Music.

We should always speak concerning the Unhealthy chart report. Between 1987 and 1988, 5 totally different singles from Michael Jackson’s Unhealthy went all the way in which to #1 on the Scorching 100. That had by no means occurred earlier than. There had been blockbuster albums, albums that had spun off a number of #1 hits. With each Off The Wall and Thriller, MJ reached the highest twice. The Saturday Evening Fever soundtrack and Whitney Houston’s Whitney had 4 chart-toppers apiece. However the very thought of 5 #1 hits from a single album is absurd. Even Michael Jackson, close to the height of his powers, may’ve by no means pulled it off if Thriller, his earlier report, hadn’t been such a cultural phenomenon. Unhealthy isn’t the most important MJ album, however it represents a second when radio stations would throw each final one in all his singles into heavy rotation.

For 23 years, that Unhealthy report stood untouched. Just a few different albums got here shut. The late ’80s have been a time of large pop blockbusters, and some of them have been inside grabbing distance of the Unhealthy report. George Michael’s Religion, Paula Abdul’s Perpetually Your Woman, and Michael’s sister Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 every had 4 #1 hits, however none of them may fairly equal what Michael had completed. Over time, traits shifted, and it appeared much less doubtless that anybody would ever catch up. When Usher despatched 4 Confessions tracks to #1, it was the closest that anybody had come in additional than a decade.

After which: Teenage Dream. Katy Perry’s second major-label album stays a kind of imperial-era success tales — a pop star and her collaborators working at peak capability, cranking out hit after hit till you may hear half the rattling album on the radio on any given day. Instantly, it turned believable that Katy Perry may catch as much as Michael Jackson. After which it occurred. Virtually precisely one yr after Katy Perry launched Teenage Dream, “Final Friday Evening (TGIF),” the album’s fifth single, lastly elbowed its option to #1. Now, there are two albums which have despatched 5 songs to #1, and people albums are Unhealthy and Teenage Dream. Barring some drastic change in the way in which that we eat music — or no less than the way in which that Billboard tabulates the Scorching 100 — there would possibly by no means be a 3rd.

There are caveats, in fact. Katy Perry was an enormous deal in 2010 and 2011. She was, by nearly any metric, the dominant pop star of the second. However she was not a family title on the extent of late-’80s Michael Jackson. Katy and her label heads clearly and deliberately focused the Unhealthy report, they usually used all of the chart-manipulation tips out there to them to land these final couple of #1 hits. Michael Jackson didn’t must put rappers on remixes to attain all these Unhealthy hits, however Katy Perry performed the sport in a unique time.

You may’t argue with “California Gurls,” “Teenage Dream,” or “Firework.” All three of these singles reached #1, and all three have been large, plain monster smashes. I can’t say the identical about “E.T.” Katy actually needed to launch her bizarre stadium-techno alien-sex monitor as a single, and her bosses at Capitol weren’t so positive. They went together with it, however they did what they might to juice the monitor, releasing a single model with a clumsily stapled-on Kanye West look and giving it a gaudy, costly video. I don’t very similar to the track, however the ploy labored.

Katy Perry launched “Final Friday Evening (TGIF)” because the fifth Teenage Dream single in June 2011, and she or he should’ve felt like she was enjoying with home cash. Pop radio cherished her. Her California Goals enviornment tour had already gone via Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, and its North American leg was nearly to begin. Later that summer season, she’d make her big-screen debut because the voice of Smurfette within the Smurfs film, which seems to be like pure pigshit however which earned greater than half a billion {dollars} on the international field workplace. For some time, although, “Final Friday Evening” simply didn’t appear to be it was going to go all the way in which. The track charged into the highest 10, however then it ran right into a buzzsaw. LMFAO’s “Social gathering Rock Anthem” was sitting on prime, and it wasn’t going wherever.

“Social gathering Rock Anthem” and “Final Friday Evening” make a becoming pairing as a result of they’re each get together rock anthems — fizzy, cartoonish, critically unserious songs about consequence-free youthful hedonism. LMFAO didn’t really feel the necessity to impose any sort of narrative on their very own get together track, however Katy Perry had that theater-kid power, and she or he simply needed to make an entire story out of it. Katy later claimed that she’d written “Final Friday Evening” a couple of huge evening that she and a few associates had in her Santa Barbara hometown. She informed MTV, “Most of that track is precise reality, aside from the ménage à trois — sadly! However, sure, streaking within the park, that’s what we did, so we needed to write a track about it the subsequent day!”

I’ve some notes right here. First: Katy Perry didn’t write “Final Friday Evening” by herself. She shares writing credit score with producers Max Martin and Dr. Luke, her two common Teenage Dream collaborators, and together with her previous good friend Bonnie McKee, who helped write a bunch of her hits in that period. However that’s not my subject. No pop star needs to be like, “I had this loopy expertise, after which I supplied some useful hints to what my collaborators had already written for me!” My downside with “Final Friday Evening” is that it doesn’t sound just like the get together track that it so clearly needs to be. I don’t assume “Social gathering Rock Anthem” is a superb track, however I do get the sense that LMFAO’s Redfoo and SkyBlu actually like to get together. I don’t get that from Katy Perry.

