808s And Heartbreak

Two types of people exist on this giant, spinning orb; those who breathe emotions in and out like oxygen, constantly living in a state of either ecstasy or despair, and those who prefer to just… well, get on with things. I’m expecting not to get along with million-selling songstress Christina Perri precisely because I am of the latter and she is of the former.

Ms. Perri’s tear-jerking debut album lovestrong. and the song that started it all, the almost hysterical ‘Jar Of Hearts’, proved that the 25 year-old is an extremist when it comes to matters of the heart, a fact that Perri is happy to confirm when I call her up in her hotel room in Glasgow.
“From the age of like, four really, I was just like a melancholy kid,” she remembers. “I can’t explain it either because my mom and my brother and my dad, everybody’s chipper and happy and whistling, and I was just like, that weird black sheep kid that would rather be alone and cry and listen to sad songs in my bedroom. It took me until I was older to figure out why I was so pensive and so sad. I was supposed to write little sad love songs! That was my destiny.”
I’m not sure which of us is better off, Perri or myself. On the one hand, I’m not likely to find myself sobbing uncontrollably in the supermarket because I’ve spotted a lonely avocado or a solitary cuppa soup. On the other, no-one wants to listen to my break-up song, which would be titled, ‘Well, That’s A Shame’.
Speaking of break-up songs, the pseudo-genre to which Perri owes her fame, I don’t really do them, unless Chaka Khan or Diana Ross counts.
“You don’t?” she exclaims, clearly baffled. “Maybe everybody’s different. I know for me, I just want to listen to the saddest song ever. I don’t know what it is that I find comforting about that. I eventually get to Diana Ross, but I definitely don’t mind the pulling of the heartstrings.”
Of course, it’s her ability to tug hard on those strings that made Perri one of the biggest-selling new artists of last year. Here’s how it happened; a friend uploaded a video of Perri singing to YouTube, a talent agent saw it, got in touch and pretty soon ‘Jar Of Hearts’ was being used on So You Think You Can Dance? The track clearly struck a chord with America’s heartbroken population, who bought over two million copies of the ballad once it had been rushed onto iTunes.
“It’s almost indescribable” Perri reflects, “but I just remember it feeling like a dream and feeling magical. I could say a million adjectives about it but I think maybe the best way to describe it is grateful. It was like everything I’ve always dreamed of and more.”
After So You Think You Can Dance? Perri didn’t go back to her waitressing job – she signed a record deal instead.
“I remember waking up every day, getting in the car and driving to the studio and being like, ‘Is this real life? Am I seriously not driving to the café right now? Am I seriously not covering up my tattoos? Am I seriously believed in by people?’”
The people behind the record-busting Twilight saga certainly did, asking Perri, a certified Twihard, to write a song for the soundtrack of Breaking Dawn.
“Oh my god. Well, I’ll tell you right now that did not feel real!” she chirps. “I still can’t believe it happened. I went and I watched the movie and I cried the whole time. All the Hollywood people were looking at their Blackberries and I was just like, ‘Baaaah!’, like totally tripping.”
The resulting lament, titled ‘A Thousand Years’, is significantly less bitter than the material on lovestrong., which finds Perri warning a cheating ex-lover, "You’re gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul," and reveling in another’s metaphorical death.
“I don’t mean to be this crazy-looking hating-on-guys artist,” she muses. “I hope people don’t think I hate on guys, I definitely don’t, in fact I love them! And fortunately or unfortunately I keep falling in and out of love.”
What’s that? You’re just asking for a friend? Well, if you must know, right now, she’s out.
“I recently broke up with someone,” she confides. “That’s what I’m in right now and it’s not going well at all! I keep trying to take a break from relationships and I just can’t help having all these little crushes!”
It strikes me as odd that someone who falls so hard has no trouble getting back up again. After all the heartache and tears, is it possible that Perri is still optimistic about love?
“You know what? I am. I keep falling in love, I keep believing that it’s the right dude for me out there, I keep trying to find him through all the wrong dudes and I’ll continue to do that. I definitely don’t want to give up on love, that’s for sure.”
We may be sitting on opposite sides of the emotional spectrum, but for this, I have to give Ms. Perri my ultimate respect.

lovestrong. is out now on Atlantic Records.