Katy Perry
The candy-striped retro-pinup pop star who opened summer 2008 with a song that topped charts for seven straight weeks and didn't let go all year. Katy Perry was inescapable.
Katy Perry's story began as Katy Hudson: a gospel album on Red Hill Records in 2001 that went nowhere. She signed to Capitol Records in April 2007 and quietly prepared her debut. On April 28, 2008, "I Kissed a Girl" dropped and topped the Billboard Hot 100 on the chart dated July 5, 2008, staying at #1 for seven consecutive weeks—the sound of summer 2008. The album One of the Boys released June 17, 2008 and reached #9 on the Billboard 200; "Hot n Cold" hit #3 on the Hot 100.
She spent June through August 2008 on the Warped Tour, then hosted the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards in November and won Best New Act. The even-bigger next era opened with Teenage Dream in August 2010, beyond this window's story—but this 2008–2009 peak is when the world learned her name and couldn't escape it.
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