I don’t TOTALLY hate Katy Perry. You have to know someone to hate them, and I don’t know the woman personally. So there’s that. Otherwise, she just seems like an exploitative whore for fame-kinda like GaGa without the talent. So needless to say, I won’t be picking up Katy’s latest release, “Teenage Dream” today. However, I’m pretty sure a couple hundred thousand folks will, injecting some life into the music industry, which has been running on fumes for most of the summer.

More my speed? Well, I’m willing to give Usher a mulligan for the steaming piece of doodoo that was “Raymond v. Raymond”. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that his new EP-ish release, called “Versus”, will win me back into his fan club. First of all, the first single (which I haven’t heard yet) features Pitbull. The other single features Jay-Z (yes) but is called “Hot Tottie” (no). Nevertheless, it’s an 8-song EP, so if I’m disappointed at least I won’t have paid a lot of money for it?

Speaking of mulligans, Fantasia’s third album, called “Back to Me”, also comes out today. ‘Tasia’s first two albums aren’t bad, and she has a helluva voice, but the whole suicide attempt that might have been a publicity stunt deal? Not cool. However, we live in an age where there’s no holds barred and people will do whatever they can to get an edge, so I guess I’ll just have to shrug this one off. The album better be good, though.

Others of you might want to check out “7th Symphony” by metal band (with classical strings) Apocalyptica. Yet others might want to check out the latest record from Eels, “Tomorrow Morning”. There’s also the debut effort from J.P., Chrissie & the Fairground Boys (for those who don’t know, the “Chrissie” in the band is the legendary Chrissie Hynde), plus a new album from Ra Ra Riot.

A fairly healthy slate of releases, huh? Let’s hope that it continues for the remainder of 2010!!