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Tag: Katy Perry Dr. Luke

  • Even Paris Hilton Has Managed to Release an Album That’s More Listenable Than Katy Perry’s 143

    Even Paris Hilton Has Managed to Release an Album That’s More Listenable Than Katy Perry’s 143

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    If one wanted to know just how embarrassing a musical “comeback” can be, the new benchmark is Katy Perry. Although expectations for 143, her seventh album (if one counts her debut Christian rock effort, Katy Hudson), were already low after “Woman’s World,” “Lifetimes” and “I’m His, He’s Mine,” 143 has managed to surpass all the worst fears of just how bad bad can be. While some have tried to offer the “consolation” that it’s not “bad,” but it’s also not “good,” the truth is that such a characterization is 1) overly kind and 2) also the worst form of criticism. To be just “mid” is the mark of someone who is an utterly banal “artist.” In her time and place, Perry at least pushed some aesthetic boundaries, even while embodying the trope of a 1950s pinup.

    Indeed, it can be tragically argued that with the loss of her “looks,” Perry has not so coincidentally continued to lose clout despite once being described as the “most beautiful woman in the world by Maxim in 2010 and being voted as “sexiest women of 2013” in Men’s Health. As was the case for Britney Spears, it was after Perry shed her signature locks that things started to take a noticeable downturn. (Incidentally, Perry had the audacity to shade Britney for her 2007 head shaving incident at the 2017 Grammys.) Changing her hairstyle into a short blonde coif for the Witness album, this became the first record to signal a waning interest in Perry’s brand of so-called kitsch (which seems to borrow heavily from the Zooey Deschanel playbook, meaning it’s often more annoying than “quirky”).

    In fact, Perry even admitted to experiencing “situational depression” after that record failed to achieve the same level of success as Teenage Dream and Prism. For it usually takes much longer for interest in a pop artist to decline (at least five albums). But if she was depressed over that album’s reception (and, in comparison to 143, Witness presently comes across as a “masterpiece”), then she should definitely be on suicide watch post-143.

    Perhaps the greatest initial indication of how atrocious the album was going to be didn’t come in the form of “Woman’s World,” but in telling Zane Lowe, “I am creating from a place of happiness and wholeness, which is super rare, I think, and scary for artists because I think that biggest lie that we’ve ever been told is that we have to stay in pain in order to create great art…” Needless to say, 143 is never going to be classified as “great art” in any way, and seems only to further prove the antithesis of what she also parroted in a slightly different manner back in 2017 after Witness’ release: “The biggest lie that we’ve ever been sold is that we as artists have to stay in pain to create.”

    Clearly, though, people must want Perry to be back in pain again based on their reactions to 143, with one of the most brutal reviews being one from Slate that summed it up best with the line, “Katy Perry [is] an invasive species pushing into environments where she doesn’t belong, namely the 2020s.” This being especially noticeable when comparing her to 2024’s “grittier” musical successes: Charli XCX and Chappell Roan.

    And while Perry could have gone the route of making a post-maternity record with as much experimentation as Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (which has since given way to shittier fare in the form of singles like “Lucky”), she’s instead relied solely on a bid to recapture the height of her 2010 glory. Hence, her inexplicably horrible decision to tap Dr. Luke to cowrite and coproduce every song on the album save for “Wonder” (arguably the cheesiest offering on 143). This being an especially poor choice for a song called “Woman’s World,” the track Perry chooses to kick off the record. Of course, since everyone is aware of its terribleness by now, it’s the one to immediately skip in the hope that maybe “Gimme Gimme” featuring 21 Savage will be better. Spoiler alert: it’s not. And though 21 Savage’s lyrical contribution isn’t the most offensive thing about it (though he does have the audacity to rap, “I’m like Amazon ‘cause I got what you need”), it does little to buttress Perry’s embarrassing chorus, “Gimme, gimme, baby, stop wastin’ my time/Kitty, kitty, wanna come party tonight/Trippy, trippy, daddy, take me on a ride/If you want my body, gotta blow my mind.” And all with the entire song set to an insipidly repetitive beat that smacks of the 2010s.

    The following track, “Gorgeous,” also suffers from the same musical problem, while additionally serving as Perry’s only attempt at “modernizing” herself with a feature from Kim Petras, who herself is in Dr. Luke’s back pocket for whatever reason. To be sure, Petras’ endlessly affronting Slut Pop felt like a cruel parody of the type of music Dr. Luke used to make with Kesha. It’s also not lost on any Swiftie that the song shares the same name as a Taylor track from Reputation. Something Perry keeps losing as the album progresses into the ultra-retro “I’m His, He’s Mine,” which speaks to some fifties-level heteronormativity and possessiveness. Doechii, too, must suffer the humiliation of being linked to this album as 21 Savage, Kim Petras and JID do, but apart from these features, Perry is going it alone on tracks like “Crush,” placed at number four on 143.

    Like most of the other fare, “Crush” hopes that a danceable (enough) beat will distract from “lyrics” like, “My heart goes/La, da-da-dee/La, da-dee/La, da-da-dee/My heart goes/La, da-da-dee/La, da-dee/La, da-da-dee” and “Is it a crush?/Makin’ me blush,” the latter of which feels far too puerile for someone who has been prattling on about how much she’s changed and matured since having a baby. (And, by the way, Britney singing, “Stop, you’re making me blush/People are looking at us” constitutes a far better lyric.)

