Who is Katy Perry? As People reported in the run-up to the release of her single “Woman’s World,” dusting off her six Diamond Awards from the Recording Industry Association of America, she’s one of the best-selling pop stars of the millennium, with her effervescent, fun songs like “California Gurls” and raucous anthems of empowerment like “Firework” selling millions. She’s a judge on music wannabes on the internet. American IdolShe headlined the Super Bowl halftime show, celebrated being crowned a king, and did it all, backwards and in high heels.
Who Katy Perry might be in 2024, however, is a completely different question — and one she attempts to answer on her sixth full-length album, 143. Departure idol Perry’s return to the music scene after a long absence, which she did in May, was a subtle signal that she wanted to return to being a full-time pop queen. But the scene she’s returning to isn’t one that’s easily impressing with her cotton bikinis and fleeting hints of cherry lipstick. Thanks to the waning influence of radio, even fame at Perry’s level doesn’t guarantee chart success, while the music she used to control feels as dated as Vine. Perry seems to be aware of her precarious online status. 143But that doesn't stop it from trying to reclaim the cultural status it had in the late 2000s and early 2010s with the tricks — cheap but catchy affirmations, broad appeals to the male gaze — that worked at the time.
That trick includes rekindling her relationship with Lukas “Dr. Luke” Gottwald, who co-produced “I Kissed a Girl,” the hit song that launched her rise from the Warped Tour to arenas in the late 2000s, and who was also part of the core team that brought cuts like the relentless “Roar,” the electronic “Dark Horse,” and other big Perry songs (including all those Diamond Award-winning ones) to life. Getting back to Dr. Luke, whom Perry left behind for her 2017 album, a witness (And in the wake of the producer's long legal entanglement with Kesha), it makes sense in an offhanded way. Perry's standing in the pop world had been waning for a while; idol This coincides with a period in which she placed no singles in the Hot 100's top 10, and only two in the top 20 (one of which was “Feels,” a collaboration between Calvin Harris, Pharrell, and Big Sean that broadcast Perry's disembodied voice from space).
But in practice 143that the reworking of the group is often a tedious, perfunctory attempt to relive those glory years with slightly updated reference points. “Woman’s World,” a semi-robotic celebration of being female, sets the table for cliché-laden lyrics, SeeSpot-run, and the fun of the past crushed by a database of hackneyed rhymes. “Gorgeous,” a duet with fellow Gottwald protege Kim Petras, comes off like a homework-copied homage to the German singer’s Sam Smith collaboration “Unholy,” swapping out the smoky trap beats for the 2022 Midnight Mass. “I’m His, He’s Mine” plays a 45 of Crystal Waters’ 1991 pop hit “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeness),” at No. 33, giving Perry and singer Duce a space to sneer about a lover whose greatest asset seems to be survival. “Nirvana” is a no-holds-barred piece of music, with Perry crying loudly, if not passionately, about a psychosexual union with a partner “in a diamond sky” over a powerful instrumental that sounds like conference call music.
143 The song ends with “Wonder,” a slick ballad reminiscent of 2000s pop hits as it tells the next generation to shed “the weight of the world” and stay “wild” and “pure.” Perry asks at one point, “Can someone promise me that our innocence won’t be lost in a cynical world?”—a great question to ask in 2024. But after the failed efforts of the previous ten tracks to bring Perry back into the zeitgeist, it feels completely hollow—and the inclusion of her daughter Daisy on the track, which also happens to be the only performance without any input from Luke (it was instead produced by Norwegian pop engineers Stargate), feels more like a diversion of criticism than a hope that the next generation will find a way to move beyond the filthiest parts of the present. To underscore the point, it’s Daisy who delivers the album’s final word, asking, “Someday when we’re wiser/ Will our hearts still burn?” It's unfortunate that Perry didn't ask herself that question during her awkward attempt to regain the attention of pop music listeners.
