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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