    To this point, saying that giving birth to her daughter has “formed and shaped and completed” her, it’s a shame that the effect it had on Perry musically is certainly not anything like what happened to Madonna after giving birth to Lourdes and making Ray of Light soon after (though Perry does use the word “frozen” at one point on “All the Love”). For there is no depth here, not even of the shallow variety. “Crush” transitions into the “similarly house-y” “Lifetimes,” her failed second single that often feels grammatically incorrect (“I love you for lifetimes”?)—and not in a good, Sabrina Carpenter-esque way (i.e., “That’s that me espresso”).

    Her maudlinness only ramps up on “All the Love,” yet another ode to Daisy, her four-year-old. As such, she declares, “Feels like I’m floatin’/The colors so bright when I look in your eyes, oh yeah/I needed you to set me free/Now everything’s golden/Since you arrived, I’m higher than high, oh yeah/Still can’t believe that you found me.” As far as 143 lyrics go, however, these are probably among the most varied—except when she starts repeating, “Back to me”—which also happens to be the name of a Lindsay Lohan song that’s actually more of a bop.

    “All the Love” does another “seamless” musical transition into “Nirvana,” which feels ill-timed as a name considering no one likes Dave Grohl right now. Of course, “Nirvana” is yet another dance “banger” (it wishes) during which Perry spits out lyrics devoid of emotion despite wanting so badly to convey it. Instead, it comes across as yet another track that seems to have been written for a movie version of a pop star (think: Cora Corman from Music and Lyrics) as Perry coos, “Breathe me in, another dose/Take a ride on my rainbow/Keep it up, I’m gettin’ close/‘Bout to hit kaleidoscope.” Hmm, a euphemism that doesn’t quite land, but one gets the picture—along with Perry urging the object of her desire to “show me that you’re gonna (ah-ooh)/Take me to Nirvana.” Though that seems unlikely with Orlando Bloom being her “same penis forever” (because no, his dick isn’t as big as it looks in those 2016 paparazzi photos).

    Though he could always afford to get some “Artificial” endowment if necessary. As for the song of the same name that follows “Nirvana,” “Artificial” is clearly meant to be an “updated” version of “E.T.” (complete with the presence of a Black man [JID] on the track to lend supposed “cachet” to this white girl’s “tale”) that tries to incorporate some sense of “modernity” into it by altering the alien metaphor into one pertaining to AI. With Perry’s love object (no longer, oof, Russell Brand since the time when “E.T.” was penned) addressed as follows: “Are you real or artificial?/So what’s the deal, huh?/Tell me, are you fake or are you real, huh?/How do I connect if I can’t feel ya?/Sooner or later, I will reveal ya/Artificial, so what you’re thinkin’?/Do you put emotions over reason?/Are you gonna love me like a human?/Can you touch me in a simulation?” Perry likely didn’t make the connection between “writing” a song like this and the fact that many a critic would compare her 143 lyrics to something generated by AI. And the comparison is certainly not untrue. Case in point, she has the audacity to “belt out,” “I’m just a prisoner in your prison.” As is any listener with the stomach to get through this album (which is tantamount to the viewer with the stomach to get through Emily in Paris).

    With regard to this level of scathing truth from critics, it seems as though Perry set herself up for still more disaster by titling the next song “Truth” (another generic banality in name and content). Because, although Perry claims, “I wanna know the truth/Even if it hurts me,” she definitely doesn’t want to hear it about how utterly and torturously insipid this record is. To be sure, that’s part of the reason why she insisted at this year’s VMAs, “One of the biggest reasons I’m standing here now is I learned how to block out all the noise.” But it would be impossible—nay, completely narcissistic—to block out this much noise regarding the caliber of shittiness permeating 143. Even fellow millennial Paris Hilton didn’t manage to do worse/remain as stuck in the past (specifically, the one where it’s still the 2000s) with her own recently released album, Infinite Icon.

    Granted, it is not without coincidence that the album covers of Katy Perry’s 143 and Paris Hilton’s Infinite Icon bear similar aesthetics—that is to say, wannabe “futuristic” ones that look spat out (or shat out) of an AI app. An irony that seems lost on two women who have no idea they’re hopelessly trapped in the era of their respective peaks (sort of like cheerleaders in high school who will never quite grasp that was their zenith—the exception, as usual, being Madonna, who switched personas even then, flitting from the thespian group to the cheerleading one). However, Hilton, in contrast to Perry, has used her “representative of the 00s” brand to keep miraculously staying relevant in the present. Or at least more likeable than Perry. And the release of Infinite Icon, eighteen years after her debut, Paris, at the behest of Sia (who executive produced the album), seems to be further proof of that.

    Surprisingly, Hilton has “pithier” statements to make on Infinite Icon, even if they’re just as saccharine in theme and tone as what Perry “provides” on 143. As a matter of fact, these two albums feel like unspoken companion pieces in what will become the annals of “bad pop” (specifically, bad pop by female anachronisms). More to the point, both women embody a certain kind of “millennial cringe,” except that Perry is far less adept at parlaying that into something enduringly bankable. She continues to drive that point home on the album’s final track (which can’t come soon enough), “Wonder.” Cashing in on this whole “mother image” she seems intent on shilling, it serves as a sort of “how-to” for her daughter, with Perry urging, “Stay wild, beautiful child/Don’t let the weight of the world be heavy on your wings/Stay pure, beautiful girl/Don’t let the fear in the world burn out what you believe.”

