Popstars are often accused of being fake and manufactured – and not writing their own music. Katy Perry has faced similar accusations, but are they true?
Katy Perry writes most of her own music, but not all. She has either written or co-written most of her songs. She used to co-write with Bonnie McKee, a songwriter who has worked with many pop stars. McKee has also written some of Katy Perry’s songs all by herself. Katy Perry has even written songs for other singers, including Kelly Clarkson and Nicki Minaj.
Read on to learn more about Katy Perry’s songwriting abilities!
Katy Perry Has Written Most of Her Own Music
As stated above, Katy Perry writes most of her music herself; even with the few exceptions where other people have written her songs for her, she has been very involved in the process and has not given up creative control. When it comes to collaborations with other artists, the artist in question usually co-writes the song with Katy before they record it, but some of Katy’s individual songs were also co-written with other artists. Some popular examples are as follows.
Two of Katy’s popular songs, Chained to the Rhythm and Double Rainbow, were co-written with Sia. Snoop Dogg was the co-writer of California Gurls, which he is also featured artist on. The song If We Ever Meet Again was a collaboration between Katy and Timbaland; they wrote and recorded it together. It Takes Two is another Katy Perry song that was co-written with another artist, Emeli Sandé in this case.
Small Talk was co-written and co-produced by Charlie Puth. 365 was co-written by Zedd, who also features on it. He also co-wrote and co-produced Never Really Over. Katy’s ex-boyfriend, with whom she has a matching cherry blossom tattoo – John Mayer – co-wrote Spiritual and collaborated with her on Who You Love.
Katy Works with Bonnie McKee for Songwriting
Bonnie McKee is a singer and songwriter, but she hasn’t always performed her own music. For many years, she captivated music lovers without them even realizing it. Katy Perry is one of the many stars that Bonnie has collaborated with, she helped her write some of her biggest hits, including Teenage Dream, Roar, California Gurls, and Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.). Some of Bonnie’s own songs include Bombastic and American Girl. She doesn’t work with Katy, or many other stars, anymore though because she’s focusing on her own career as a singer now.
Bonnie’s music sounds different from what she wrote for Katy, but speaking to Bustle, she said that she owes most of her fan base to Katy. “It’s a fun novelty job, where everyone’s like, ‘Oh! So you wrote that?’ It’s like a superpower,” she said, adding, “I think that Katy Perry was really kind to me in the beginning as far as crediting me and talking about me in interviews and stuff, so I really owe a lot of my fan base to her.”
Katy Has Written Hits for Other Singers Too
So not only has Katy Perry co-written some of her own music with other artists, but she has also completely written songs for other artists to perform. Some famous songs that you might not know were written by Katy Perry are the following.
Get on Your Knees by Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande was written partially by Katy Perry – she wrote the hook that Ariana sings. She similarly wrote the hook that Rita Ora sings on Iggy Azalea’s Black Widow. She completely wrote Kelly Clarkson’s I Do Not Hook Up – this was a song Katy originally wrote for herself before she released One of The Boys, but she never recorded it. She also wrote Longshot for Kelly’s album All I Ever Wanted.
Katy wrote two songs for Selena Gomez and the Scene – Rock God for Selena’s second album with the band, A Year Without Rain, and That’s More Like It for her last album with her band When The Sun Goes Down. She co-wrote Time’s Up with Ashley Tisdale and featured on it as well. Katy also wrote one of the songs on Britney Spears ill-fated personal album Britney Jean; she wrote Passenger, along with Sia and Diplo.