Satire or musical crime - what is going on with Katy Perry?
Katy Perry is not having the best time right now. Recently, the 39-year-old US singer released the first single from her new album - and it has not been well received.
"Woman's World" is designed as a feminist anthem, but the music video reproduces sexist clichés. Among others, the song was produced by Dr Luke - a man accused of sexual abuse.
"What regressive, warmed-over hell is this?" headlined the Guardian newspaper about "Woman's World." An author from the Austrian radio station FM4 wrote about the "most desperate comeback of the year." Since then, Perry has released two more singles which, although not generating a comparable shitstorm, also did not fully convince critics.
On Friday (September 20), the US singer will release the accompanying album, titled "143" - but can it save her career?
Musically, Perry, as usual, is oriented towards glossy electro-pop. While "Woman's World" is lifted by a simple pulsating beat and retro synthesizer, "Lifetimes" sounds more like the soundtrack of a dull holiday home.
The most interesting is the third single, "I'm His, He's Mine," which Perry recorded with the US rapper Doechii. The song works mainly due to the rap parts - and because they rely on a sample of the immensely catchy 90s house hit "Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)" by Crystal Waters.
Backwards-looking gender images
For her new album, Katy Perry once again collaborated with Dr Luke, who was also responsible for hit singles like Perry's "Teenage Dream." He is the music producer who was embroiled in a years-long legal battle with the musician Kesha ("Tik Tok"). She accused him of manipulating and sexually abusing her over years. Dr Luke denied this, and the two sued each other, settling out of court in 2023.
Perry acknowledged that the incident provoked a lot of talk. Speaking on the podcast "Call Her Daddy" the US artist said she wrote these songs from her experience, as her whole life has been one of change and Dr Luke was one of the people who made that possible for her.
The past years have been characterized by female pop stars empowering themselves. Musicians like Kesha, but also Taylor Swift, Adele, Billie Eilish, Charli XCX or Chappell Roan actively advocate for their rights - and refuse to go along with the role of the sexy pop star.
Perry's excuses and a music video in which exclusively normatively beautiful, almost naked women dance to her statement that women "can be anything" seems strangely backward-looking.
Katy Perry reacts to criticism
In the video for "Woman's World", the musician is seen in pin-up outfits, holding a diamond-studded screwdriver aloft, driving a monster truck and pouring a bottle of whiskey into her mouth.
That was satire, Perry countered after criticism arose, saying in an Instagram post that she was just trying to have fun and "be a bit sarcastic with it."
"It's very slapstick and very on the nose. And in this set we're not about the male gaze but we really are about the male gaze and we're overplaying it."
Perry's early success
Not only her music, but especially her public image seems like a recycling of what made Perry one of the pop icons of the early 2010s, when she had tremendous success. For instance, five singles from her 2010 album "Teenage Dream" reached number one on the Billboard charts.
It was a time when Perry, Rihanna and Lady Gaga dominated the charts with electro-pop smash hits like "Firework," "Only Girl (In The World)," and "Poker Face."
It was also a time when a song about a woman kissing another woman still seemed somewhat subversive (and could simultaneously cater to male fantasies - as seen in Perry's video for "I Kissed a Girl").
Perry appears to be trying to reconnect to this time in pop music history. But while social circumstances have since moved on, she and her team lack the compelling musical ideas that characterized her earlier hits.
