"Teenage Dream" is a song by American singer Katy Perry. It was released as the second single from her third studio album of the same name on July 23, 2010. She and Bonnie McKee co-wrote the track with its producers Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and Benny Blanco. The track was recorded at Conway Recording Studios, based in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and Playback Recording Studios, based in Santa Barbara, California. McKee describes "Teenage Dream" as a throwback song to the euphoric feelings of being in love as a teenager while Perry described the song as reminiscent of her youth. Musically, "Teenage Dream" is a mid-tempo pop song with a retro sound. It is styled in the genres of power pop and electropop, while taking influence from other genres such as disco and pop rock. Perry starts the song in a high-pitched voice while her vocals grow stronger as the song progresses. Lyrically, "Teenage Dream" discusses being with a lover who makes one feel young again.
Critics were initially divided about the song at release. However, the song has received retrospective critical acclaim with Glamour calling it "one of the best pop songs of all time." The song topped the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming Perry's third number-one single on that chart, and her second consecutive number-one single after "California Gurls". It also reached number one in Ireland, New Zealand, and Slovakia. "Teenage Dream" entered the top ten in 13 countries in total. "Teenage Dream" has been certified Diamond in the United States, Australia, and Canada, and Gold or Platinum in ten additional countries. The song has sold 12 million copies worldwide.
A music video for the song was filmed in various locations around Perry's hometown in Santa Barbara, California and was directed by Yoann Lemoine (a.k.a. Woodkid). The video showcases Perry being in love with her high school boyfriend. Perry has performed the song on Saturday Night Live, the 2010 Teen Choice Awards, 53rd Annual Grammy Awards, the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show, and in every one of her concert tours since the California Dreams Tour. "Teenage Dream" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, becoming Perry's third nomination in the category. The song has been covered numerous times, appearing on American Idol, The Voice, and Glee. Billboard ranked "Teenage Dream" among the "500 Best Pop Songs of All Time" in 2023 at number 38, and Rolling Stone ranked among "The 250 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century So Far" in 2025 at number 55.
Background and writing
When Perry and McKee first met in 2004, they both were "really into Lolita" and "had a mutual fascination with the adolescent state of mind." They explored the themes in their first records: Perry wrote One of the Boys, which touched on the early stages of discovering that boys could be more than friends, whereas McKee wrote "Confessions of a Teenage Girl", which was about using sexual power to one's advantage. For the Teenage Dream sessions, Perry and McKee had a "forever young" idea in mind. Perry at first wrote a lyric about Peter Pan, but they later deemed it as "too young" since "we wanted it to have more edge, more sex." Another version included the lines "And the next thing you know / You're a mom in a minivan", which made them laugh uncontrollably for an hour. There was a final version that was based around the metaphor of "trying me on" comparing clothes to sex, in a similar manner to Madonna's 1985 single "Dress You Up". It was rejected by the producers, as McKee explained, "Luke always makes us 'Benny Proof' everything. He says that if Benny doesn't get it, America won't get it." Blanco showed them the Teenagers's 2007 single "Homecoming" and asked them to write in a similar style. McKee said that "[We] looked at each other with dread, knowing we had to start all over again..... We were both so over it we just called it a night."
McKee continued working on the song the following days. She explained, "I thought about my own adolescent years, my own first love. I thought about watching Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo and Juliet' and putting on a little mini disco ball light and just dreaming of Leo. I thought about me and my friends sitting around at slumber parties in the '90s, giddy even just THINKING about boys..... I thought about what Benny said and I listened to the song again, and I was like the Teenagers..... that's such a great word, Teenager. It is a very descriptive word; it packs a lot of emotion and imagery into three syllables..... I couldn't believe after all of our agonizing over 'youth' themes, that we had overlooked such an obvious one – the teenage condition." The following week, Perry invited McKee, Luke, and Martin to write in her hometown of Santa Barbara, California. McKee tried to approach Luke about her idea, but he was upset about the amount of time he had spent working in the chorus, so he banned them from changing it. They started working on the verses, where Perry had already prepared most of the imagery.
Perry described the process as "a very pure moment for me" and continued saying, "[It was] where I started my creative juices. And also it kind of exudes this euphoric feeling because everybody remembers what their teenage dreams were — all the girls that were on your poster walls." After she recorded the vocals, McKee pulled Luke and Martin aside and told them her idea, to which they responded, "Well why didn't you say that in the first place?". The chorus was rewritten, and the line "Skin tight jeans" was taken from the early "trying me on" version. When the final version was finished, McKee said, "We were all so pumped that it had paid off. I remember Max sitting back and saying 'I wish we could bottle this feeling'. It was really magical." Perry commented that even though the song was rewritten many times, she was "so happy to finally get somewhere that we all agreed on" after it was finished. During an interview in June 2010, Perry confirmed "Teenage Dream" as the second single from the album, and said that the song was about "kind of like feeling that way when you were a teenager: really emotional, really invested..... It's intense being in love and being a teenager." After confirming that "Teenage Dream" was also the title of the album, she explained that it was a throwback to her teenage years, as she thought back to her youth while contemplating marriage to her then-boyfriend Russell Brand. She added, "To me, this year is pretty heavy. I am going to be getting married and putting out this record, and there is so much going on that it's nice to think of those young dreams."
