Who is Katy Perry? She is one of the most successful pop stars of the millennium thanks to sparkling songs like California Gurls and hymns to empowerment like Firework. But she was also a judge of American Idolperformed at a Super Bowl halftime show, attended a coronation celebration. She did it all and she did it with her eyes closed and in 5-inch heels.
Who Katy Perry could be in 2024 is another story. She tries to answer in her sixth album 143. In May it was put Idol behind her, hinting at a full-time return to pop. The problem is that the world has changed in the meantime and we are no longer fascinated by cotton candy bikinis and winking allusions to cherry-flavored lip balm. In an age where radio is no longer super-powerful, even mega-celebrities of Perry's caliber are struggling to land a hit. To make matters worse, her signature heavy-hitting productions sound as dated as Vine. Even though Perry knows she hasn't changed, she still wants to reclaim the pop culture influence she had in the late '00s and early '10s. To do so, she uses the cheap tricks that worked back then, including pandering to the male gaze.
One of these tricks is to reconnect with Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald, the producer of I Kissed a Girlthe sapphic hit that started the singer's rise quickly from the Warped Tour to arena concerts. He was among the teams that packaged megahits like Roar or Dark Horse. Reuniting with Dr. Luke, who Perry had abandoned at the time of Witness of 2017 in the wake of the producer's legal dispute with Kesha, may make commercial sense at a time when Perry is struggling to find her place in pop, so much so that during the period in which she participated in Idol It had no singles in the American top 10 and only two in the top 20. And yet the result is mostly boring, a somewhat mechanical attempt to evoke the glory days by throwing in a few updated references here and there.
Woman's Worlda kind of robotic celebration of the feminine, opens the way to elementary and cliché-filled lyrics. The playfulness of the past is replaced by stereotyped rhymes. Gorgeous It's a duet with Gottwald's protégé Kim Petras and it seems more like a tribute to Unholywith a pinch less goth and a little more trap beat. I'm His, He's Minand it seems Gypsy Woman by Crystal Waters, year 1991, played at 33 instead of 45 rpm, while Nirvana is a club track in which Perry sings about a psychosexual relationship with a partner “in the diamond sky,” all over a pounding base that is as fresh as the tune they play when you’re on hold on the phone. The album closes with Wondera banger that however seems like a banal EDM-pop from the 10s with lyrics that invite the new generation to shake off the “weight of the world” and remain “wild” and “pure”.
“Can someone promise me that our innocence won’t be lost in this cynical world?” Perry asks at one point. It’s a fair question to ask in 2024, but it’s a shame that it comes after ten songs that have vainly attempted to bring Perry back into fashion. The idea of putting her daughter Daisy on the track, which is also the only one where Luke isn’t featured (it was produced by Norway’s Stargate), seems almost like an attempt to ward off criticism rather than a way to sincerely express hope that the next generation will find a way to make things right. The last word is entrusted to Daisy herself: “Someday, when we’re wiser, will our hearts still have that fire?” It’s a shame that Perry didn’t ask herself that question while assembling this confusing attempt to put herself back at the center of pop.
From Rolling Stone US.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