    Some might have thought that Perry was trying to to pull a Beyoncé with Blue Ivy by enlisting Daisy to sing in her child’s Auto-Tuned voice, “One day when we’re older/Will we still look up in wonder?” at the beginning before it melds into Perry’s own Muppet-y voice asking the same thing. But no, it’s the voice of one of the cowriters’ son. Not that Daisy’s presence on the song would have done much to help it. Besides, Perry name-checks her anyway by requesting, “Stay free, little Daisy/Don’t let the envious ones say that you’re just a weed.” The ones envious because, why, she’s a nepo baby? Any who, although it’s Perry’s best attempt at sincerity, she doesn’t carry it off (much like the rest of 143). Not like, say, Lily Allen writing about her daughter on 2018’s “Three,” and singing it from said daughter’s perspective. Or Madonna singing “Little Star” on Ray of Light. Or even Halsey singing “Darling” on If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power.

    While “Wonder” is technically the final track, Perry makes the additional mistake of contributing to the environment’s downfall by offering two other versions of 143 with separate bonus tracks: “Has a Heart” on the Target edition and “No Tears for New Year’s” (which sonically seems like an attempt at remaking “The One That Got Away” with a pinch of Taylor Swift-aspiring “intimate” songwriting) on the “exclusive purple vinyl.” If she had been slightly shrewder, Perry might have considered swapping out “Wonder” for “Has a Heart,” for the latter actually does feature Daisy announcing at the beginning, “I want kindness.” But even getting a child to ask that of 143 isn’t “endearing” enough to spare Perry from the critical venom regarding this album.

    In the same abovementioned Slate review of the album, Carl Wilson notes, “… this album makes it seem like Perry’s past decade isn’t just a case of bad luck and poor decisions. It makes one question how good she was in the first place, or how much was just being in the right place at the right time. Nothing wrong with that—luck and ephemerality are part of how pop works, even part of its magic. The bubbles that burst fastest glisten brightest, or some such. It might be more appropriate to think of Katy Perry as the equivalent of a one-hit wonder, only an outlier at seven or eight hits instead.” Not exactly “loving” or “kind” words, which is what Perry sought to put out in the world in the hope of getting them back, with “143” being shorthand for “I love you”—something many picked up while watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. But what does it say about Perry that she’s ultimately getting her creative inspiration these days from an increasingly outdated children’s show?

    If the well idea is this dry, maybe it is better to surrender to being a “legacy act” and just do a residency in Vegas where she centers a show strictly on her lone two hit albums. Except, wait, she already did that with Play… Begging the question, where can Perry really go from here if not further into the depths of irrelevancy?

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Katy Perry Continues to Tout Her Retro Sensibilities on “I’m His, He’s Mine”

    Katy Perry Continues to Tout Her Retro Sensibilities on “I’m His, He’s Mine”

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    It didn’t take watching the “Woman’s World” video or listening to its lyrical content to know that Katy Perry is, despite her “strongest” attempts at projecting otherwise, a conservative bia. Further evidence of that also mounted in 2022, when she voted for Rick Caruso during Los Angeles’ mayoral election. Known for being a billionaire/his own conservative politics (complete with being former president of the Los Angeles Police Commission and being extremely anti-abortion), Caruso represents Perry’s inherent Republican “values” despite lately touting the false notion that she’s not only “LGBTQIA+ friendly,” but also a gay icon (as if).

    With “I’m His, He’s Mine,” the third single from 143, which has already become more well-known for its embarrassing rollout than any “hits” that it has yielded, Perry continues to highlight her undeniable retroness when it comes to her possessive, heteronormative views. Something that particularly stands out in a climate where polyamory has become, if not more normalized, than at least more “chic” than monogamy. Nonetheless, the messaging of “I’m His, He’s Mine” is unapologetically “pick me,” as Perry seeks to denigrate another woman through none too subtle slut-shaming just because this girl is “flirting” with “her” man—though, the more plausible scenario is that said man was actually making eyes at the other woman (likely based on Perry’s own personal experience, if Orlando Bloom’s recent eyes made at Kim Kardashian [who, quelle surprise, also endorsed Caruso in ’22] is an indication). Even so, it’s in a pick me’s interest to blame the female in a love triangle scenario (see also: the forever applicable Joey Potter/Jen Lindley dynamic in Dawson’s Creek).

    So it is that Perry “sings,” “I can see you flirtin’/Why you overworkin’?/On him like a suntan/Go and get your own man/Thinkin’ that we’re over/We only gettin’ closer/You’re creepin’ in his DMs/I’m sleepin’ in his sweatpants.” That latter declaration isn’t exactly a “flex” considering every hetero woman knows that a man gets bored easily, especially after things start to become “too domestic” a.k.a. too quotidian. Thus, his increased interest in a “side piece.” And it is the potential for such a side piece to “dominate” that plagues Perry and featured artist Doechii (who has made a huge mistake with this collaboration, but maybe thought it was fine since Nicki Minaj jumped on “Swish Swish” back in 2017) throughout “I’m His, He’s Mine.”