I can’t entrance like I’m some unassailable authority with regards to partying, however I’ve had some huge nights. I’ve blacked out, pissed down staircases, puked on couches, made out with strangers, connected in public parks, feared for my very own security, all that stuff. As soon as, years earlier than we really bought married, my spouse and I made a decision to have a spur-of-the-moment drunken late-night wedding ceremony, with bachelor and bachelorette events and a few possibly-ordained acquaintance presiding over the supremely halfassed ceremony, after which we needed to have the awkward next-day dialog about whether or not that counted as an actual wedding ceremony or not. I’ve gotten busy, OK? I’ve lived the life.

A few of these nights have been wonderful, life-affirming experiences, and a few of them have been, let’s simply say, errors. In all of these conditions, nevertheless, my next-morning inner monologue went one thing like this: “Buuuuuh, holy shit, what the fuck, what did I do, what even occurred, buuuuuh.” In most of these conditions, I spent the subsequent day gobbling Advil, doing unspeakable issues within the lavatory, and zoning out to some VH1 marathon. (The vast majority of these huge nights have been within the ’00s.) My response to these nights was not to go sing a perky pop track about no matter simply occurred.

“Final Friday Evening” is a perky pop track. This could not come as a shock. Katy Perry excelled at perky pop songs. For some time, she was our foremost grasp of the perky pop track. Her collaborators Max Martin and Dr. Luke constructed huge empires out of perky pop songs. “Final Friday Evening” has all of the hallmarks of the Katy Perry/Max Martin/Dr. Luke connection. The monitor’s items all click on into place with the sort of exact effectivity that solely exists in car-commercial meeting strains. The melodies are so sharp and apparent that they sound like they’ve all the time existed in your head, that listening to the track is just unlocking one thing that was all the time there. The track has no actual style, until “perky pop track” counts as a style.

The totally different Teenage Dream singles are principally variations on the identical taste, and “Final Friday Evening” is the brand new wave variation. The guitars chug and sparkle. They keyboards zoom and champagne. The drums are too dry and utilitarian to be something aside from plugins. Deep within the combine, somebody performs slap-bass. Katy Perry’s voice doubles up on the refrain, and there’s simply sufficient Auto-Tune that her voice sounds uncannily unreal. On the verses, she reels off staccato recollections with what we’re clearly supposed to listen to as crazy allure. On the bridge, a bunch of individuals chant “TGIF” time and again, as if that was one thing that anybody ever does at actual events.

Max Martin and Dr. Luke all the time knew what they have been doing, and the hooks on “Final Friday Evening” are so clear that you may eat off of them, so sharp that you may use them to function. Nonetheless, “Final Friday Evening” isn’t one of many extra impressed efforts from the “Teenage Dream” crew. It’s oddly low-energy. There’s no urgency, no catharsis. Katy Perry’s supposedly-blurry get together recollections — “We danced on tabletops/ And we took too many pictures/ Suppose we kissed, however I forgot” — merely usually are not convincing. I’m not saying that Katy Perry has by no means completed these items, however I’m saying that she didn’t do them final Friday evening. The entire tone of the track is admittedly extra “That One Friday Evening 5 Years In the past, Bear in mind That?”

I’m not usually too hung up on pop-music authenticity. Pop songs are all the time promoting us one thing, and I’m extra focused on whether or not they succeed at doing no matter they’re attempting to do. However the model of hedonism on “Final Friday Evening” merely sounds pretend as hell, and I can’t get previous that. Too lots of the lyrics — “Suppose I would like a ginger ale/ That was such an epic fail” — have that Steve Carrell “baggage of sand” factor occurring. Katy simply doesn’t sound like somebody who has ever partied. Somebody like Kesha and even Rihanna would most likely be an entire lot extra convincing with a track like this. In a single lyric — “sun shades and Advil, final evening was mad actual” — Kanye West captured an entire lot extra of that next-morning feeling than Katy Perry may ever summon. Katy goes extra for comedy than for any lifelike depiction of partying, however real-deal drunkenness is an entire lot funnier than this Disney Channel-ass depiction.

2011 was a very hedonistic pop-music period, and Katy Perry soundtracked a lot of it. Katy was married to Russell Model, so I’m positive she was no stranger to drunken, unhealthy selections. However for no matter motive, she’s uniquely ill-suited to singing about processing a hedonistic evening after the actual fact. If I heard “Final Friday Evening” the morning after an enormous evening, I might wish to crawl right into a gap and die. It’s simply too chipper. It’s not a nasty track, however the dissonance between the tone and subject material simply doesn’t work for me.

I’m fairly sure that Katy Perry launched “Final Friday Evening” as a single no less than partially in order that she may make the video. Marc Klasfeld directed the clip, and Perry performed a nerdy teenage character who she known as Kathy Beth Terry. (Certain. No matter. Nice.) The video is structured like The Hangover, with Katy waking up in a wild tableau after which determining the whole lot that occurred the evening earlier than. Tonally, it’s a brilliant and garish salute to the teenager films of the ’80s, although it truthfully feels extra just like the early-’10s films that attempted to evoke ’80s teen comedies. (I’m considering particularly of Mission X right here.)

