Katy Perry’s attempt to “Roar” back into the pop charts has so far only hit bum notes.
There’s no denying the 39-year-old is a summer artist, with her biggest hits, ‘I Kissed a Girl’ and ‘Teenage Dream’ becoming beach soundtracks to 2008 and 2010 respectively.
So it only makes sense after years in the wilderness Perry should release her new single in July. However, supposed female empowerment anthem “Woman’s World” has fallen spectacularly on its face.
Critics have pointed out how Perry appears to be attempting to combine her early career nod-and-a-wink slapstick persona, best exemplified by her album title “One of the Boys,” with her later all-powerful fem-pop girls-are-the-future “Roar” era – but ended up failing on both fronts.
“It’s as if she was trying to cash in on [2023 movie] ‘Barbie’ and women power. She missed the mark by so far.
“It’s like you want to empower women, but then you fall into the old misogynistic tropes of, ‘I can’t do music videos without showing my boobs or ass,’’ a music video producer who asked to remain anonymous, told The Post.
The “Woman’s World” video features Perry as Rosie the Riveter in an American flag bikini, flanked by all an all-girl cast on a construction site drinking “Women’s Whisky” and using a urinal.
However, it takes less than a minute for the video to include a gratuitous slow motion shot of Perry’s breasts in a revealing bikini – hardly what progressive females would see as striking out at the patriarchy.
Perry herself even seemed confused about her message, saying in an interview with Apple Music: “We’re kind of just having fun, being a bit sarcastic with it. It’s very slapstick … ‘ooh, we’re not about the male gaze, but we really are about the male gaze.”
The lyrics, she said in the same interview, were inspired by becoming a mom after giving birth to her first child, daughter Daisy Dove, with fiancé Orlando Bloom in 2020; but they have also attracted criticism for their overly simple nature.
Perry sings: “Sexy, confident / So intelligent / She is heaven-sent / So soft, so strong,” before repeating the chorus line: “It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be living in it.”
Online posters slammed the “vague platitudes” of the song’s “women can have it all” ethos as a relic of the “Girl Boss” era of eight years ago.
Perry responded to the backlash on Instagram, insisting the “Woman’s World” music video was meant to poke fun, writing: “You can do anything! Even satire!” But having to explain the joke made it fall flat.
“The issue with the song is it’s a generic power anthem that Katy Perry has done in the past – there’s no individual personality to it. The lyrics are very generic – there’s nothing specific to her that an audience would want to relate to,” Kayla Larosa, 26, who runs pop culture commentary YouTube channel KaylaSays, with 110,000 subscribers told The Post.
“In the video, part of it is this hyper sexualized, campy vibe and a hint at wanting to be more progressive, but it feels so dated.”
Sadly, that has been borne out in the charts — “Woman’s World” debuted at No. 110 on Spotify’s US chart on July, 11. A day later, it dropped out completely.
Those who looked at the liner notes also pointed out how four of the songs six songwriters are male.
“Woman’s World” was also produced by Dr. Luke, born Lukasz Gottwald, who was previously accused by singer Kesha of sexual assault and abuse, which some listeners felt was a further affront to the feminist message of the song.
Singer Kesha sued Luke in 2014 alleging he drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2005 “to the point where [she] nearly lost her life”.
Her suit was dismissed in 2016 over “jurisdiction and statue-of-limitation”. Luke has strongly denied Kesha’s allegations, and has never been charged with any crime.
Luke also sued Kesha for defamation and won a civil case in 2020, prompting further appeals and legal wrangling, eventually settled out-of-court in 2023.
“Promoting a song about modern-day feminism and empowerment becomes counterintuitive when it is associated with someone accused of abusing women,” Clayton Durant, founder of the music consulting firm CAD Management and adjunct professor at LIU’s Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment, told The Post.
“This generation cares deeply about the final product and who is behind the scenes, extending their concerns to the songwriters and producers, not just the forward-facing artist.”