    Being that this is yet another single co-produced and co-written by Dr. Luke (with “Woman’s World” and “Lifetimes” also falling under that category), it’s no surprise that the retroness of the sentiments is baked right in. This includes the uncomfortable “boast,” “I’m his queen, I’m his freak/I’m every woman he wants and needs/I’m his dream, I’m his drug/I’m every woman he wants, so what?” All that braggadocio, of course, falls under the umbrella of, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” In other words, Perry is trying to assure herself that she’s all Orlando wants and needs—this much made apparent by the Bloom lookalike in the video, directed by Torso (slumming it a bit with this after directing Charli XCX’s “Von Dutch” earlier this year).

    But it doesn’t sound all that pleasant to be in a marriage with someone who pronounces, “I’m his boss, I’m that bitch [this itself being ultra-cringey language for its increasing association with 00s-10s vernacular]/I’m every woman he knows exists/I’m his main, I’m his side/I’m every woman that’s in his mind.” Of course, even more insulting is than the lyrics is the sampled backbeat, which takes from Crystal Waters’ untouchable 1991 single, “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)”—even going so far as to actually copy Waters’ vocal repetition of “la-da-di, la-da-da.”

    What’s more, like Justin Timberlake, another fellow millennial that has faced a “relevancy” crisis as a result of, among other things, “antiquated sensibilities” in his new music (hear: “Selfish,” ripe with its own overly possessive bullshit), Perry refuses to acknowledge any fault of her own in the matter (that fault lying in a failure to evolve). This much was made clear when she stared daggers at the audience during the 2024 VMAs to insist, “There are so many things that have to align to have a long and successful career as an artist. There are no decade-long accidents.” And it was here that she took pause to glare at everyone who has jumped on the bandwagon this year of calling her out for her shittiness. But the truth is, it’s all just been a matter of public taste finally catching up long enough to realize Perry’s lackluster output (which, as she pointed out in the aforementioned speech, is buttressed by an entire village…of handlers, songwriters and producers—again, Dr. Luke included).

    And even though Perry has gone out of her way to tout her progressive nature in the past several years, what always ends up shining through is her deep-seated Republicanism (with the L.A. mayoral election in 2022 being one of those peak examples). Her political schizophrenia, so to speak, is likely rooted in the brainwashing of an extremely religious upbringing—one that still rears its racist, sexist, homophobic head when least expected. Like on “I’m His, He’s Mine.” And while Perry is given “her” man as a prop throughout the video, Doechii gets far less play with her own prop of a boyfriend, with both of them being almost as non sequitur as the scenes of skydiving and Katy on the hood of a car while peacocking as her boyfriend drives (these being the visuals that dominate the “narrative”).  

    Doechii is also sure to back up Perry’s brand of toxic monogamy by rapping, “I’m so possessive and up-echelon/Upper echelon rollin’ up in the shade/If you try to vibe with him, might catch a fade.” But the only one likely to catch a fade (even if solely metaphorical) is Perry as a result of yet another out of touch offering from 143. Which certainly doesn’t bode well for whatever lurks on the rest of the album. As for Doechii “proudly” saying, “I’m so possessive,” well, at least Beyoncé, another “monogamy queen” (who of course got cheated on), tried to make her own heteronormativity more “empowering” by flipping the script on what Jay-Z said in 2003 (“Got the hottest chick in the game wearing my chain, that’s right”) by announcing on “Formation,” “I’m so possessive so I rock his Roc necklaces.” Thereby saying that her man doesn’t “possess” her (it’s the other way around, as Perry is saying less successfully), as has long been the case with women being treated like property throughout history.

    But with Perry’s ode to “possessing” a man, it comes across more like someone who wants to simply keep promoting 1950s ideals of hetero monogamous relationships. During which the man would often cheat on his girlfriend or wife anyway…so he wasn’t really “hers” at all—and this usually due to feeling too stifled by what Marcello in La Dolce Vita would call her “aggressive, sticky maternal love.” The kind of stiflement that is very much embodied in “I’m His, He’s Mine.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Mondo Bullshittio #51: Katy Perry’s Medley at the VMAs Being Called A Serve

    Mondo Bullshittio #51: Katy Perry’s Medley at the VMAs Being Called A Serve

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    In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture…and all that it affects.

    In what was sadly her “best effort” to prove her worth in the music industry game of late, Katy Perry was counting on the receipt of a Video Vanguard Award at this year’s MTV VMAs. Not just because the award is meant to signify “greatness,” but also because of the chance it afforded her to perform her hits a.k.a. refresh people’s memory on why she’s famous in the first place (not that anyone needs a “talent” or “cause” to be anymore). Perry’s reliance on this appearance at the VMAs was particularly heavy because it seemed to be the only positive acknowledgement anyone was willing to give her after the disastrous single that was “Woman’s World.” And, knowing full well it was a disaster despite trying to bill it as “satire” in the wake of the venomous criticisms, Perry quickly released the supposed real “banger” from 143, “Lifetimes” (which Zane Lowe will forever live in shame for dancing to during this interview). That, too, was met with a lukewarm reaction, along with more condemnation for filming the video in a protected area without permission. Oh dear, imagine fucking up a UNESCO World Heritage Site just a little bit more for the sake of some lackluster visual accompaniment (we’re definitely not talking anything on the grand, earth-shattering scale of, say, the “Express Yourself” video).