Composition
"Teenage Dream" is a midtempo love song with a strong beat that follows the retro sound of previous single "California Gurls". It is predominantly a power pop and electropop song, which features influences of disco, pop rock, and rock music. Musicnotes published this song in the key of B major, with a tempo of 120 beats per minute. It starts with the sequence of B–B2 played by a guitar. These intervals are played on guitar throughout the song, but with the addition of different bass notes from halfway through the first verse, the overall harmony can be heard as Emaj7 – Gm – Fsus4. The general chord progression of the song is made from the progression E - Gm – F. Perry's vocals in the song span from the note of B3 to the note of F5. The song starts with relatively high vocals, with Perry singing in head voice; it also continues during the second verse. Amos Barshad of New York said that "if not for a bluntly muscular chorus ('You! ..... make! ..... me!'), [the song] is nearly a ballad." The lyrics refer to being with a lover that makes one feel like a teenager. According to James Montgomery of MTV, the lyrics refer to being in love, and about the feelings of commitment and security that it brings. They also talk about taking the relationship further in lines such as: "Let's go all the way tonight / No regrets, just love / We can dance until we die / You and I / We'll be young forever".
In a 2014 Slate article, composer Owen Pallett analyzed the song using music theory to explain its success. He focused on two factors: the tonal interplay of the chords and melody, and Perry's use of syncopation in her vocals. "This song is all about suspension—not in the voice-leading 4–3 sense, but in the emotional sense, which listeners often associate with 'exhilaration,' being on the road, being on a roller coaster, travel," he explained.
That suspension is created "simply, by denying the listener any I chords," Pallett explains. After the first few lines, the B tonic chord that repeats throughout the song is offset by bass notes that give it a more dominant 7th feel. "The I chord will never appear again," he observes. At the same time, however, Perry begins singing the melody on that note, and returns to it frequently, even when it clashes with the dominant V chord as she sings "feel like I'm living a". "[T]he vocal melody establishes the key so clearly that there is no doubt ... Her voice is the sun and the song is in orbit around it," he concludes. "The insistence of the tonic in the melody keeps your ears' eyes fixed on the destination, but the song never arrives there. Weightlessness is achieved. Great work, songwriters!" Pallett notes other classic pop songs, such as Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" and Coldplay's "Viva la Vida", that employ the same device.
"The second key to this song's Enormous Chart Success," Pallett continues, "has to do with the weighting of the melody lines." Perry begins singing each verse on the beat ("you think I'm pretty ...") but then falls off it before the end of the first line ("... makeup on"), syncopating the melody, and creating additional tension. "Her lines dovetail elegantly into each other. This contributes to the feeling of suspension that I mentioned above. As listeners, we're waiting for her to get to the point." Pallett says she does indeed do this in the pre-chorus when she accentuates the imperatives ("Let's go all the way tonight ...") by returning to the beat. Pallett then calls it "genius" that the chorus itself inverts the weighting of the verses, as the line "You make me feel like I'm living a teenage dream" goes from off beat to on and then back again, in a single line.
Further, Pallett writes, in the song's bridge, Perry adds more complexity to the song—and makes it more memorable, in his opinion—by taking the simple step of singing the "let you put your hands on me in my skintight jeans" lyrics entirely on beat, including the reiteration of the song's title. "How brilliant. The title of the song is rhythmically weighted two ways—it's like a flank attack. Two sides of the same face. You WILL remember the name of this song."
Critical reception Critics were divided by "Teenage Dream" at the time of its release. Craig Marks of Billboard said that along with "California Gurls", the songs "are textbook summer singles whose ingenious pop hooks and zillion-dollar drum tracks are stamped with Perry's knack for a memorable line and frothy, gum-snapping persona." Billboard named "Teenage Dream" as the "second best song of the 2010s so far" in 2015. James Montgomery of MTV commented that "Teenage Dream" showed a "definite change of pace for Perry. While it's still as saccharine sweet as her previous hits, there's also a rather, well, mature quality to it (despite the title)." Amos Barshad of New York said, "Right now, it's feeling a bit too earnest, and not nearly as catchy as the follow-up single from Perry's first album ('Hot n Cold', most definitely still a jam). That said, we are now mentally preparing ourselves for its ubiquity." Alyssa Rosenberg of The Atlantic dismissed the lyrics as "simply annoying and incoherent" and added that "the hook and chorus aren't nearly compelling enough to pull me back into it."
Retrospective acclaim and legacy