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One of the Boys is the second studio album, and the first mainstream album under the name of Katy Perry. The album was first released on June 17, 2008 in the United States and Canada. The theme of the songs on the album are very different, and more pop, than Perry's first self-titled album, Katy Hudson. An EP, Ur So Gay, which contains the album's promotional single, "Ur So Gay", was released to generate interest on the singer and the then-upcoming album.

The album debuted at number nine on the US Billboard 200, with 47,000 copies sold in its first week. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and also reached the top ten in countries such as Austria, Canada, Germany, Mexico, and Switzerland. One of the Boys received two Grammy nominations for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" for "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot N Cold". The album has sold 7 million copies worldwide.

Background

Perry has stated that she had been working on the album since she was nineteen years old. During the making of the album Perry went through many struggles such as being dropped from two record labels and having two canceled albums. During this time Perry had "written between sixty-five and seventy songs". Perry collaborated with notable producers Greg Wells, Lukasz Gottwald, Dave Stewart, Max Martin among others on the album. Perry co-wrote every song on the album as well as writing 3 of the songs herself.

Once signed to Capitol, label head Jason Flom started work on a new album by convincing Dr Luke to go back into the studio with Perry, with the two having already worked together on the abandoned Columbia sessions. Together with Max Martin they wrote and cut "I Kissed a Girl' and "Hot N Cold". Perry then collaborated again with Greg Wells, who she'd also worked with on the Columbia album, creating the songs "Ur So Gay" and "Mannequin". According to Perry's A&R Chris Anokute they ended up with five new songs and then chose the six best songs from both of her shelved albums, (A) Katy Perry and Fingerprints, to compile the album. Capitol created a 10-track sampler CD to promote Katy Perry within the industry for promotional means. The only two songs from the sampler CD that weren't included in the final track listing were "Box" and "The Driveway", with the later being given to Miley Cyrus. The song "Breakout" was first recorded by Katy Perry the album, though it was never included for the album and was again passed on to Cyrus, on whose version Perry sings backing vocals. "Box" was considered to be a single for the album as the label had a keen interest on the song, but ultimately the song was never included in the album.

When talking about the songs on the album Perry said that she released "Ur So Gay" as the first single because it "was meant to be an introduction and a background" and "the album will have a lot of the same characteristics". She has said that lyrics are important to her and so there "will be lots of storytelling", some songs are meant to "make you cry, but there are others to make you dance and sing". The single was intended to be a buzz-single and introduction of Perry to the public.

Critical reception

 Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 2/5 starsStar fullStar emptyStar emptyStar empty
The A.V. Club (D-)
Blender 3Star fullStar fullStar halfStar empty
The Boston Globe (mixed)
The Guardian 2/5 starsStar fullStar emptyStar emptyStar empty
The New York Times (mixed)
NME (3/10)
Robert Christgau Rating-Christgau-two-star-honorable-mention
Rolling Stone 2/5 starsStar fullStar emptyStar emptyStar empty
PopMatters (4/10)
Slant Magazine 2/5 starsStar fullStar emptyStar emptyStar empty
Spin 1Star halfStar emptyStar emptyStar empty

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 47, based on 18 reviews.

The album received positive reviews from Billboard magazine who claimed, "not since Jagged Little Pill has a debut album been so packed with potential hits." Blender described the album as "Perry’s creative-writing-class punch lines don’t always justify her self-congratulatory drag-queen tone. But she hiccups quirkily enough, and myriad big-name producers (from Dr. Luke to Glen Ballard) keep the new-wave synth hooks hopping." More often, critical reception ranged from mixed to negative reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewin of Allmusic gave the album two out of five stars noting that the album "sinks to crass, craven depths that turn One of the Boys into a grotesque emblem of all the wretched excesses of this decade." On the album, Uncut wrote "Gwen Stefani should be nervous." while Slant Magazine wrote that "Perry doesn't possess the grit or vocal prowess to follow through, and the title track is like No Doubt's 'Just a Girl' sans personality and conviction". The NME wrote that "Madonna and Perez Hilton may be fans, then, but if you’ve got even a passing interest in actually enjoying a record, don’t buy this one".

Singles

Ur So Gay EP
  • "Ur So Gay" was released digitally as a promotional single in late November 2007 to help introduce Perry into the music world. It reached internet success and received some radio play. A music video was shot for the song by director, and friend, Walter May. The video first premiered on MySpace and was later made available on iTunes. It is often confused as an official single, but was confirmed by Perry to not be.
I kissed a girl
  • The album's lead single, "I Kissed a Girl" was released in early May and topped the charts, becoming a commercial sucess. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming the 1000th chart-topper of the rock era. Including the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, it has topped the charts in more than 30 countries. It has sold over 4,600,000 digital downloads in the U.S. as of January 2015 and was included in the 2010 Guinness World Records book.
Katyperry hotncold
  • The second single, "Hot N Cold", charted after the album's release due to strong digital downloads. It was released in early September, and peaked at number 3 on the US charts. This made the song Perry's second consecutive top 5 single. On November 14, the song became Perry's first number 1 on radio airplay. It also became number one on the iTunes comprehensive charts. It is officially one of the ten best-selling digitally downloaded songs of all time. It has sold over 5,600,000 digital downloads in the U.S. as of January 2015 and was included in the 2010 Guinness World Records book.
Thinkin of you
  • "Thinking of You" is the fourth single off the album, but was originally planned to be the first single, but was later scrapped for "I Kissed a Girl" due to its quick popularity. A video for "Thinking of You" was uploaded onto Youtube in late April 2008, but the video was removed due to a re-make of the video after the single was re-released as the fourth international single from the album. Perry shot the second video with director Melina Matsoukas in the first week of December 2008 and the video was released soon after on December 23. The track peaked at #14 on the iTunes comprehensive chart and peaked at #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the week of February 12, 2009 where it remained for the next two weeks before dropping to #31 in its seventh week on the chart. It has sold over 1,100,000 digital downloads in the U.S.
Wakingvegas
  • "Waking Up in Vegas" is the official fourth and final single from the album. It was sent to radio on April 21 in the U.S. It was released to Australian radio on March 23, where it became the fourth most added song in its release week. Perry performed it on American Idol on May 13, 2009, and resulted in a surge of sales for the song and boosted it all the way to number two on the iTunes comprehensive chart. The music video was shot by Joseph Kahn during March 2009 in Las Vegas and officially premiered on the iTunes store in the U.S. and Australia on April 28, 2009. The song has sold over 2,300,000 digital downloads in the U.S. as of January 2015.