    In any case, Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Natural Environment released a statement about the video that declared, “In no case had the production company requested authorization from the Regional Ministry to carry out the filming.” So, to be sure, there has been little enthusiasm on many fronts for 143 and/or Perry’s career in general this summer, hence her clearly jumping (literally) at the chance to prove herself at the VMAs when the opportunity arose. To remind people that, if nothing else, she’s still a “good” performer. Even if the Video Vanguard Award itself has been diminished in value in recent years thanks to being bequeathed to the likes of P!nk and Jennifer Lopez. With whom Perry is on par. Though she’s apparently seen fit to compare herself to Chappell Roan’s “authenticity” and avant-garde stylings in an interview for the BBC (further proof that one’s ego only gets bigger the more they lose their clout).

    In any case, Perry kicked off her ten-minute(ish) medley with “Dark Horse,” perhaps wanting to send the message that she’s currently a dark horse in the pop music game who will end up coming out ahead (ha!). It was an odd choice in terms of not being chronological and immediately reminding audiences of her apparently steadfast devotion to Dr. Luke, who co-produced said song. And the only person more controversial Perry could have chosen to allude to from her previous singles is Kanye West a.k.a. Ye. While his vocals didn’t appear on the song she chose next, “E.T.,” its use instantly conjures his memory (not to mention Russell Brand’s, who she wrote the song about [insert vomit noise here]). Her flip-flopping in the timeline of her musical releases also does little to highlight much in the way of “artistic growth,” with her shtick rarely changing. Least of all thematically. That much was also reiterated when she debuted yet another new single from 143 called “I’m His, He’s Mine” (featuring Doechii, who joined her onstage for this portion). A track that sees fit not only to prove Perry’s lack of originality, but decimate the untouchable “Gypsy Woman” by Crystal Waters thanks to using its signature backbeat as a sample. Worse still, Perry actually dares to use the “la-da-di, la-da-da” refrain throughout this inferior schlock.

    Perry then tries to keep pleasing the crowd with arguably her most quintessential hit, “California Gurls,” during which a reaction shot to her husband, Orlando Bloom, looking as though he is in genuine physical agony while watching her rivals Jack Antonoff putting earplugs in during this specific medley of a performance (perhaps secretly wanting to start another Taylor-Katy feud in so doing). But still, the show rolled on, with “Teenage Dream” and, then, “I Kissed A Girl,” at which time Perry donned giant Mylar butterfly wings. Even though such an accessory is meant to be symbolic of “metamorphosis,” that obviously hasn’t happened to Perry if she’s still singing this early hit despite knowing how triggering it is for many people who detest queerbaiting. And Perry herself has admitted to finding the lyrics regrettable, yet still she parroted them for this performance, later having the audacity to thank the LGBTQIA+ community in her acceptance speech with: “The LGBTQ community who I recognize I would not be here without, and who show me that you can be both kind and cunt.” Considering she can’t even add the “IA+” for the complete acknowledgement of said community, well, it only adds to her reputation for being the antithesis of a queer icon. In fact, she was never clinging to this “queer icon” shit until now, when things have gotten “desperate enough,” and she needs to feign having some form of a “built-in audience.”

    One that includes those who still cling to Teenage Dream a.k.a. “her version of the Thriller album” (because it yielded five number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 just like that seminal Michael Jackson record). Indeed, it’s no coincidence that the songs she performed during this medley were primarily from Teenage Dream, including “Firework.” And yes, the lyric, “Come on, show ‘em what you’re worth” felt particularly pointed in this instance, with Perry attempting to do just that throughout the medley.

    Her desperation to be “recognized” after losing major cachet this year (along with J. Lo) further shining through when she concluded with “Lifetimes” instead of “Woman’s World.” Obviously pandering to the criticism about it by choosing to evade it altogether in a career-spanning retrospective. This despite also adding in her acceptance speech, “One of the biggest reasons I’m standing here now is I learned how to block out all the noise.” But no, it would seem that, demonstrably, she hasn’t. Otherwise the medley wouldn’t have been so “pick me” (including the ultra-retro sentiments of “I’m His, He’s Mine”). Because, alas, Perry is still pandering to the male gaze regardless of her insistence that she’s a “gay icon” now (sure, maybe for Republican gays). To boot, she gave her “hetero relationship dream girl” status away by announcing (with Bloom next to her onstage), “To Orlando, for keeping me grounded, celebrated and doing the dishes.” Oof.

    Also noticeably missing from the setlist was anything from Witness and Smile, the albums that commenced her ongoing “flop era” after Prism. Needless to say, Perry doesn’t want to remind anyone of those albums right now. Yet, according to some, playing only her biggest hits from over a decade ago made it all the more apparent how lacking her present so-called repertoire is. While others still had the total loss of mind to say that Perry served (see: Saint Hoax’s slides on the matter). But many of the comments in response to that declaration weren’t exactly in agreement. For example, “Props to Katy’s PR team! They’ve been working overtime ever since she released that (self-proclaimed) feminist anthem produced by a rapist!,” “How much did Katy’s pr team you?????? I hope it was a lot” and “When your new album is so bad you have to perform old songs on the rollout.”

