"Part of Me" Katy Perry

Perhaps sensing that her cultural cachet will never be greater than it is at this moment, Katy Perry—who last summer tied Michael Jackson's record of five #1 hits from the same album—seems intent on milking her twentysomething dream for all its worth. Thus comes "Part of Me," the lead single from her unnecessary Teenage Dream rerelease The Complete Confection. Perry debuted the track during the Grammys last night, but stripped away from the pyrotechnics and distracting blue hair, it's even more underwhelming than her performance initially made it seem. "Part" is yet another Dr. Luke-Max Martin production—practically its own genre of increasingly generic and diminishing returns at this point—but it's missing the kind of euphoric spark that made prior efforts like Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" (and even Perry's own "Teenage Dream") such instant classics. The song simultaneously goes for too much and too little: The lyrical kiss-off to a no-good lover (recent ex-husband Russell Brand?) wants to be taken seriously, but feels slight over blaring synths, while the production is too oppressively grim to let the song be the fun dance anthem that might actually suit its self-empowerment intentions. Knowing Perry, it will probably still be a #1 smash. C+