Katy Perry - Smile (5th Studio Album)

Tisch said:
Would be more on brand with Katy stans as well, being stuck in 2011 and all...
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I live.
 
HeLikedTurner said:
Jesus. What is with the venom in here regarding Katy Perry? I also don't understand why people who hate the album or have no interest in her, keep trolling this thread. What do you get out of that? I thought that kind of thing was for Popjustice.
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People are just having fun! You can enjoy the album as much as you like, just ignore the haters and talk about it - nobody's stopping you.
 
i have found a whole new dimension of respect for Mrs. Bloom. she's self aware and she's letting us all know that she knows that she's a flop but doesn't give a fuck and we just have to stan.

Resilient:

/ I know there's gotta be rain if I want the rainbows /
this is Katy letting us know that there's gotta be nine 87-OUTs if one wants nine #1s
/ And I know the higher I climb, the harder the wind blows /
yes. the higher a pop star climbs, the harsher the fickle gays, the media and stan twitter get.

Not The End of The Word:

/ It's not the end of the world
No, not the end of the world
Throw on your fancy attire, fears in the fire
Don’t lose hope
It's no funeral we're attending
Actually, just the beginning /

/ Flipping off the flop, now I just enjoy the ride
Just enjoy the ride, yeah, I just enjoy the ride /

Smile:

/ Had a piece of humble pie
That ego check saved my life /
"that ego check" clearly refers to the Witness era.

she's an icon. she's a legend. and she is the moment. now come on.
 
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i won't allow a green lizard to bring me down today.

anyway, i feel like Resilient is going to age terribly a la Unconditionally but for now it's e v e r y t h i n g.
 
The decline is hardly unexpected. I mean the class of the noughties are all underperforming (Gaga aside). Apparently Beyonce is releasing new music at the moment (the charts: I don't know her). Perry's 2008-2014 run really was amazing. I don't expect Dua to be topping the charts in 2030.
 
Ag said:
The decline is hardly unexpected. I mean the class of the noughties are all underperforming (Gaga aside). Apparently Beyonce is releasing new music at the moment (the charts: I don't know her). Perry's 2008-2014 run really was amazing. I don't expect Dua to be topping the charts in 2030.
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Having said all that this topic is GREAT FUN :disco:
 
HeLikedTurner said:
Jesus. What is with the venom in here regarding Katy Perry? I also don't understand why people who hate the album or have no interest in her, keep trolling this thread. What do you get out of that? I thought that kind of thing was for Popjustice.
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Further reading: any Moopy thread about a mainstream female artist’s new album
 
OutSynk said:
Wow 56/100 on Metacritic.
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58. A better score than Witness (56), Teenage Dream (52) or One of the Boys (47). Critics have always had it out for her.

Even her UNDENIABLE SEMINAL OPUS Prism has just a 61.
 
Is Rihanna not a bit younger than Beyoncé? I mean, maybe not, but I do think that still has a lot to do with how well these ladies do on the radio
 
Rihanna has become one of the most streamed female artists on Spotify despite having only one album released in the streaming era. The anticipation for her comeback is HUGE and INSATIABLE and she will definitely be massive unless she monumentally screws it up somehow.

All of which is assuming she ever actually DOES COME BACK
 
Rihanna is a streaming juggernaut. the last song she released was 4 years ago and she has 50 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Gaga released an album 2 months ago and has 46m monthly listeners.

i honestly think the SNL performances which became memes were the nail in the coffin for Katy's career.
 
no one even remembers Katy's SNL performances. and if they were the nail in the coffin, how come last year's Never Really Over has 400m+ streams? "the final nail" literally means no more success. make it make sense.
 
Bon Appètit has almost 1 billion streams on YouTube, but Witness was still deemed a flop.

tenor.gif
 
I listened again in full today and enjoyed it beginning to end - it's a really solid record.

I wanted to respond to some of the critiques on the last couple of pages but don't really have the energy now, especially when people are just being bitchy for the sake of it. however:

KindaCool said:
I think she's just really bad without the 'machine' behind her. She doesn't seem to have the creative vision or musical chops to thrive on her own. Like, of all the things to draw inspiration from, she went for CLOWNS? She probably thought she had a clever 'metaphor' going, but it's unoriginal and juvenile.