    And then, of course, there was the bizarre (read: rigged) affront of throwing Perry yet another bone by giving her the award for Most Iconic Performance (a newly-minted offering for this year) at the VMAs. This for a performance no one remembers (“Roar” during the 2013 VMAs) and when pitted against the likes of Madonna, Britney and Xtina’s 2003 VMA performance (not to mention Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” performance at the very first VMAs in 1984). In short, it all seemed like the most overt “bread and circuses” maneuver Perry could have pulled to attempt salvaging (and distracting from) her damaged “brand” in time to sell at least a few copies of 143. Who knows? Maybe it will work. Though there’s only so much that money can buy in terms of a good PR/celebrity crisis management team.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • A Song Called “Man’s World” Is, Ironically, Far More Female-Empowering Than Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World”

    A Song Called “Man’s World” Is, Ironically, Far More Female-Empowering Than Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World”

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    Back in 2020 (that ominous year), MARINA found it to be the perfect time to release “Man’s World,” the first single from what would become her fifth album, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land. While the latter didn’t come out until 2021, “Man’s World” set the tone for the overall theme of the record—which was that man had fucked the world over. And how that fucking was a large part of the catalyst for the pandemic. After all, were it not for men’s corporate greed, surely the destruction of so many animals’ natural habitats wouldn’t occur. And, in turn, wouldn’t lead to the unnatural commingling of animals in human environments in such a way as to create novel viruses.

    To that point, MARINA works her chorus around the idea that living in a man’s world (with its associated patriarchal values still firmly in place) is the direct cause of Mother Nature’s relentless destruction. A phrase that functions to mean both 1) humans are destroying her and 2) in response, she is destroying them. So it is that MARINA sings, “Mother Nature’s dying, nobody’s keeping score/I don’t wanna live in a man’s world anymore.” Granted, the only thing anyone is keeping score of is how much profit they’re making from the carnage they’ve wrought upon the environment. The excess packaging, the amount of fossil fuel emissions for shipping, the fast fashion throwaways transforming into non-biodegradable piles in places that should be inhabitable but soon will not be. Et cetera.

    All of this is to say that MARINA paints a far more effective and meaningful picture of what it would mean to live in a woman’s world—a matriarchy—by describing the current bleak portrait of a man’s world than Katy Perry does in her lifeless touting of how great women are and that everyone is, in fact, already living in a woman’s world. But obviously, that’s not so.

    If it were, perhaps a man like Dr. Luke wouldn’t be able to freely continue producing “hits” like Perry’s latest single despite his reputation for being an abuser. Whether or not one believes his abuse was sexual (since women are not to be believed, right?), there’s no denying, at the very least, its verbal toxicity in relation to Kesha, the inaugural artist he “took under his wing” in order to solidify a reputation for “nurturing” talent. This would also extend to Perry, whose first major hit, “I Kissed A Girl,” was produced by Dr. Luke. Along with “Hot N Cold,” the second official single from Perry’s “debut” (if you don’t count Katy Hudson), One of the Boys. An album title, incidentally, that feels as though it’s come back to bite her in the ass, considering how much it applies to the notion of continuing to work with someone who has been called out for his long-standing inappropriate behavior. And how much Perry represents a version of “the divine feminine” that is in keeping with pandering to the male gaze.

    There is no better example of that than the video for “Woman’s World,” all part of her latest attempt at a “comeback.” But whoever dealt with the “brainstorming mood boards” and marketing aspects was perhaps too chickenshit to inform Perry that things have changed quite a bit since the last time she released an album, already four years ago (like “Man’s World,” Smile came out in 2020). And, even at that time, Perry’s rhetoric wasn’t striking much of a chord with listeners, with the album barely selling fifty thousand copies in its first week. Compared to the Perry “heyday” of Teenage Dream and even Prism, that was a long way to fall. And, in 2024, it seems Perry still has the mentality of Beyoncé’s approach to feminism circa 2014. Which means, essentially, shouting a lot of hollow, generic phrases (e.g. “She’s a winner, champion/Superhuman, number one/She’s a sister, she’s a mother”—except, like, what if she’s not?) and dressing up as Rosie the Riveter (yes, something Beyoncé also did in 2014).

    Even if one could try to get behind Perry’s hackneyed form of feminism (white feminism, mind you), there is still the atrocious video to get over. One that portrays Perry in a porn fantasy-style version of Rosie the Riveter, complete with her “seductive” wielding of the drill she has in her hand. Contrast this against the ethereal, goddess-coded video for “Man’s World,” and the messaging divide between the two songs is even more marked. With the latter genuinely embracing the notion of a “woman’s world” and the former effectively upholding the status quo of a man’s world in terms of how they want to see women presented in it (that is, if they “must” be). So while MARINA frolics serenely through nature in loose-fitting fabrics with women and men of all different shapes and backgrounds, Perry reinforces the chasm between the sexes with her “us versus them” presentation, rounded out by that presentation being exactly what’s supposed to get an “average straight man” off. This also includes reiterating the trope that it can be a “woman’s world” even if still mirroring the same shit that’s been happening in a patriarchy for centuries.

    Of course, with the true change that would arrive in a “woman’s world,” misogynistic men surely wouldn’t be happy. And yes, the most basic step toward that change is admitting this still is a man’s world—something the aforementioned Beyoncé didn’t want to admit either when she released “Run the World (Girls).” MARINA does that both deftly and poetically when she phrases the need for change like this: “If you have a mother/Daughter or a friend/Maybe it is time/Time you comprehend/The world that you live in/Ain’t the same one as them/So don’t punish me/For not being a man.” In the span of this three-minute, twenty-eight-second call to action, MARINA even manages to broach the unpleasant subject of female subjugation throughout history, singing, “Clouds in the whites of our eyes, we saw it all/Burnt me at the stake, you thought I was a witch/Centuries ago, now you just call me a bitch.”

