Pop star Katy Perry is excited about releasing her next album because she can't wait to compete with Lady Gaga and Rihanna in the pop charts.

Perry is preparing to release a follow-up to her mainstream debut, One of the Boys, later this year and is reinventing her image and sound to keep up with her contemporaries, Contactmusic reported.

And the singer insists it's time for her to mature as an artist, admitting her pop persona can be "annoying". "(The new music) is still fun, but it's a bit darker. It's not as annoying. Sometimes I feel like a big strawberry with a face on it. If you do something over and over again it's like Chinese water torture. If it hits your head enough times, you want to die. You have to just evolve," Perry said.

"(In the pop industry) you've got Gaga, who's like, from outer space; you've got Ke$ha, who's the beer-drinking,
house-party girl; and then you've got Rihanna, who's transforming the urban world into her own outer space," Perry said.

"But I feel like you're missing an Alanis Morissette, in 2010. I love how she was a voice for a lot of people who couldn't explain their feelings. But it's not like I'm not gonna compete. I love a good dose of healthy competition. It's not going to be the same that they're doing," she added.