JOPLIN, Mo. — Katy Perry: “Teenage Dream”

Rating: C

You’re not escaping Katy Perry for the foreseeable future.

Depending on your feelings about the unstoppable singles “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream” this could be welcome news or the impetus to finally soundproof your home and embrace your latent agoraphobia.

“Teenage Dream” is Perry’s follow up to her platinum-selling “One of the Boys” and its hit single “I Kissed a Girl,” the song that introduced Perry to the world. This summer “California Gurls” blanketed America as thoroughly as the radiation that plagues the dystopian futures of so much science fiction and, just as in those books, there was a sense of inevitability to it.

Unfortunately, the problem with inevitability is that it precludes taking risks. “Teenage Dream” is an album crafted to be a surefire hit for an industry that can no longer count on surefire hits. (See the implosion of Christina Aguilera’s career with “Bionic” earlier this summer.)

Dr. Luke and Max Martin are the producing and songwriting team responsible for some of the biggest hits of the past decade, and they’re behind five songs on “Teenage Dream,” including the tile track and “California Gurls.” A cadre of high-profile producers handles the other seven songs on the album.

In the few moments when Perry’s goofy, teenage, sexbomb persona manages to shine through the impersonal and mechanical production, “Teenage Dream” is actually enjoyable. The catchiest four minutes on the album is “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.),” a song about recalling the previous week’s sins with an eye toward repeating them.

The chorus on “Last Friday Night” has my favorite moment on the album. Here is a portion of the chorus side-by-side with my reactions:

Last Friday night Yeah we maxed our credit cards (Me: “Been there.”)

And got kicked out of the bar (Me: “Yep. This is surprisingly relatable”)

So we hit the boulevard (Me: “Sure. That’s what I’d do, too.”)

Last Friday night We went streaking in the park (Me: “Never did that, but I know people who did.”)

Skinny dipping in the dark (Me: “Kids do this all the time. This is almost Rockwellian.”)  

Then had a mŽnage a trois (Me: “Yep É wait, what?”)

I love how Perry delivers that last line so offhandedly, as if teenagers today engage in three-ways all the time. “NBD, mom and dad!”

The line is as calculated as the silly titillation of “I Kissed a Girl” and just as insignificant, but like all great pop, the song achieves universality despite overly calculated details.

“Last Friday Night” -- unhurried pop-rock complete with a corny sax solo -- captures a sense of the unlimited possibility that Friday nights represent when you’re young, even if you can’t identify with one item on Perry’s list of teenage depravity.  

Similarly, the stadium ballad “Teenage Dream,” the winning ’80s pop rock on “Hummingbird Heartbeat” and melodrama of “The One That Got Away” -- which features the line, “Summer after high school when we first met / We make out in your Mustang to Radiohead” -- manage to transcend their phoniness by believably tapping into youthful infatuation.

Perry, falters, however, when she sings from personal experience, such as “Circle the Drain,” a clunky rock song about her rocky relationship with an ex-boyfriend. And while “Teenage Dream” is littered with potential hits, its biggest failure is trying to force every track to work both in the car and the club.

“Fireworks” is set to be the album’s third single, and its soaring chorus is undermined by an obnoxious spray-tan beat. “Peacock” manages the impressive feat of amplifying an off-color pun’s stupidity by turning it into it an annoying hook that you could conceivably dance to if you were a masochist.

Not that any amount of criticism will assist you in eluding these songs. They will dominate radio and public spaces for at least the next year.

That’s another problem with inevitability -- you can’t stop it.

Song of the Week

Kanye West (feat. Rick Ross, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver): “Monster”

Between now and Christmas Kanye West has vowed to transmit new music from him and his friends directly to the Internet from his laptop. “Monster” is one of his first offerings and supposedly the first single from a five-song album he and Jay-Z will be releasing called “Watch the Throne.”

Considering the fire power on “Monster,” it’s all the more surprising that after a couple listens this track and all the men on it are clearly just window dressing for Nicki Minaj’s verse.

The Trinidadian Minaj has been a popular guest rapper and landed a hit single as a solo artist earlier this year with “Your Love,” but her “Monster” verse is truly virtuosic and likely a star maker. West has been quoted as saying the only rapper who’s better than her is Eminem, which is obvious hyperbole but a sign of the hype surrounding her.

On “Monster,” Minaj’s verse is the longest, giving her a luxurious 90 seconds to obliterate everyone. She speeds-up, slows-down, switches her cadence and cycles through different personalities with different voices. It’s a weird, monstrously charismatic performance.