    Conversely, the “best” Perry can come up with (along with one of her chauvinistic co-writers, Dr. Luke) is the totally vacant lines, “Sexy, confident/So intelligent/She is heaven-sent/So soft, so strong.” This being about the only verse that deviates from the half-hearted chorus, “It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it/You better celebrate/‘Cause, baby, we ain’t goin’ away/It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it.” Perhaps Perry feels that if she keeps repeating it, it might come true.

    But perhaps the next time she considers “writing” a “feminist anthem,” she might want to consult with MARINA, who clearly knows how to do the damn thing (complete with actually having the song produced by Jennifer Decilveo—you know, a woman).

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Katy Perry Reflects A Man’s Vision of a “Woman’s World”

    Katy Perry Reflects A Man’s Vision of a “Woman’s World”

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    In 2014, Beyoncé posted an image of herself as Rosie the Riveter. The photo quickly racked up millions of “hearts” and, at the time, became the most liked offering on her Instagram account. It was the same year Beyoncé also took to the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards to perform an almost seventeen-minute medley of tracks from her then-new, then-groundbreaking self-titled album, famously “surprise dropped” on December 13, 2013. In the audience watching Beyoncé perform that night was none other than Katy Perry, dressed as Britney Spears in the famous denim dress from the 2001 American Music Awards. Her matching denim “Justin” was, of all people, Riff Raff (who was cashing in on a bit of “fame” at that moment after James Franco played a riff on him in 2012’s Spring Breakers). Yet another man in Perry’s life who hasn’t exactly been a ringing endorsement for her sense of feminism. That aside, it seems telling that the camera flashes to Perry while Beyoncé sings the portion of “Blow” that goes, “Turn the cherry out.” Words that Perry gleefully sings along with. It’s the kind of visceral, “fuck me as hard as you want” phrase that men are known for wanting to hear. And yet, like Perry with “Woman’s World,” Beyoncé was presenting it through a supposed “female empowerment” lens.

    The night of that performance also happened to be the one where Beyoncé was famously positioned in front of the word “FEMINIST” projected behind her in big, bold white letters. A word extracted from the “We Should All Be Feminists” speech delivered by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx Talk in 2012 (later, the speech was adapted into a book-length essay and released the same year as Beyoncé’s self-titled album). That speech would become the centerpiece not just of “Flawless,” but of the entire record. This despite the fact that many of the lyrics on it reinforced traditional ideas of femininity, including being sexually desirable to a man (e.g. “Let me sit this ass on you/Show you how I feel/Let me take this off/Will you watch me?/That’s mass appeal/Don’t take your eyes, don’t take your eyes off it/Watch it, babe”).

    That Bey tapped Justin Timberlake to co-write three of the “sexiest” songs on the album, “Blow,” “Partition” and “Rocket,” is also telling of the fact that there is no pure sense of “female empowerment” here, so much as the perspective that a man lends to what that is “supposed to” mean in “safe,” color-within-the-lines patriarchal world. And yes, Timberlake would go on to become an even more overt symbol of toxic masculinity in the years since Beyoncé‘s release (while Ngozi Adichie would go on to negate some of her feminist cachet by being frequently accused of promoting TERF rhetoric). Though not quite as much as Dr. Luke, who has gone back to his original stage name after wielding another alias (Tyson Trax) for a while. This in the wake of some “bad publicity” from his long-standing Kesha vs. Dr. Luke legal battle, which only recently came to an end with a settlement on both sides, the details of which are unknown.

    At a certain point in the case, Katy Perry’s name was brought into the fray when texts that Kesha sent to Lady Gaga stated that Dr. Luke raped Perry as well. Perry was then brought in to give a testimony saying that the claim was false. She also mentioned that she felt “pressured” in general from both sides, but in particular to support Kesha because otherwise, she was “supporting rape” instead. In order to distance herself from the entire affair, Perry avoided working with Dr. Luke on her 2017 album, Witness, considered her biggest flop…until 2020’s Smile. She did the same with the latter album, but now, it seems, she feels enough time has passed to return to the collaborator who has “given” Perry her biggest hits. And yes, it’s not implausible that she’s gone crawling back to him precisely because she’s interpreted his absence on her last two records as the reason why they weren’t as successful as previous ones.

    But she must have lost her damn mind if she believed that, of all the songs to bring him in for, one called “Woman’s World” would be the most appropriate choice. As the title—one that Cher already used for the better in 2013—suggests, it’s supposed to be an anthem of feminist triumph. But, like Dr. Luke producing the majority of a record called Planet Her, any attempt at “empowering” the “divine feminine” is automatically lost with the presence of this nefarious man. One who, as Abigail Breslin rightly pointed out, represents how “working with known abusers in any industry just contributes to the narrative that men can do abhorrent shit and get away with it.” And, in case there was any doubt about how she was referring to Perry’s new song, Breslin added, “On another note, I love @KeshaRose and she gave one of the best shows I’ve ever been to last year <3 stream Kesha!” Sadly, such support from Perry, despite being—once upon a time—good friends with Kesha (who even appeared in the “I Kissed A Girl” video), has never been openly displayed.

    As if a certain writer and producer credit on the song weren’t already a strike against it, then come the banal lyrics, “It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it/You better celebrate/‘Cause, baby, we ain’t goin’ away.” Ummm, was there ever a threat that women were supposed to “go away”? Because it’s not like they haven’t been “on the scene” at least since the Rosie the Riveter days (after all, people are only “counted” in this life if they work for pay). Which brings us back to that problematic trope Beyoncé also proudly touted back in 2014—one that Perry has seen fit to reanimate for her totally nonsensical “Woman’s World” video.