But ultimatley she'll probably still be an A-Lister for ages. She's pretty, white, inoffensive and has collected enough memorable hits to sustain a career that most can still only dream of.

Also, CLOSE YOUR BRACKETS HUN.
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She still has the machine behind her. Who do you think wrote these songs? Max Martin may be gone but Oscar Holter (Blinding Lights, In Your Eyes, Bon Appetit, 1999) produced Cry About It Later; Oscar Görres (My My My!, various tracks for Troye, Lauv, Ellie) did Teary Eyes; Stargate is on this record, Peter Carlsson (Demi, Ariana), Charlie Puth who writes for anyone and everyone, Zedd, the Monsterz and the Strangerz - the idea that "the machine" isn't behind this record, like she's some indie artist forced to go it alone or something, is hilarious and absurd. It's as much a label-engineered big pop girl record as any other, so you can't use its supposed decline in quality from what's come before as evidence that Katy is not a talented songwriter or an artist with vision. She hasn't been exposed as the emperor sans clothes here. "The machine" just isn't giving her the same globe-conquering pop songs she was getting when she was in her 20s, which is literally how this industry always works so should not come as a surprise.

Diddy said:
I wonder if she’s just like that, the doofy wet-eyed clown always seems to be in the mix somewhere.

If this is the sort of music she wants to make coming out of some sort of depression, then all power to her, I don’t think she owes anything.
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Yes, she has talked quite extensively about having taken immense validation in commercial success and being on top of the game from 2008-14, and how the backlash against Witness left her feeling borderline suicidal at times, and in a place where she had to completely change her mentality and build herself up again from nothing. I'm sure she would like to be grabbing big hits still - what popstar of Katy's ilk wouldn't, she's not k.d. lang - but she also seems to have transitioned to using music as both self-therapy and a way to talk about what she's learned about how to survive those battles with your inner demons and start building castles on stronger foundations than sand.

and people are willingly misinterpreting her - Smile is not a kidz bop, it's a song about celebrating making it out of the very darkest period in your life and successfully changing the way you see things. of course the lyricism is typically Katy - cloaked in metaphors, some fairly basic, more vague/universal/referential than hyper-specific to her own situation - but she's not saying "smile, life is good!" here. if that's all you're willing to take from it then don't try to critique it because you can't be arsed doing the actual work of putting yourself in her shoes. I find it genuinely quite baffling that Gaga is getting praise for the darkness of her lyricism on Chromatica (which, although dark in places, very much ALLUDES to things in a general and not-too sophisticated way, rather than really MINING that darkness with any specificity), but when Katy does the same (and there are serious parallels to be drawn between their songwriting styles at this point), she "hasn't developed" and deserves to be torn to shreds (as though she ever claimed to be that kind of songwriter anyway).

and let's not FORGET that when she actually did try to take her lyricism and thematics in a new direction - sometimes quite successfully - on Witness, nobody was having it! and that despite the fact that said record contained her absolute finest run of singles. people saw a haircut and decided a backlash was due.

joanne said:
this is the main issue, innit?

Smile could have been released in 2013 and been a top 5 hit. Gen Z is simply not swallowing her childish shtick and the millennials got tired the moment she decided to release Birthday instead of Ghost. it marked the death of her musical and artistic growth.

having a dark and mature reputation-esque "comeback" in 2015-2016 might have offered far less embarrassing diminishing returns, but she decided to continue clowning to this very day.
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Yes, she should have released Ghost, possibly instead of Birthday. It's a fantastic, mature pop ballad which could have taken things in a new direction for her. but, as mentioned above, she DID go dark with the follow-up to Prism (Chained is also notably more mature than previous lead singles at this point, thematically and sonically) - it didn't go down well. even as the album's biggest hit, Chained was not a global smash in the way that Roar was. so you can SEE that either she or the label might respond to that by thinking "OK, basic boppery is what sells from Katy Perry" - and yet the moment anyone catches a whiff of basic now, it's "WHY HASN'T SHE MATURED!?" - make your fucking minds up!
 