Luke, who has worked with Perry from the beginning of her career, has also gone on to work with plenty of other charting artists in recent years, including Doja Cat, largely without criticism for being involved in their tracks.
Kesha even appeared to pile on Perry this week, by posing outside a gas station with a gas pump, mocking a scene in the “Woman’s World” video and wearing an LOL T-shirt, in part to promote her own new track “Joyride”.
“The narrative is working against [Perry] so bad right now. People are coming out to support Kesha because ‘Joyride,’ is her first independent single, since [the end of] Dr. Luke and that whole situation,” Larosa added. Kesha previously released a 2023 album called “Gag Order” hinting at her ordeal.
Perry’s problem seems to be the same as other millennial stars are facing in 2024 – namely, the world has moved on.
Justin Timberlake had to suffer the indignity of being arrested by a New York cop so young he didn’t even recognize him as a famous person when he was pulled over for alleged driving under the influence in Sag Harbor in June.
And it was only through the arrest most of the wider public learned Timberlake had even released a sixth studio album, “Everything I thought It Was,” in March.
That album dropped off the Billboard Hot 200 after only four weeks and his accompanying “The Forget Tomorrow” tour could barely fill seats, according to reports.
Meanwhile a huge attempted comeback from Jennifer Lopez — who has benefitted from acres of press coverage of her marriage to Ben Affleck — largely fizzled.
Her “This Is Me… Now” album, released this year with an entire movie to accompany it, barely dented the charts and her accompanying “This Is Me … Live” tour has been cancelled.
“Artists like Jennifer Lopez and Justin Timberlake rose to superstardom during the CD era when music was largely controlled by labels and distributors – it was much easier for artists to reach fans and build a dedicated following. Today, with over a million new songs released each week the landscape is far more competitive,” said Durant.
“Earning fans’ dollars for concert tickets is much harder.”
There was a much different landscape in America when Perry started to make a name for herself in 2008 with “I Kissed a Girl,” and “Hot n Cold”.
Her music and persona satisfied a craving for carefree escapism and youthful pop at the tail end of the financial crisis and Perry’s cache only grew with 2010’s “Teenage Dream” album, which spawned hits including its title track, “California Gurls,” “E.T.,” “Firework” and “Last Friday Night,” to equal a record set by Michael Jackson’s “Bad’ in 1987 by having five number one singles from the same album.
Perry then changed direction and embraced a feminist message with her next few hits. Her track “Roar” became the anthem song at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, when she endorsed Hilary Clinton on the campaign trail.
But her career seemed to falter in later years, with her “Witness’ album from 2017 receiving little airplay and her videos becoming noticeably desperate to go viral, such as her track “Swish Swish” from that year, featuring Nicki Minaj.
Despite having a rostra of top name producers and songwriters on board, Perry’s last album “Smile” went largely unnoticed, partly due to bad timing, having been released in August 2020 as the global pandemic forced people to stay at home.
However, out of the pandemic has emerged a new ethos, culture, stars and ways of connecting with people. Artists use meme culture and TikTok dances to engage with fans and Perry has struggled to evolve on that front.
Tastemakers point to Chappell Roan’s “Hot To Go!” and Charli XCX’s summer-stealing new album “Brat” as more on point, with the latter spawning its own fashion and partying aesthetic.
“What’s in right now is authentic artists – look at Chappell Roan’s ‘Good Luck Babe’ – the perspective feels fresh. Her whole brand is Midwest princess – her song sounds like she’s from the Midwest in a really good way, like no one else could sing that song,” according to a pop music manager who asked The Post to remain anonymous.
“Charlie XCX’s entire album ‘Brat’ is super personal. It’s packed with a lot of trauma — she Chappell and Sabrina Carpenter are singing about more personal experiences and they have a meme-able component.
“’Women’s World’ feels like a record that Katy didn’t write herself. Like it’s a radio hit stuck in 2010.”
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