Discount single at iTunes? Check. Come up with a new remix? Check. Show up on well-timed, year-end television shows? Check.
Looks like Katy Perry, who hosted “Saturday Night Live” last week and was one of Barbara Walters” Most Fascinating People, is on track to make “The One That Got Away” her sixth No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 from “Teenage Dream,” which, as we all know by now, would make her the only artist in pop history to ever do so.
If the tune, which leapt from 9-4 this week, does not reach the summit, then it won”t be from lack of trying. Two weeks ago, Perry”s label, Capitol, discounted the single at iTunes to 69 cents (down from the usual $1.29 for top singles). Now we find out the a remix of the song by B.o.B. has been serviced to radio and will be available at iTunes next week, according to Billboard.
Reworking the single has worked well for her before: think the single version of “E.T.,” which features Kanye West, who is not on the album version; and Missy Elliott”s remix of “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.),” which helped goose that track to the top.
Perry, whom MTV named its 2011 Artist of the Year, has taken five songs from “Teenage Dream” to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. She is tied with Michael Jackson as the only artists to do so. In addition to “E.T.,” and “Last Friday Night,” the other tracks reaching the summit were “Teenage Dream,” “Firework” and “California Gurls.”