Jark said:
I listened again in full today and enjoyed it beginning to end - it's a really solid record.

I wanted to respond to some of the critiques on the last couple of pages but don't really have the energy now, especially when people are just being bitchy for the sake of it. however:


She still has the machine behind her. Who do you think wrote these songs? Max Martin may be gone but Oscar Holter (Blinding Lights, In Your Eyes, Bon Appetit, 1999) produced Cry About It Later; Oscar Görres (My My My!, various tracks for Troye, Lauv, Ellie) did Teary Eyes; Stargate is on this record, Peter Carlsson (Demi, Ariana), Charlie Puth who writes for anyone and everyone, Zedd, the Monsterz and the Strangerz - the idea that "the machine" isn't behind this record, like she's some indie artist forced to go out it alone or something, is hilarious and absurd. It's as much a label-engineered big pop girl record as any other, so you can't use its supposed decline in quality from what's come before as evidence that Katy is not a talented songwriter or an artist with vision. She hasn't been exposed as the emperor sans clothes here. "The machine" just isn't giving her the same globe-conquering pop songs she was getting when she was in her 20s, which is literally how this industry always works so should not come a a surprise.


Yes, she has talked quite extensively about having taken immense validation in commercial success and being on top of the game from 2008-14, and how the backlash against Witness left her feeling borderline suicidal at times, and in a place where she had to completely change her mentality and build herself up again from nothing. I'm sure she would like to be grabbing big hits still - what popstar of Katy's ilk wouldn't, she's not k.d. lang - but she also seems to have transitioned to using music as both self-therapy and a way to talk about what she's learned about how to survive those with your inner demons and start building castles on stronger foundations than sand.

and people are willingly misinterpreting her - Smile is not a kidz bop, it's a song about celebrating making it out of the very darkest period in your life and successfully changing the way you see things. of course the lyricism is typically Katy - cloaked in metaphors, some fairly basic, more vague/universal/referential than hyper-specific to her own situation - but she's not saying "smile, life is good!" here. if that's all you're willing to take from it then don't try to critique it because you can't be arsed doing the actual work of putting yourself in her shoes. I find it genuinely quite baffling that Gaga is getting praise for the darkness of her lyricism on Chromatica (which, although dark in places, very much ALLUDES to things in a general and not-too sophisticated way, rather than really MINING that darkness with any specificity), but when Katy does the same (and their are serious parallels to be drawn between their songwriting styles at this point), she "hasn't developed" and deserves to be torn to shreds (as though she ever claimed to be that kind of songwriter anyway).

and let's not FORGET that when she actually did try to take her lyricism and thematics in a new direction - sometimes quite successfully - on Witness, nobody was having it! and that despite the fact that said record contained her absolute finest run of singles. people saw a haircut and decided a backlash was due.


Yes, she should have released Ghost, possibly instead of Birthday. It's a fantastic, mature pop ballad which could have taken things in a new direction for her. but, as mentioned above, she DID go dark with the follow-up to Prism (Chained is also notably more mature than previous lead singles at this point, thematically and sonically) - it didn't go down well. even as the album's biggest hit, Chained was not a global smash in the way that Roar was. so you can SEE that either she or the label might respond to that by thinking "OK, basic boppery is what sells from Katy Perry" - and yet the moment anyone catches a whiff of basic now, it's "WHY HASN'T SHE MATURED!?" - make your fucking minds up!
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Jark said:
I listened again in full today and enjoyed it beginning to end - it's a really solid record.

