clinging to relevancy: i don't want to live in katy perry's woman's world
it’s a woman’s world, and my eardrums are burdened to be living in it
The recent release of Woman's World, the lead single launching Katy Perry's sixth studio album 143 was immediately met with mixed responses—overwhelmingly negative aside from a gaggle of Twitter twinks' Swiftie-like unshakeable defense of any new music their favorite pop artists release—but mixed nonetheless.
Overstimulated by the astronomical influx of pop music the first half of 2024 has produced—from Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Chappell Roan, Dua Lipa, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift to Charli xcx—I see myself sidelining an artist whose bubblegum perfection once bounced off the walls of my bedroom at ten years old. Other than maybe Nelly Furtado or Madonna, Perry was the one artist who lived rent-free in my mind from 2011-2018. Particularly recounting my eleven-year-old self who upon graduating from Boy Scouts—technically ‘Cubs’ as I never participated long enough to obtain scout status as my flaming femininity would much rather have been brushing the hair of my Monster High dolls—had been awarded a CD of Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection for the accolade from my catholic father himself. The closet was glass even dressed in my Boy Scout best.
It was upon stumbling across a comment under one of the probable payola Instagram posts from Pop Base making audiences aware of the release of her new album 143 which read "#143 on billboard Hot 200 😭🤍" that I began to ponder—Katy Perry is threatening to release another album after two consecutive flops.
As a man, I'm not here to express my thoughts about whether Perry's artistic expression is objectifying the female body for streams, nor is it my place to decipher if the single has successfully empowered women to celebrate their feminine divine. I am merely expressing my thoughts as a boy once chained to the rhythm of Perry's former eras. From the angsty pop-rock, performative bisexuality, and hilariously late 2000s homophobic lyrics of One of The Boys; the perfectly bubblegum-washed wigs, candy-coated anemoia, and confectionary sexual innuendoes of Teenage Dream; chart-topping bangers and big-budget Vevo music videos of Prism; to the misunderstood metaphors and platinum pixie cut of Witness—my preteen self was dragging my mother's hand through the doors of Musica to see which CD had the least amount of micro-scratches before conducting an impromptu PowerPoint presentation imploring my best acting skills to convince her that her young son's life would not be complete without a CD sporting cover art of a naked Perry atop pastel pink clouds.
Perhaps it is my identity as a man, but someone who would endlessly defend the nuance in the artistry of 2017's Witness struggles to find any relatability or factors worth appreciation of this new project. I can appreciate the new direction Perry's stylists have taken for this era or the fact that her label is finally giving her the budget after the shockingly bad performance of 2020's Smile—but to say that I am invested or excited would be a total fabrication.
The post-COVID era's increasing demand for authenticity sees the internet stampeding any niche or untouched piece of media to adopt for their so-called individuality and self-expression—pop stars are struggling to retain the relevance they once held during the high-concept video and single-centric era of the early 2010s. Where artists like Taylor Swift have maintained their relevance by sticking to their guns with rare deviations to new sounds and aesthetics, and others like Chappell Roan deliver fresh interpolations of iconic references from the recession pop era Perry once dominated—she seems to be situated somewhere in between. However, her tossing rings into the already saturated state of female pop to produce another successful pop era proves to be lackluster.
To an extent, it saddens me to see Perry's efforts plunge as an artist who once occupied five spots on the Billboard Hot 100 during her Teenage Dream era. No one can deny her status as one of the most influential pop artists of the 2010s, but my pastel pink-washed nostalgia cannot produce me with any dreams of caring about the “Sexy, confident / So intelligent" world Capitol Records is trying to gaslight me into believing is the next Barbieland.
One problem motivating my premature disdain for the future of 143's subsequent era is the marketing of Woman's World popping into every corner of my internet browsing—not being able to doom-scroll on any application without Perry doing a Hot n Cold rendition of miming out the lyrics of her new song.
