Katy Perry took the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with her smash hit track “California Gurls” on June 19, 2010.
The song was released as the lead single from Perry’s “Teenage Dream” album, the follow-up to her breakthrough 2008 disc “One Of The Boys.” According to Perry, the track was written as a response to Jay-Z’s New York City anthem “Empire State of Mind.”
"It's so great that ‘Empire State of Mind’ is huge and that everybody has the New York song, but what the f**k? What about LA? What about California? And it's been a minute since we've had a California song and especially from a girl's perspective,” she told Rolling Stone.
“California Gurls” took over number one from “O.M.G.” by Usher, featuring will.i.am. The track held on for six straight weeks before it was succeeded by Eminem and Rihanna’s mega-hit “Love the Way You Lie.”
The song marked Perry’s second number one hit single and the third for her collaborator Snoop Dogg.