Good Things Come to Those Who Take

Katy Perry is a fish out of water. She had her moment- several, one might argue. But she's not, as Charli XCX might say, "so Julia". She's not it anymore, and hasn't been for quite some time. This is the tale of an artist's death gurgle, her dramatic flopping about, and working to curdle her own art.

As a teen in the late aughts, I saw Katy's ascendancy. She was the moment. She was inescapible. One of the Boys (2008) was bop after bop after bop. The industry even admitted it, with her winning several industry awards that year. I Kissed a Girl alone went sextuple platinum in the US, racking up over 6M sales. Living with two teenage girls a few years after its release, the record was still in heavy rotation.

She was one of the headliners of a moment for pop. That year alone we got Fearless, 808's and Heartbreak, Vampire Weekend, Circus, and so much more. They defined they next few years and ruled pop culture as a whole.

Just two years later, she served up Teenage Dream (2010). A little light in the back half in my opinion, it still had some all-time anthems from her with California Gurls, Firework, and Last Friday Night. This began several years of prominent movie soundtrack placements. This shows a true saturation of culture, leaking through into other mediums. It charted at #1 all over, got awards, the whole shebang.

Prism (2013) was the beginning of the end. Dark Horse is the only track that rings any bells for me, and reviewing the tracks does little good. It got plays, just not as many. It got some award nods, but not many, and no wins. It charted, but not as well. It attempts to show a more mature Katy, but the enthusiasm just wasn't there, from her or her audience. However, she can still ride high, going on world tour and playing the Super Bowl XLIX Half Time Show.

This carries her through to the creation of Witness (2017). It is... something. I could shuffle it into her catalog and be truly unsure what album it's from. It sounds like Katy Perry, but you washed it a few times too many. It's wearing thin, a bit loose, doesn't have the sheen it used to. Notably, it is her only album sans Dr. Luke, which will be circled back to. The album fails to hit #1 most anywhere, meets an even more mixed critical reception, and doesn't get any award nominations, just a lone "Album of the Year" pick from Drowned in Sound. For a star of her caliber, this is a death spiral. I will give her credit though, the artwork is very out of left field for her. It features a very pop-art nouveau cover, an eye peeking out of her mouth, hands covering her eyes. I'll let her explain what it means to her.

Music has allowed me to travel, which has reeducated my mind and changed my perspective on so much, so my education and my consciousness comes from my voice, and that's how I see, and that's how I witness you and that's how you witness me and that's why the eye is in the mouth.
-Katy Perry, to Entertainment Tonight, May 20, 2017

I watched and read several other interviews surrounding the album, giving her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was just an awkward quote? She stumbled over her words and couldn't quite get the message across? Nope, she pretty much says the same thing across each time she talks about it. It is a profoundly basic explanation, summing up to "I got rich and I think I've grown up." This manages to both not really tell me anything and make me feel like I'm reading the blandest amalgamation of human experience. She also describes the album as "... fun and dance-y and dark and light. It's all of these things. It definitely is a change." (Enternainment Weekly, 5/8/2017), which... girl, what?

None of this is a change. It sounds the same. I see no growth, I see no development. Just an artist trying to distance herself from Doctor Luke after the allegations from Kesha were made public. Which, to be fair, is what you should do. However, she refused to acknowledge or comment what was happening with him, up until it involved her. In 2018, Kesha claimed that Katy was also assaulted and drugged by Doctor Luke, to which she denied in the court of law. There's a lot of back and forth to this particular case, that does not meaningfully impact Katy Perry's career.