Katy Perry’s “Final Friday Evening” character is meant to be an enormous nerd, with glasses and headgear and all that shit. Naturally, she goes via the usual movie-nerd makeover, although she nonetheless seems to be completely deranged when she’s imagined to be scorching. The one that offers her the makeover is Rebecca Black, the precise teenager who was catapulted to traumatic, sudden fame when her 2011 track “Friday,” recorded when Black’s mother employed a music manufacturing crew known as the ARK Music Manufacturing unit to write down and produce a track for $4,000, went mega-viral. “Friday” turned large as a result of it was supposedly the worst track ever, however its crazy allure has all the time labored on me, and I prefer it higher than “Final Friday Evening.” (“Friday” peaked at #58, and it will’ve gone method increased if Billboard had counting YouTube views on the Scorching 100 on the time. Rebecca Black’s highest-charting single, the 2013 sequel “Saturday,” peaked at #55.)

Rebecca Black isn’t the one well-known guest-star within the “Final Friday Evening” video. Former Quantity Ones artists Hanson present up as themselves. Glee stars Darren Criss and Kevin McHale are in there as partiers; later, in a meta contact, the 2 of them would sing “Final Friday Evening” on Glee. Kenny G, enjoying Katy Perry’s uncle, pops as much as mime the track’s sax solo whereas standing on a rooftop. (In actual life, the sax participant on “Final Friday Evening” is Lenny Pickett, the previous Tower Of Energy member who turned the chief of the Saturday Evening Stay band, which suggests he was Dr. Luke’s boss for some time. Kenny G’s highest-charting single, 1987’s “Songbird,” peaked at #4. It’s a 3.)

On the finish of the video, Katy Perry’s mother and father present up, they usually’re performed by ’80s fixtures Corey Feldman and Debbie Gibson. Feldman was an actor, and Gibson, who’s been on this column a few instances, had no less than some appearing expertise. However when the 2 of them have to try some comical riffing, it does not go nicely. (Additionally, Debbie Gibson is 14 years older than Katy Perry, and she or he doesn’t look sufficiently old to play her mother.) The video goes on for eight minutes, with a full Jackie Chan blooper-reel credit sequence. It hinges on Katy Perry’s broad slapstick efficiency, and to not be impolite, there’s a motive that Katy Perry’s appearing profession peaked with The Smurfs. I don’t actually like that video.

The video wasn’t sufficient to push “Final Friday Evening” to #1. For 4 weeks, the track was caught at #2 behind “Social gathering Rock Anthem.” As a last-ditch effort to push the track to the highest, Katy launched a “Final Friday Evening” remix with Missy Elliott, and you may purchase it on iTunes for the discounted 69-cent fee. Earlier in 2011, Rihanna used the identical tactic; the model of “S&M” that went to #1 was the remix with Britney Spears. The plan labored for Rihanna, and it labored for Katy Perry, too.

Missy Elliott doesn’t actually do something on the “Final Friday Evening” remix; she doesn’t have a single memorable second on there. The model of “Final Friday Evening” with Missy wasn’t the one which topped the Scorching 100, for the reason that unique was nonetheless getting extra radio airplay. Nonetheless, these iTunes gross sales lastly pushed Katy’s track excessive and allowed her to clinch the tie with Unhealthy. That implies that Missy Elliott nonetheless doesn’t have a #1 hit to name her personal. (Missy’s highest-charting single, 2002’s “Work It,” peaked at #2. It’s a ten.) When Katy Perry performed the Tremendous Bowl Halftime Present just a few years later, she introduced out Missy as a shock visitor, however they didn’t do the “Final Friday Evening” remix collectively.

Today, “Final Friday Evening” might be principally remembered because the monitor that enabled Katy Perry to make chart historical past, or perhaps because the one with the video the place she wears the headgear. As an precise track, I don’t assume it has a lot of a popularity. The monitor merely doesn’t linger in the identical method, although it has gone platinum six instances over. Katy Perry really got here fairly near breaking the Unhealthy report when she adopted “Final Friday Evening” with “The One That Received Away,” the comparatively ruminative quantity the place she flashes again on making out in a Mustang to Radiohead. However “The One That Received Away” actually was the one which bought away, because it peaked at #3. (It’s a 7.)

Lastly, we’ve reached the tip of the Teenage Dream album cycle — a massively profitable pop-star period that also evokes heat recollections in most of us. This was the second for Katy Perry. By the tip of 2011, Katy was launching perfumes and internet hosting Saturday Evening Stay and whatnot. On New 12 months’s Eve that yr, unlikely muse Russell Model texted Katy to inform her that their marriage was over, and she or he reportedly hasn’t spoken to him since. The divorce despatched Perry right into a fog of despair, however she stored working via it. Earlier than lengthy, she’ll be again on this column.

GRADE: 6/10