I wanted to respond to some of the critiques on the last couple of pages but don't really have the energy now, especially when people are just being bitchy for the sake of it. however:


She still has the machine behind her. Who do you think wrote these songs? Max Martin may be gone but Oscar Holter (Blinding Lights, In Your Eyes, Bon Appetit, 1999) produced Cry About It Later; Oscar Görres (My My My!, various tracks for Troye, Lauv, Ellie) did Teary Eyes; Stargate is on this record, Peter Carlsson (Demi, Ariana), Charlie Puth who writes for anyone and everyone, Zedd, the Monsterz and the Strangerz - the idea that "the machine" isn't behind this record, like she's some indie artist forced to go it alone or something, is hilarious and absurd. It's as much a label-engineered big pop girl record as any other, so you can't use its supposed decline in quality from what's come before as evidence that Katy is not a talented songwriter or an artist with vision. She hasn't been exposed as the emperor sans clothes here. "The machine" just isn't giving her the same globe-conquering pop songs she was getting when she was in her 20s, which is literally how this industry always works so should not come as a surprise.


Yes, she has talked quite extensively about having taken immense validation in commercial success and being on top of the game from 2008-14, and how the backlash against Witness left her feeling borderline suicidal at times, and in a place where she had to completely change her mentality and build herself up again from nothing. I'm sure she would like to be grabbing big hits still - what popstar of Katy's ilk wouldn't, she's not k.d. lang - but she also seems to have transitioned to using music as both self-therapy and a way to talk about what she's learned about how to survive those battles with your inner demons and start building castles on stronger foundations than sand.

and people are willingly misinterpreting her - Smile is not a kidz bop, it's a song about celebrating making it out of the very darkest period in your life and successfully changing the way you see things. of course the lyricism is typically Katy - cloaked in metaphors, some fairly basic, more vague/universal/referential than hyper-specific to her own situation - but she's not saying "smile, life is good!" here. if that's all you're willing to take from it then don't try to critique it because you can't be arsed doing the actual work of putting yourself in her shoes. I find it genuinely quite baffling that Gaga is getting praise for the darkness of her lyricism on Chromatica (which, although dark in places, very much ALLUDES to things in a general and not-too sophisticated way, rather than really MINING that darkness with any specificity), but when Katy does the same (and there are serious parallels to be drawn between their songwriting styles at this point), she "hasn't developed" and deserves to be torn to shreds (as though she ever claimed to be that kind of songwriter anyway).

and let's not FORGET that when she actually did try to take her lyricism and thematics in a new direction - sometimes quite successfully - on Witness, nobody was having it! and that despite the fact that said record contained her absolute finest run of singles. people saw a haircut and decided a backlash was due.


Yes, she should have released Ghost, possibly instead of Birthday. It's a fantastic, mature pop ballad which could have taken things in a new direction for her. but, as mentioned above, she DID go dark with the follow-up to Prism (Chained is also notably more mature than previous lead singles at this point, thematically and sonically) - it didn't go down well. even as the album's biggest hit, Chained was not a global smash in the way that Roar was. so you can SEE that either she or the label might respond to that by thinking "OK, basic boppery is what sells from Katy Perry" - and yet the moment anyone catches a whiff of basic now, it's "WHY HASN'T SHE MATURED!?" - make your fucking minds up!
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Sorry, but you have exceeded word count.
 
Jark said:
and let's not FORGET that when she actually did try to take her lyricism and thematics in a new direction - sometimes quite successfully - on Witness, nobody was having it! and that despite the fact that said record contained her absolute finest run of singles. people saw a haircut and decided a backlash was due.

she DID go dark with the follow-up to Prism (Chained is also notably more mature than previous lead singles at this point, thematically and sonically) - it didn't go down well. even as the album's biggest hit, Chained was not a global smash in the way that Roar was. so you can SEE that either she or the label might respond to that by thinking "OK, basic boppery is what sells from Katy Perry" - and yet the moment anyone catches a whiff of basic now, it's "WHY HASN'T SHE MATURED!?"
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from what i gather, Chained was not an instant smash like her previous singles but it definitely was a step in the right direction. it received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the fans, the general public, and critics. it revealed Katy as a mature artistè who was critical of the system, pop galore that made you think, not just some pretty manufactured pop star that squirted whipped cream out of her tits. i actually remember thinking that the CTTR video was the most exciting and brilliant piece of visual pop since Bad Romance. the execution was out of this world; the way it started out with her naively grinning, and ended with her looking absolutely mortified as she's grasped how we're all undecidedly chained to the rhythm, it was dazzling in every way, and the song was fresh, catchy and had a deeper meaning that everyone could connect to. but i guess since, like you say, it was not a global smash in the way that Roar was, her team decided to go with the pretty, manufactured clown girl brand again, and it just eviscerated the era's mood for everybody.

how are you going to go from renaissance and enlightenment to getting your ass kneaded by 10 people and being served as a piece of meat in a span of two months?
 
