Friday, June 20, 2008

Battle of the "I Kissed a Girl"s

It's kind of weird to have such a distinctive title recycled like that, with Jill Sobule in 1995 and now Katy Perry this year. I know titles are not copyrighted themselves, but you're not expecting a different "A Hard Day's Night" or "Like A Rolling Stone" to come along.

There's an article at Entertainment Weekly, called "Jill Sobule weighs in on Katy Perry's 'Kissed a Girl'" that has some of Jill's thoughts on this. She says, "I don't feel precious about the title, but I've gotten tons of e-mails from annoyed fans."

When I first saw there was a song with that title, I thought 'remake," cover version. But it turned out not to be.

So we have the battle of the videos, battle of the kissing girl songs. Which one is best? Jill Sobule's is cuter, more bubbly, a great guitar break. I like both really. Katy's is more a tailored mainstream sound for today. It might also be more consciously pushing buttons. I like the line about "cherry Chapstick," but who wouldn't?

One thing I don't see much of in these videos is any actual kissing!

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