On September 30, pop icon Katy Perry released her once highly anticipated sixth studio album, 143, to disappointing results. After months of posing this project as her return to mainstream stardom, the resulting album can only be described as the internet's favorite insult, “a flop.”
Katy Perry stands as a polarizing figure in pop culture. On one hand, at her height, Perry couldn’t be touched. With five No. 1 hits from her 2010 album Teenage Dream—a record only matched by Michael Jackson’s Thriller—her success was irrefutable. For a short period of time in the early 2010s, no star shined brighter than the wacky, vibrant, pop powerhouse that was Katy Perry. But with stiff competition brought by the rise of stars like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, and a lack of evolution on Perry’s part, her career took a deep downfall over the course of the mid-2010s. In a desperate move to stay on top, Perry took a sharp turn by trying to brand herself as a “purposeful pop artist” with her 2017 album Witness, which both ruined her reputation and turned the general public against her music. In the subsequent years, while dwindling interest labeled her career as over, Perry did surprisingly well for herself. Her music sales declined, but her nearly seven-year stint as an American Idol judge kept her in the public eye. With her two-year-long Vegas residency, Perry seemed to fall nicely in the category of a “legacy act,” which apparently did not sit nicely with the artist herself.
In June of 2024, after an almost four-year break from releasing new music, Perry began to tease her new single, “WOMAN’S WORLD,” to an (at first) incredibly positive response. For the people who grew up on her music, a Katy Perry comeback felt due. With pop stars like Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan on the rise, it seemed as though Perry could fit well into the resurgence of fun and slightly unserious pop, which she thrived on in her early career. Yet the song brought a new wave of controversy her way. When the public discovered Perry worked with Dr. Luke, a music producer accused of sexually assaulting fellow pop star Kesha, on "WOMAN'S WORLD," a song about female empowerment, the single was doomed to fail. Even putting aside the controversy, the single just wasn’t good. With outdated production, beats reminiscent of 2016 EDM pop, and lyrics that sounded like they were written for a Hillary Clinton campaign anthem: it seemed like both Perry and her music were stuck in the past. Disappointment could be seen in the public response, with the song peaking at No. 63 on the Billboard charts, a showing that would have been unimaginable in 2012.
After dropping another few singles with lackluster to non-existent responses, the full album titled 143, a play on the slang “I love you,” was released in late September. The biggest issue with Katy Perry’s 143 is that it is just not interesting. While I sat listening to the album, time seemed to fly by as the songs blended together and left no impact.. With a combination of electronic dance-pop and poorly put together trap tracks, this album just isn’t with the times. Perry seems to be chasing trends that went out of style almost a decade ago. While a few songs, mainly “LIFETIMES” and “CRUSH” had me bopping my head a bit, every track sounded like it could have been performed by any pop girlie on the scene. Nothing about this album screamed Katy Perry, and therein lies the real question: where did the personality we fell in love with as kids go? No matter your opinions on her early works, songs like “California Girls,” “Last Friday Night,” and “I Kissed a Girl,” would not have hit as hard if sung by another artist. With all their cheesiness and cheekiness, something about Perry’s upbeat personality, crazy clothes, and brightly colored wigs made the tracks develop a legacy of their own. With 143, I was chasing any bits of originality and found none.
I failed to develop any strong opinions on any specific song—none are interesting enough to hate. One of the album’s better tracks is “I’M HIS, HE’S MINE,” but the only real personality comes from Doechii's verse. The same could be said of “ARTIFICIAL,” where featured artist JID hurriedly raps about the takeover of AI, desperately trying to save this stupid song from making my eardrums bleed. Why is 21 Savage on this record? I couldn’t tell you. Even the Kim Petras collab just sounds like a knock-off of better Kim Petras collabs.
With lyrics like “Kitty, kitty, wanna come party tonight / Trippy, trippy, daddy, take me on a ride,” no part of me believes any of this album actually means anything to Perry herself. In interviews, when talking about the record, she speaks of being a mother and empowering women through love, but this sentiment can’t be heard in the actual lyrics on 143. Perry tries to save the album at the end with a pandering generic track, “WONDER,” reminiscent of her 2013 girl-power anthem that took over the world, “Roar.” However, when her over-processed vocals sing, “Don't let the weight of the world be heavy on your wings / Stay pure, beautiful girl,” I feel entirely nothing. Even though “I want to hear you roar” wasn’t exactly Shakespeare, at least it felt like Perry actually meant it.
In the end, this is not the worst album I have ever heard. It might not even be Katy Perry’s worst album. Yet, with zero emotions and meaningless lyrics, all this album does is remind people of better days, when we could still call Katy Perry a pop icon.
Rating: INDY
Kelsey Perriello is a sophomore in the College who still has no idea what she’s going to major in. She is Co-Spotlight Editor and Social Media Manager for the INDY.
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