I don’t think there isn’t a message behind these new songs either. The lyrics are surely about how she overcame depression? It just happens to be wrapped up in a more straightforward pop package than Witness.
 
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Jark said:
I listened again in full today and enjoyed it beginning to end - it's a really solid record.

I wanted to respond to some of the critiques on the last couple of pages but don't really have the energy now, especially when people are just being bitchy for the sake of it. however:


She still has the machine behind her. Who do you think wrote these songs? Max Martin may be gone but Oscar Holter (Blinding Lights, In Your Eyes, Bon Appetit, 1999) produced Cry About It Later; Oscar Görres (My My My!, various tracks for Troye, Lauv, Ellie) did Teary Eyes; Stargate is on this record, Peter Carlsson (Demi, Ariana), Charlie Puth who writes for anyone and everyone, Zedd, the Monsterz and the Strangerz - the idea that "the machine" isn't behind this record, like she's some indie artist forced to go it alone or something, is hilarious and absurd. It's as much a label-engineered big pop girl record as any other, so you can't use its supposed decline in quality from what's come before as evidence that Katy is not a talented songwriter or an artist with vision. She hasn't been exposed as the emperor sans clothes here. "The machine" just isn't giving her the same globe-conquering pop songs she was getting when she was in her 20s, which is literally how this industry always works so should not come as a surprise.


Yes, she has talked quite extensively about having taken immense validation in commercial success and being on top of the game from 2008-14, and how the backlash against Witness left her feeling borderline suicidal at times, and in a place where she had to completely change her mentality and build herself up again from nothing. I'm sure she would like to be grabbing big hits still - what popstar of Katy's ilk wouldn't, she's not k.d. lang - but she also seems to have transitioned to using music as both self-therapy and a way to talk about what she's learned about how to survive those battles with your inner demons and start building castles on stronger foundations than sand.

and people are willingly misinterpreting her - Smile is not a kidz bop, it's a song about celebrating making it out of the very darkest period in your life and successfully changing the way you see things. of course the lyricism is typically Katy - cloaked in metaphors, some fairly basic, more vague/universal/referential than hyper-specific to her own situation - but she's not saying "smile, life is good!" here. if that's all you're willing to take from it then don't try to critique it because you can't be arsed doing the actual work of putting yourself in her shoes. I find it genuinely quite baffling that Gaga is getting praise for the darkness of her lyricism on Chromatica (which, although dark in places, very much ALLUDES to things in a general and not-too sophisticated way, rather than really MINING that darkness with any specificity), but when Katy does the same (and there are serious parallels to be drawn between their songwriting styles at this point), she "hasn't developed" and deserves to be torn to shreds (as though she ever claimed to be that kind of songwriter anyway).

and let's not FORGET that when she actually did try to take her lyricism and thematics in a new direction - sometimes quite successfully - on Witness, nobody was having it! and that despite the fact that said record contained her absolute finest run of singles. people saw a haircut and decided a backlash was due.


Yes, she should have released Ghost, possibly instead of Birthday. It's a fantastic, mature pop ballad which could have taken things in a new direction for her. but, as mentioned above, she DID go dark with the follow-up to Prism (Chained is also notably more mature than previous lead singles at this point, thematically and sonically) - it didn't go down well. even as the album's biggest hit, Chained was not a global smash in the way that Roar was. so you can SEE that either she or the label might respond to that by thinking "OK, basic boppery is what sells from Katy Perry" - and yet the moment anyone catches a whiff of basic now, it's "WHY HASN'T SHE MATURED!?" - make your fucking minds up!
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i agree
 
Well @Jark i thought I should say something because there are a lot of good points. It’s just good to get it out, even though I think the people it’s aimed at are going to TL;DR you
 
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