They Have to Play *Something* in Forever 21
Katy Perry's 143 was supposed to be a joy bomb. It's a bomb, alright.
By Eric Bennett
Last week, MTV bravely took some time off from airing reruns of Ridiculousness and Catfish to hold their only music-related event of the year, the VMAs. This year’s ceremony was two-pronged. Partly, it was a night to highlight new stars like Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan who have made 2024 their year. Both artists gave performances that, while proficient and visually interesting, wouldn’t become real moments like the VMAs used to have.
The rest of the night was a nostalgia-laden coronation for a titan of the old guard, Katy Perry. Before the show aired, Perry won a moonman for VMAs Most Iconic Performance for her boxing-themed rendition of "Roar” in 2013. I watched from my college dorm with friends when that happened and can hardly remember it. She beat out Lady Gaga’s still-discussed “Paparazzi” and not one but two iconic Madonna moments. A baffling choice of winner, and a bizarre concept for a category. Why remind your audience that you’re past your peak? It drives home just how beleaguered the whole affair is, and they did it before the show even started.
After performing a medley of her unimpeachable hits, and her new songs that are, well, less so, she accepted the Video Vanguard title. MTV’s version of a Lifetime Achievement Award has been previously given to the likes of Beyonce, Madonna, and its namesake, Michael Jackson.
Following months of bad press and dismal commercial showings for “Woman’s World” and "Lifetimes,” this was the kind of moment Perry sorely needed: A platform where she could remind people why they loved her a decade ago, why she’s here at all. There’s a little irony in that platform coming from an award show for music videos when her recent videos were criticized for outdated, clumsy political messaging and environmental damage, but hey, take any chance you get. Perry’s speech was breathless, tidy, and hit every mark it needed to. Still, it felt uncomfortable. There are audible boos amidst the cheers that highlight the tumult around her comeback. She emphasized her choice to shut out criticism around her artistic choices—“I just wanna say with my whole heart, do whatever it takes to stay true to yourself and true to your art. Turn off social media, safeguard your mental health, pause, touch grass.”
Such a message would be commendable if the criticism she’s talking about wasn't her decision to work with Dr. Luke on her new album 143, out today. Following the allegations made against him by Kesha, Perry stopped working with him, as did much of the pop landscape for a time. He was absent from her rightfully forgotten 2020 album Smile and from 2017’s abysmal Witness. With judgments rendered in Luke and Kesha’s suits against each other, both have begun making moves toward a resurgence. Personally, I will always believe Kesha, and even if “Joyride” is a terrible song, I’ll be sitting by like Lucille Bluth saying “Good for her.” That said, Katy Perry’s time away from Dr. Luke has been disastrous for her career and produced some of her worst music, so on a practical—if cynical—level, it’s easy to see why she’d return to him given their track record of churning out hits. Returning to Dr. Luke was a huge gamble. It has not paid off.
In the time since Perry was Luke’s primary muse, he’s had a rotating cast of up-and-comers who have faced criticism of their own for working with him. One such artist is Kim Petras, who has fallen off so hard that it only makes sense she’d be on this album. Her appearance comes on “Gorgeous,” the second in a trio of “Dark Horse”-esque trap pop songs that bleed into one another. It’s a song with such a lack of originality that it sounds like ChatGPT had a hand in its lyrics. Part “7 Rings,” part “Glamorous, part “Jumpin’ Jumpin’,” but thoroughly inane. The insult to injury here is that Luke’s contributions sound like rejects from Petras’ Feed The Beast. House music piano stabs pervade much of the tracklist, and while meant to convey a cool, icy glamor, each one rings more room temperature.
There was a tentative excitement around Perry’s return before anyone heard the music. Perhaps someday she will meet the moment and return to her former glory, but not today. She promised something made for dancefloors, something full of joy. 143 is technically an album full of dance music, but it’s hard to see how these songs would work in a club setting. These are the kind of outdated, glittery baubles that are more at home blaring from the speakers in a Forever 21 dressing room. “Crush” and “Lifetimes” would especially serve such a moment. As I listen to Perry rhyme “crush” with “blush” I can picture myself trying on a shirt from the clearance bin and ultimately putting it back on the rack. It’s music that is meant to feel positive but instead feels oppressive. The joy she promised is nowhere to be seen, as 143 is a wholly soulless endeavor.
Putting the quality of the music aside for a moment, it’s remarkable how many of these songs are indistinguishable from one another. There's the parade of guests and drum machines that make up “Gimme Gimme,” “Gorgeous,” and “I’m His, He’s Mine.” Then there’s “Crush,” “Lifetimes,” “All The Love,” “Nirvana, and “Truth.” Five songs equally suited to becoming interstitial music on Selling Sunset. Perhaps “Woman’s World" was slated to be the lead single purely because it sounds the most singular among the set. The wiser choice would have been to lead with “Wonder.”
The lone moment not covered in Dr. Luke’s grimy fingerprints, the album closer would have been a more triumphant vessel for her comeback. Dedicated to her daughter Daisy, “Wonder” is sort of like if Pink’s “Fuckin’ Perfect” were redone as a 2010s EDM hit. It’s actually not as bad as that description makes it sound. I’m not going to pick apart the vocal prowess of a four-year-old, I’m not that much of an asshole, but I'll just say the inclusion of Daisy’s vocals is cute but doesn’t serve the song. Still, this is the sort of thing that makes you remember why Katy Perry was such a star. It’s unafraid to be silly, bent on being vaguely inspiring in a way that worked in the early 2010s. Things were less constantly on fire then, you could pass “Firework” off as inspiring. It’s hard to see where Katy Perry goes from here, but maybe now she’ll see that even going back to something that might feel comfortable, like Dr. Luke can't save her. She has to take some time to see if she has anything left to say. If she doesn’t, she could at least make something vapid and fun.