Photoshoot

Cover Photoshoot

Singles Photoshoot

Track listing

Unique track listings of the album see List of international editions of One of the Boys for more details.

# Track list (Standard) LENGTH
1. "One of the Boys"   4:09
2. "I Kissed a Girl"   3:01
3. "Waking Up in Vegas"   3:24
4. "Thinking of You"   4:09
5. "Mannequin"   3:19
6. "Ur So Gay"   3:39
7. "Hot N Cold"   3:42
8. "If You Can Afford Me"   3:21
9. "Lost"   4:18
10. "Self Inflicted"   3:27
11. "I'm Still Breathing"   3:48
12. "Fingerprints"   3:44
The Katy Perry Wiki

Outtakes

Booklet

The One of the Boys Booklet can only be found with the physical release of the album.

  • Album Mastered — Brian "Big Bass" Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering
  • A&R — Chris Anokute & Angelica Cob-Baehler
  • A&R Administration — Ronette Bowie
  • Photography — Michael Elins
  • Art Direction — Ed Sherman
  • Design and illustration — Shayne Ivy
  • Direct Management Group, Inc. / Bradford Cobb, Martin Kirkup & Steven Jensen
THANK YOU: This list is rather long because this record has been a long time coming. So many people have been a part of the Katy Perry Marathon, hopping in, helping out, passing the baton or running to the finish line. This record is for everyone of you that have helped me along and pushed me 'til I didn't think I could be pushed anymore... never. give. up. FIRST OF ALL. I would like to thank God. I'm happy to know there's someone else out there bigger than me controlling things. I recognize that my talents are God-given gifts and for this I thank you. I would like to also thank my wonderful loving, but weird family, Mom, Dad, David & Ang, Grandma and Jenn. You keep me grounded, easy way or hard way ;) VERY SPECIAL THANKS to Glen Ballard, who believed in me from the very beginning and always challenged me to write a song a day. I love you. Window Aerowave. SPECIAL THANKS to Jason Flom and Angelica Cob-Baehler. Chris Anokute, Lee Trink, Angie Bazzana, David Wolter, Jeff Kempler, Bob Semanovich, Dominic Pandiscia, Diane Mayer, Matt Kroepel, Susan Silverman, Heidi Anne-Noel, Jules DiCesaris, Nicole Frantz, Jill Lamothe, Amani Duncan, Ed Green, Greg Thompson, Dennis Reese, Phil Wild, Lauren Zucker, Ronette Bowie, Taryn Gordon, John Bowen, Keith Jenkins, Bob Heinemann, Guy Hands, the Katy Perry Secret Society & everyone else at my FANTASTIC label, Capitol. You support my vision, even when sometimes it's a bit... off. My fantastic producers in crime, Greg Wells, Lukasz Gottwald, Max Martin, Sam Hollander, Dave Katz, Benny Blanco, Butch Walker, Scott Cutler & Anne Preven, Ted Bruner, Joe Zook and all the insanely talented co-writers, engineers, producers and players throughout this process. Blue Hamilton, Glen Brunman, Greg Sowders, Judy Stakee, Wendy Christiansen, Alexandra Robertson and all at Warner/Chappell Music. My stick-through-it management TEAM, Bradford Elton Cobb the Third, Martin Kirkup, Steve Jensen, Ngoc Hoang, Dana Collins & Marina Bonnani. Mitch Rose, Rob Light, Brian Loucks, JBeau, Erin Cully & everyone else @ CAA. Tim Devine, DeSavia, Jeff Jernigan and all at ASCAP. The best friends a girl could ever ask for spanning from Santa Barbara to Hollywood to NYC, Markus Molinari, Shannon, Travie, Johnny Wujek, Todd Dufour, Rob Williams, Shareen, Perez, Mia, Matt B, Angela W, Walter May, Suzanne, Rick, Jonny, Trevor, George K, and all of the other wonderful people that have been there through the highs and the lows. William Holloway, Jean-Louis Deniot, BIG KISS. My old fans AND new fans! I'm just happy to have fans! Yay! Big ups to my wonderful hometown of Santa Barbara, CA. And as my sister always says, "It takes a village to raise a Katy." Thank you ALL. I CAN'T BELIEVE I FINALLY HAVE A RECORD OUT. Oh yeah, and KITTY PURRY... I LOVE YOU! You best believe we about to upgrade that collar...

References

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