Can’t forget Paris: a look back at Paris Hilton’s pop debut time capsule

It was 2006 and life was simple.

Social media was but a sapling beginning to stretch its branches. The world wouldn’t meet the iPhone for another year and yet, we already thought we had smartphones. The economic collapse wouldn’t happen for two years. The tumultuous first half of the first decade of the new millennium was over and anything seemed possible.

‘American Idol,’ then still a cultural juggernaut, had made legitimate musical stars out of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. It was conceivable then, for a girl from Beverly Hills to transcend her family name and fortune to live her dream of being a pop star.

Turning 10 years old this week, Paris Hilton’s debut pop album — titled simply PARIS — would arrive as a final act, of sorts, for the age of Paris Hilton. For years, Hilton managed to stuff the pop culture zeitgeist right into her bag beside her teacup Chihuahua Tinkerbell and her bedazzled T-Mobile Sidekick phone. She sashayed down red carpets, starred in hit reality series “The Simple Life” and appeared in several mainstream movies — pop music stardom was but her next stilettoed step.

In a year that gave the world timeless pop epics — Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/Love Sounds, Fergie’s The Duchess, Nelly Furtado’s Loose and Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black — there’s no reason anyone should give a damn about a vanity album from America’s first true celebutante.

And yet, it’s 2016 and PARIS is the most enduring heirloom of a star that has long-since flamed out.

The first words on the album are the heiress proclaiming “That’s Hot” over a bumping urban club beat. This reference is both opulently self-aware and totally bankrupt of self-awareness at the same time: the album and its star’s central theme. With its still-infectious tropical lead single “Stars are Blind”, the bouncy piano brag “Fightin’ Over Me” and the “Grease”-sampling catcall “I Want You”, PARIS is a welcome souvenir harkening back to a simple idea: pop music should be fun. This isn’t an album with a lot to say, but it has a million fun ways of saying it.

In a pre-Born This Way pop world, before pop albums became social PSAs, and before popstars needed to go dark or deep to be considered authentic, having flashy songs that were fun was enough. And enough is perhaps PARIS’ biggest triumph.

The album knots together R&B club tracks with unabashed 70s and 80s throwbacks (“Hearbeat”, the best of the bunch, is essentially a reworking of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After TIme”) into an uneven crochet of fun that is so much better than it had to be.

While far from a masterpiece, the album holds up just as well — if not better — than other projects from more reputable pop acts. It’s a party in a world where nothing matters except love, sex, money and parties.

For those of a certain age, Paris Hilton’s debut (and so far only) album, is a time capsule of being young and feeling totally removed from an adulthood that felt a million years away.

PARIS, the pop trash trinket, is a relic that still sparkles long after its star has ceased to. It’s Paris’ Horcrux.