Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 09/14/2011 at 12:59 PM News

The Popdust Files: charts, katy perry, single announcement, the one that got away

You didn’t think we could get rid of her that easily, did you? A couple weeks after Katy Perry elbowed her way into the record books when “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” hit #1 on the strength of some slashed sales prices and a cheaply assembled remix co-starring Missy Elliott, Perry’s label EMI has decided to go for the gold once more by releasing a sixth single off Teenage Dream, in the hopes of eclipsing Michael Jackson’s shared record of five #1 hits off the same album. (“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” EMI marketing and promotion EVP Greg Thompson explained to Billboard.)

The song? “The One That Got Away,” the final of the album’s five Dr. Luke / Max Martin productions to be pulled as a single. Like the album’s title track, it’s a story of young love, where Katy expresses her regrets for letting the title character go, saying “In another life / I would make you stay / So I don’t have to say / You were the one that got away.” Along the way, she waxes nostalgic about “mak[ing] out in your Mustang to Radiohead” (like, “Paranoid Android” Radiohead?) and laments that “All this money can’t buy me a time machine” (keep raking it in, Katy, we’ll see).

Ultimately, the song is something of a surprise choice for single over the maybe more fan favorite Tricky Stewart productions “Circle the Drain” and “Hummingbird Heartbeat,” but of course nothing succeeds like success, and after four straight home runs with the Luke/Martin/Perry troika (hey, is Luke Perry’s middle name “Martin” by any chance? Nope, darn), it’s hard to argue with the line of thinking. Unlike “Last Friday Night,” which we feared would be a chart-topper one day from the first time we heard it, “The One” doesn’t sound like a #1 to us—the lyrics are too rote, the beat is too plodding. But after five #1s, we’ve learned not to underestimate Ms. Perry or her record label, and we don’t want to reverse jinx her anyway.

We will ask, though, of our faithful Popdust readers: Please do not spend money on this song. Katy’s already made more than enough chart history with this album, any more and we might have to give up on the charts entirely.

[Billboard]

For lots more pics, videos and up-to-the-second dish on Katy, be sure to check out her Popdust Artist Page.