I think it is fair to say that Doctor Luke, the rapist creep that he is, is what made Katy Perry. He was the only or main producer on nearly all of her smash hits. She tries to strike out when the water gets to hot to hang with him, and comes crawling back with 143 now that things have chilled out. Furthermore, she refuses to actually address issue surrounding working with him again after these allegations were made, saying:

I understand that [working with him] started a lot of conversations, and he was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with. But the reality is, it comes from me. The truth is, I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through this metamorphosis, and he was one of the people to help facilitate all that. One of the writers, one of the producers. I am speaking from my own experience.
-Katy Perry, Call Her Daddy Podcast dated 9/4/2024, as quoted by The Hollywood Reporter

Obviously not wanting to bite the hand that feeds her, that she's hoping will bring her back to stardom, this statement is bullshit. This is complicity, this is cowardice, this is dodging a question because it's uncomfortable. This is aiding and abetting a sex pest and criminal continuing in making his fortune by working with him, and thus quietly endorsing him. He is scum, and to continue working with him is Katy taking a torch to her own legacy. For her to say it "started conversations" is disingenuous, and I think that frames her current era very well. Disingenuous.

We finally arrive to discuss 143 (2024) as a piece of art. I personally think pop plays to its strengths when it is vapid, when it keeps things fun and upbeat. I will ride and die for hyperpop idols like Hannah Diamond and Kim Petras. 143 is not so much vapid as it is jarringly simple. As is, when listening to some of these tracks I am taken aback by what I am hearing. Some rapid-fire snippets:

• She's a flower, she's a thorn/Superhuman, number one/She's a sister, she's a mother/Open your eyes, just look around and you'll discover, you know -Woman's World
• I look in the mirror, see someone who's coming strong/I've never been clearer, I'm at peace with moving on/I'm seeing it different now that I'm outside of the storm/I'm feeling the distance, it's always dark before the dawn -Truth
• Like the sun is always rising/Like the stars are in the sky/You and I will find each other/In every single life -Lifetimes

I'm not going to claim I come to Katy Perry for her gripping lyrics and emotional depth. I also do not claim to be the arbiter of the feminine experience, or to have personal knowledge of her lived experience. However, these tracks don't read to me, and many others, as genuine. They are a facsimile of a person who has emotions. It feels like these songs somehow went back in time and inspired Bo Burnham's Repeat Stuff. I flat out can't believe her explanation of why Woman's World is the way it is.

Girlboss shit! You can do it! You go girl! You were born to shine! We’re having fun, being sarcastic with it, it’s very slapstick and very on the nose. And with this set, we’re, like, not about the male gaze, but we really are about the male gaze. We’re really overplaying it, and on the nose because we’re about to get smashed, which is like a reset for me and a reset for my idea of feminine divine and it’s a whole different world we go to after this. We wanted to open this video making it look like a super high gloss pop star video. And that’s what it is.
-Katy Perry, posted to Twitter on 7/13/2024, as quoted in Stereogum

The unfortunate part is, it does feel sarcastic, cloyingly so. It is so intesenly soaked in sarcasm that it reads as (coming back to it now) disingenuous. I love high gloss pop shit, and this feels like a mean-spirited "joke". I am frankly embarassed for the 4 other people with writing credit on this song, outside of Ms. Perry and the Doctor. Woman's World might be rage-bait to distract from the nothingness of the rest of the album, but it can't even succeed at that. The best tracks on this album come off as the world's blandest gruel, and the worst come off as borderline to actually offensive, depending on who you ask.

This return, this attempt at a come back, is hollow. Shockingly so. So much so, in fact, that it makes me seriously question how much if any of her previous work was genuine to start with. It is an attempt to bottle 2010 and bring it into 2024, the Me Too's and the Women's Marches and all the great actually feminist works that have been made since then be damned. Looking at Katy in 2024, I can only see a spiteful artist, trying extremely obviously to relight a fire long since burned out. Ashes that have long since bloomed into many other healthy and thriving careers.

To stop after Prism would have left her as an unfortunate bystander in popular culture's mind, not knowing of Doctor Luke's fucked actions. To stop after Witness would have been a sour note for sure, but at least would appear to be an attempt to move beyond the taint that the Doctor left on her discography. However, she did neither of these things. With 143 in hand, Katy Perry is dead. I pray she does not try to puppet the corpse any further. I pray she retires in shame, and reflects on herself. I pray that Doctor Luke finds himself alone and afraid, and knows pain for the rest of his life.