Music Execs Called 'Teenage Dream' 'Insufficiently Cool', Ex-Pitchfork Writer Claims Bias

If one would think of a decade-defining song in the 2010s, at least two out of ten people are going to say that it was "Teenage Dream." The lead single and title track of Katy Perry's third album of the same name is perhaps one of her most successful songs of all time.

However, not everyone thought of that back then, in fact, music executives from Pitchfork Magazine wanted people to believe that the album wasn't great back them.

Pitchfork Execs Biased?

In a Stereogum article written by Tom Breiham, a former Pitchfork writer, he revealed that the higher-ups from the said music magazine initially wanted their writers to review the song badly, despite its sheer beauty.

"With "Teenage Dream," though, I remember everything - the way my chair squeaked, the texture of the carpet, the quality of the light coming through the windows. I wasn't even doing anything memorable then. I was just at work, working. It would've been boring as hell, except that I was hearing "Teenage Dream" for the first time," he recalled as he was reviewing every No. 1 hit song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart since its inception.

As he continues to look back at the exact moment he heard "Teenage Dream," he recalled that his friend Ryan Dombal, a writer at Pitchfork too, sent him the song but it wasn't because they have to write about it, but because he wanted to share how he "instantly" loved it.

Apparently, the reason why they didn't have to write about "Teenage Dream" back then was because Pitchfork higher-ups "had decided that Katy Perry was insufficiently cool." Surprisingly, they only gave a "Teenage Dream" review in 2021, 11 years since it was released.

Per Breiham, if he would still have the archive of his conversation with Dombal, it would have been a whole lot of "HOLY SH*T" on his end.

"I was not a teenager when I first heard "Teenage Dream." I wasn't anything like a teenager. I was a grown-ass dad with an office job, writing about music for a site that would not take Katy Perry seriously until Katy Perry's moment was over," he recently wrote.

Katy Perry 'Teenage Dream' Achievements

"Teenage Dream" debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 charts and has been certified 8x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

It was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Performance at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards and the parent album was nominated for Album of the Year.

Perry also performed the song multiple times, in her tours, and even on her Super Bowl headlining performance.

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Katy Perry