Katy Perry

Of all Madonna’s children, Katy Perry is the fastest addiction: The first artist to not leave the Top 10 for a full year, she’s all stadium-bright hooks, with a disco bounce like United State of Electronica on a Pentagon budget. She’s also the hardest crash: “Firework” is at once industrial-strength and appalling, so outsized in its hyped-up soupiness and sledgehammer vocals that its stupid lyrics are spine-tingling. Live, Perry’s movie-star expressions make her seem like she’s in on whatever joke you take her for, and she prices tickets with the wisdom that pop is for the quick, not just the rich.