food technology: Katy Perry Videos: Our Five Favorites

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Katy Perry Videos: Our Five Favorites

As we count down to the premiere of her 'Part of Me' video, MTV News picks our favorite Katy Perry clips to date.
By Vaughn Trudeau Schoonmaker

Katy Perry
Photo: EMI

We're just a couple days away from "MTV First: Katy Perry," when the pop star will premiere the music video for her #1 hit, "Part of Me" on MTV. As her seventh #1 single, "Part of Me" has a long line of awesome videos to live up to. And as we count down the hours to the video premiere at 7:23 p.m. on Wednesday, it seems like an opportune time to look back at our five favorite Katy Perry videos so far.

#5: "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)"
This Marc Klesfeld-directed, 8-minute mini-movie opened with Kathy Beth Terry waking up the morning after throwing quite the rager, wearing absurd head gear and dreadful overalls. While this was not Katy's first foray into the comedic music video genre by any means, this was the first time that she pulled all hands on deck to maximize the laughs with meaningful cameos from a glassy-eyed Darren Criss, Kevin McHale as a love interest, the mentoring of Friday expert Rebecca Black, Corey Feldman, Hanson, Debbie Gibson and, of course, Kenny G.

Complete with dream sequences, beautiful fluorescent leggings a la 1985, a rooster and end credits that clearly save the best for last, "T.G.I.F." is hands-down Katy's most fun video to date.

#4: "I Kissed a Girl"
Rewatching the video for her first #1 hit, we see a personality far more timid and sex kitten-ish than the Katy Perry we know now. But we still recognize strong visual themes that are scattered throughout her more recent videos, live performances and magazine spreads.

Director Kinga Burza brought us bizarre yet compelling imagery that seems to have set the tone for all videos to follow. The pink-and-red color scheme creates a burlesque backdrop around Katy's former 1940s-pin-up-girl look that she hit the big pop scene with in 2008. We get to see a cat (not Kitty Purry technically, but perhaps a nod?), a pretty cake (confection!), and a pillow fight with a group of scantily clad women (including a pre-famous Ke$ha). The video ends with her waking up to realize the whole video was a dream, and she happens to be sharing a bed with a man who looks suspiciously similar to her then-boyfriend, Travie McCoy.

#3: "California Gurls"
This now-iconic video set the Candyland theme Perry took on the road with her for the sold-out California Dreams World Tour. As Snoop Dogg plays a naughty game of "Candyfornia," the game piece, Ms. Perry, is faced with obstacles in the Mathew Cullen-directed adventure, including an army of pissed-off Gummy Bears and sinister candy snake vines. The obstacles are no match for her whipped cream-shooting bikini top and her happy-go-lucky demeanor she maintains while lying nude on some of the prettiest cotton candy clouds ever spotted. Her lavender, blue and black wigs foreshadowed Perry's constantly-changing hair styles we see today.

The visual effects in the video, surprisingly intricate for such a silly and sweet concept, transform Katy's homeland California with all of its picturesque landscapes into a tantalizing Willy Wonka land where everything is edible, including the Hollywood sign. The video also marked Katy's first noteworthy choreographed dancing, which was a new territory not explored from her One of the Boys era of videos.

#2: "Firework"
Katy Perry looks like a princess in this Budapest-set, Dave Meyers-directed tearjerker (happy tears!) that led the way for anti-bullying anthems even before Pink's "F---in' Perfect" and Lady Gaga's Born This Way. Featuring a child cancer patient, a boy whose parents are fighting, a girl struggling with her weight and a teenage boy with a same-sex love interest, Katy Perry's message of "igniting the light" is loud and clear as fireworks burst from everyone's chest and purple streaks in one's hair have never looked so good.

#1: "The One That Got Away"
Marking her second collaboration with director Floria Sigismondi following "E.T.," "The One That Got Away" takes the top prize because of its clever jumps through time, a convincing old-lady makeover, Diego Luna's spicy cameo, and Perry managing to look more beautiful than ever amid a fascinating emotional breakdown.

Set against the backdrop of California panoramas, this music video neatly ties together the imagery she introduced us to in her equally gorgeous video for "Teenage Dream," while letting the story of love and loss run wild, giving Katy the chance to show us the extent of her talent, as she showed her high potential for dramatic acting.

Can Katy Perry top this list with "Part of Me"? Find out when during "MTV First: Katy Perry," when the pop star will debut the video at 7:23 p.m. ET on MTV, followed by an 30-minute interview with MTV News' James Montgomery on MTV.com.

Immediately following the premiere of "Part of Me" on MTV, the video for the deeply emotional single will air on Logo, debut on MTV.com, VH1.com and LOGOtv.com, and go into rotation on mtvU, MTV Hits and AMTV the following morning. Additionally, the video will debut on Saturday, March 24, at 9 a.m. ET/PT during VH1's "Top 20 Countdown" and on TeenNick's "Obsess This" music block at 7 a.m. ET and Sunday, March 25, at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Do you agree with our top five picks? Let us know in the comments section.

Catch "MTV First: Katy Perry" on Wednesday, March 21, when the pop star will debut her long-awaited video for "Part of Me" at 7:23 p.m. ET on MTV. Then head over to MTV.com for an exclusive 30-minute interview with MTV News' Perry!

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