Sometimes being everywhere on the internet does not award the same level of hype as if you were ‘so Julia’. Swiftly riding on the coattails of Charli xcx's world domination with the release of her opus Brat, which saw a marketing campaign I would compare to that of 2023's billion-dollar Barbie film. The infectious soundbites, it-girl-studded stamps of approval, summer tote-bag essentials of cigarettes and wine-stained white tank tops, and endless recreations of the cover's graphic design—it is safe to say that Charli and her team were nothing short of geniuses. However, the success and ecstatic reception the marketing of Brat saw was only possible because of the authenticity oozing out of every facet of the project—from fashion to lyricism. The somewhat simple nature of Charli's approach to writing songs that's lyrics could easily have been drunk voice memos to friends at three in the morning after a night out authentically made the themes explored in her songs perfect for mass appeal—as listeners did not have to decode flowery metaphors to understand what she was trying to say.
In the context of Woman's World, Perry has not infused anywhere near the same amount of authenticity to warrant the sheer level of awareness her team is pushing across social media—especially when the marketing began far too early, securing that the 10-second teaser would be stuck in the internet's head but instead making them utterly sick of the song more than a month before release.
Her weak attempt to defend her artistic voice saw her reducing the entire project—from production, lyrics, and art direction to the song itself with the countless individuals’ contributions—to simply satire. Expressing on social media that “YOU CAN DO ANYTHING! EVEN SATIRE!”—which might be true but it unfortunately seems that besides satire, Perry can do anything except release a good song since Never Really Over.
Another pain point demotivating me to conjure an atom of excitement for Woman's World is a certain co-producer whose name is burning a hole in the credits.
Google is free, so I will not be mentioning the name of the very problematic producer who has been responsible for only Perry, but so many other artist's iconic songs throughout the 2010s. The backlash for this very interesting choice on Perry's part was swift, igniting a boycott from individuals who listen to music with their moral compasses in their back pockets. The lore surrounding Perry, Kesha, and Redacted is another deep dive in itself, however, the history between these artists who were once filming music videos and occupying the charts together is peering its head into their 2024 music releases.
I know that I should not be comparing any of the girls who are killing it because they all do in fact have crowns, but when I discovered that Kesha's JOYRIDE had millions more Spotify streams than Woman's World I couldn't help but feel validated. Especially when I reflect on the utter disgust that coursed through my body when I read comments flooding Kesha's TikTok during the promotion of her first single as an independent artist spamming people to stream Woman's World. This can be described as nothing else but an intentionally malicious attack on Kesha and a mere mockery of the hard work put into her new song.
As someone who is not a frequent Kesha listener, I cannot forgive Perry for sprinting back into the arms of Redacted to reignite the genius spark they once had when creating what I would categorize as the greatest pop era of the 21st century because that flame that has been dead for the past decade—no matter how many braindead Twitter twinks devoid of any media literacy claim Perry is ‘contractually obligated’ to work with Redacted.
The visuals present in the covers and music video of Woman's World are nothing groundbreaking, seeing Perry tap into her somewhat cringy millennial camp, dressed in bedazzled American flag lace tops with references to Rosie the Riveter. I have no personal grudge against the styling or set design, though my problem arises when trying to decipher the plot, intention, or meaning of this music video. It seems Perry had tossed rhinestones, Americana, boobs, vaginas, and the literal symbol for female into a blender before inviting Trisha Paytas to dance around on set in hopes of creating some type of short-lived internet joke to drive more views.
Maybe if you spoke to the tween boy dreaming of being friends with the pop girls existing in the space grey radio and torn-out posters of teen magazines if he would want to live in Katy Perry's Woman's World, where he gets to ride in Monster trucks while applying lipstick, he would jump at the chance. But the man I am today who has access to an entire Spotify library and has come a long way since only owning Katy Perry and Ariana Grande CDs might struggle to buy into the uninspiring production and Chat GPT lyricism that her team of millennial gays has mistakenly insisted is what pop music in 2024 needs.
Perhaps I will be forced to take radical accountability upon the potentially positive reception after 143's release, silently retracting the above statements to then use one of the album's songs as the background to one of my Instagram stories. However, I hope those millennial gay men in Perry's marketing department have their LinkedIn profiles updated because they must have delusional tattooed in the font Impact across their foreheads if they think the media apart of 143's era thus far is making any noise in the contemporary sphere of pop music.
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