Katy Perry Welcomes You to Her '90s time warp for "California Gurls"

Katy Perry's "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg may begin with a synth riff very similar to Ke$ha's out-of-nowhere hit "Tik Tok, but the moment the percussion drops in, the song dives into a G-Funk aesthetic straight outta Dr. Dre's The Chronic era. This is a '90s time warp.

Back in April, when Perry dropped names like Ace of Base and said that her next album would be dripping in 1990s culture, she wasn't lying because "California Gurls" is a picturesque thumper tailor-made for playing in those jeeps that defined the '90s.

Lyrically, Perry paints a picture of her home state of California, specificially Southern California. The lyrics inspire a vivid mental picture of Dr. Dre's music video with Snoop Dogg "Ain't Nothing But A G Thang." Imagine beautiful women in bikinis playing volleyball at a barbeque. Imagine beautiful women driving in jeeps on their way to the beach with Snoop Dogg or Snoop Doggy Dogg as Perry refers to him in the second verse. "We freak/in my jeep/Snoop Doggy Dogg on the stereo. It's clever and appropriate since Snoop Dogg went by the longer moniker of Snoop Doggy Dogg during The Chronic era circa 1993. The chorus on "California Gurls" sums up the song in a few lines, that will be repeated countless times this summer of 2010.

"California Gurls, we're unforgettable/daisy dukes, bikinis on top/sun-kissed
skin, so hot we'll melt your popsicle/ah-oh-oh-oh, oh, ah-oh-oh-oh-ah/California
Gurls, we're undeniable/fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock/West Coast
represent/now put your hands up/ah-oh-oh-oh, oh, ah-oh-oh-oh-ah."

The song is also notable for containing Perry's trademark stuttering vocal tics "ah-us" "ah oh-oh-oh-oh." Perry's got a nice lower register voice that has some heft to it, probably due to her childhood training in the Penecostal church. Her vocals have always had that glam-rock vibe to me. Her vocal tics are great hooks by themselves.

Katy Perry's music and fashion sense has always been an homage to the '80s and '90s, but now with "California Gurls" she's made the style more specific. She hinted at an '80s/'90s hybrid sound with her No. 3 Billboard Hot 100 single "Hot & Cold" in 2008. It was a bouncy, pogo stick-paced song that my mom affectionately called her Jazzercise song. So many women in the '80s did exercise routines in Jazzercise, dancing to the most colorful pop music known to man, dressed in colors so loud that they could make they could blow the speakers out.

In the photo I used for this blog, Katy Perry is seen on stage on her knees performing at a concert. Dressed in daisy duke shorts, white Keds sneakers and a white and black polka-dot tank top tied to show her midriff, Perry is a dead ringer for the character Kelly Kapowski from '90s sitcom staple Saved By the Bell.

"California Gurls" is already No. 1 on Itunes and is being played on radio stations around the country, even though the song won't be released officially until May 25, 2010. I have no doubts that it will become a hit, maybe even No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. "California Gurls" may have similarities to Ke$ha's No. 1 hit "Tik Tok" in the way that they're both sunny jeep jams reminscient of the '90s, but the major difference is that Katy Perry can actually sing, in a throaty, full-bodied vocal style. And, if the song is good for nothing else, the vocoder-laced melody that closes "California Gurls" is guaranteed to make R&B heads nostalgic, with its nods to '90s G-Funk, Roger Troutman and that 1984 piece of sweetness "I Found Lovin" by Fatback.