    Directed by Charlotte Rutherford, the “concept” (if one can even call it that) presents Perry as a sort of hybrid construction worker/welder (in the spirit of Jennifer Beals from Flashdance). This largely because it gives someone the opportunity to add a “WO” to the “MEN” in a “MEN AT WORK” sign. From there, Rutherford cuts to an image of Perry in Rosie’s signature muscle flexing pose while perched on a suspended beam in the center of eight other women. Like Beyoncé, however, Perry didn’t seem to get the memo that Rosie the Riveter isn’t really all that feministic. The entire reason for her existence, first of all, is because of a man’s “marketing” idea.

    Originally “created” by J. Howard Miller, the intent of the design and poster was never to “empower” women, but merely to get those who were already employed in factories during WWII to work harder and more compliantly. In short, to tell them to “giddy-up” without complaining. More sexist still about the beloved image is the fact that women were only invited to work “men’s” jobs when society was absolutely desperate because those with dicks had to be sent abroad for a brief time. And when those men came back, the women who had taken over and done just as well (if not better) at the job, were told to simply go back to the kitchen. Where they had also still been working anyway—expected to embody both gender roles in the absence of men. Something that men themselves are never asked or expected to do, even in the most crisis-heavy situations.

    So yes, it does say something that Perry has opted to dress in this guise. A guise deliberately made to look like a sexy pinup rather than a worker. One who would actually appear beleaguered and decidedly unsexy. Because, let’s be honest, it’s hard to look sexy on minimum wage. Or even medium wage, for that matter. So it is that rich women like Beyoncé and Perry cosplay at embodying the “everywoman,” the “hard worker” without understanding what that really looks like. And yet, they expect to be lauded for championing “women’s equality” by reverting to a symbol that represents anything but that.

    As for the other nonsensical elements in Perry’s video, there’s the scene of her drinking from a bottle of “Whiskey for Women”—as if, what, she couldn’t handle a bottle of so-called Whiskey for Men? Is the Whiskey for Women slightly diluted or something? Just in case she doesn’t want to get taken advantage of by Dr. Luke? In the next scene, Perry and her backup dancers are shown swinging their nonexistent dicks in front of a urinal while still clad in their sexy construction worker outfits. Only adding fuel to the flames of the Freud-backed male belief that all women have “penis envy.”

    The urinals are soon “swept away” in favor of another set (something about it also smacks of Britney’s “Joy of Pepsi” commercial), an industrial rooftop that gives Perry the chance to rip off her already scanty “worker’s” vest and showcase an even scantier jeweled (and star-shaped!) American flag bikini top. The effect? More pandering to the male gaze. This compounded by additional moments that will have viewers asking: is she for real? Including, giving a porno expression while holding a drill, drinking the “Whiskey for Women” in such a way so that it “sensually” pours all over her body and deciding to throw in an arbitrary message about self-pleasure by momentarily parading a vibrator as she makes the moanier sounds of the track.

    When an anvil drops on her head as though to indicate this portion of the video was all just a satirical joke, things don’t improve much when we see a flattened Perry in a white-knit bikini top and robot-esque “pants” (designed by Victor Clavelly). Because she then, of all things, blows herself up. Not “explosion-style,” but balloon-style. In other words, she’s positioning herself as that other male fantasy: a blow-up doll. Even though the intent, in her mind, seems to be that women can reanimate no matter how many times they’re knocked down, or literally squashed.

    In the next iteration of the completely cracked-out video, Perry wanders the streets of an apocalyptic-looking realm, making her way to more middle-of-nowhere territory. Whereupon her body “breaks down” and she stops at a gas station to “pump herself.” With gas. So again, more male fantasy imagery involving a woman being pumped and “thing-ified.” An entity designed solely for something to be inserted in. To make the video even more incohesive, Trisha Paytas shows up out of nowhere pulling a monster truck with a rope behind her so that she can give Perry a ride. That Paytas has come out to identify as a man rather than a woman also lends more “women through men’s eyes” meaning to this video.

    From there, the two take a bumpy ride while Perry applies makeup in a “sloppy” way—this being her lone (and, yes, very flaccid) attempt at showing the women don’t have to be “pretty.” Subsequently, they roll up to a random house that Perry infiltrates (with Paytas disappearing as haphazardly as she appeared). Walking through it, she breaks through a glass door (one assumes that’s her lazy metaphor for shattering the glass ceiling) that leads to the backyard of a girl doing some TikTok bullshit. The girl’s selfie stick also “happens” to be in the shape of a female gender symbol (♀), which such products already kind of are to begin with.

    As Perry joins in to dance with her, she abruptly decides to steal the stick (no comment on what would go down if the shoe were on the other foot and a Black girl stole something from a white woman) before hopping on a helicopter that conveniently materializes to take her away. When the girl shouts out to her, “Who are you?!” Perry “roars,” “I’m Katy Perry!” A name that, thanks to this song and video, is now forever synonymous with misogyny. She might as well have done a cover of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” A song that Brown took all the credit for despite it being written by Betty Jean Newsome, whose misogynistic lyrics reflect the time she grew up in. The same can’t be said for Perry and this abhorrent visual, paired with lyrics and music co-helmed by an abuser.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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