Katy Perry Does Not Make Me Smile... But Glee Does

A lot has been said about last week's episode of Glee. There was a whole lot of Gay in that episode. Boys kissing boys, boys getting bullied, boys singing and flirting with each other, boys wrestling with coming out issues… yeah, a whole lot of Gay. Which is great! I enjoyed every moment of it, and even more so because of how popular the show is and how it put these issues and thoughts in front of so many people.

One of the songs from this week's episode was Katy Perry's Teenage Dream redone by an all-boys choir (video up top). When the clip of the song hit YouTube before the episode aired, I was a bit leary. I'm no fan of Katy Perry, but damned if some of the songs of her albums aren't catchy, particularly when a cute boy is singing them directly to another boy. I was leary. But I got over that very quickly and soon became utterly enamored with the clip! I couldn't stop watching it and I was looking forward to seeing the episode so I could get the full context.

I went from enamored to completely smitten after watching the episode. The song was cute and the context was even better, so the husband and I rushed to open iTunes and download the track. Sure, it's not the video, but it was still pretty amazing. Glee doesn't often do much to the songs they cover, but Teenage Dream was done in an all-accepela fashion with some nitfy arrangements which sweetened the deal for me. A great arrangement and performance of a decent pop song mixed with gay flirtation? Yes, please!

While I thought the song was awesome, what I did not think about was how popular the song would actually become. But according to reports from the producers, Teenage Dream has become the best selling track from the Glee cast! They've performed dozens of songs, and the popularity of their version of Don't Stop Believing was everywhere last summer (including a friend's phone…which he proudly blasted through the phone speakers every time we walked down the street…) and was also a constant refrain for last season, so to hear that Teenage Dream has surpassed the sales of Don't Stop Believing is, well, unbelievable!

So what in the world is it about Teenage Dream that got everyone worked up? Is it because the source material is a recent pop hit still trending on the pop charts? Is it because of the unique arrangement? Or is it because of the gay tones of the song? Likely it is a bit of all those things, which is a good thing in my opinion.

We know that part of the reason Glee has been a (financial) success is because of the side market it has on selling singles. At $1.29 a pop, even if they only sell a total of 50,000 songs per episode, that's an additional $64.500 that episode brings in on top of add revenue. And if they do 20 episodes a season, that's well over a million bucks a year. And 50,000 tracks sold per episode is just a randomly picked number, but I'm just using it as a benchmark.

So if they are making bank off of songs, it stands to reason that the producers might be swayed a bit by the songs that sell well, right? And if Teenage Dream has done so well for itself, I can garauntee that we will see more boys singing to boy, more unique arrangements and more current pop hits (not that the show has lacked much of the last item, but still). And that's all good stuff!