The dead on arrival disaster of Katy Perry’s return to music: How did she get it so wrong?

There is no one who can slander the mammoth success of Katy Perry for her first few records. She was a decade defining artist of the 2010s – a popstar whose album Teenage Dream is the first ever by a female artist to have five number one singles and the second person to ever hit the milestone after Michael Jackson. Perry ran the 2010s as an indomitable figure of pop culture with an endless string of hits that even your mum was tapping her toe to. And yet, since the “flop era” of 2017’s Witness and the even worse album Smile that followed in 2020, Katy Perry has fallen from her perch to the brink of irrelevancy. But still with a figure like Katy Perry, there are fans who will always want a return to form. With Katy Perry announcing her new album era for 2024, a nostalgic love for the Perry that dominated charts and hearts was felt alongside a general feeling of wanting a return to form. But as soon as Katy Perry announced her comeback single Woman’s World, the music return fell to pieces.

The Woman’s World return to music for Katy Perry was a dead on arrival disaster from day dot – here’s where it all went wrong.

The copycat allegations

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From the start of the era, when Katy Perry was just posting pics on her Instagram and teasing a logo for the new era – she was bombarded with claims it was a bit of a Charli XCX rip off. The comparisons to Charli’s logos and BRAT aesthetics were notable, but it wasn’t anything major to drag Perry for, in my opinion. Things got a bit worse when Katy Perry announced Woman’s World as her return to music and accompanying the announcement was the single artwork that got unfavourably compared to the work of Arca.

Not the best beginning. Then the snippet came out.

The songwriting was instantly dreadful

Katy Perry posted a preview of the song on TikTok, which got dragged so bad it eventually got deleted before getting reuploaded a few days later. The lyrics, “Sexy confident / so intelligent / She is heaven sent / So soft, so strong”, were dead on arrival. A sickly sweet ’empowering’ anthem that sounded like it had been put through an AI lyric generator with some 2016 production. It’s safe to say it did not go down well at all.

Dr Luke

Rolling Stone confirmed that Katy Perry had been working with Dr. Luke on her upcoming album. The music producer Dr. Luke, who worked with Kesha is set to produce Katy’s new single. Dr. Luke was accused in a series of lawsuits of “sexually, physically, verbally, and emotionally” abusing Kesha. However the pair settled their claims and counterclaims in the litigation and Dr. Luke strenuously denied Kesha’s allegations. Understandably though, this has caused some backlash amongst Katy’s fan and some users even saying Katy was “morally bankrupt.” Although, X user @electricrafik wrote that Katy Perry is in a contract to create three more albums for Dr Luke as he has worked on many of her previous hit records such as Roar.  A lot of fans said this pairing completely contradicted the girl power lyrics of her new song.

The Instagram live moment

I mean, it kind of speaks for itself really. The entire issue is hanging over the era like a spectre.

The teasers for other songs on the album are getting dragged too

https://twitter.com/plastikhearts/status/1811188906911485973

One sampling of Crystal Waters’ Gypsy Woman is receiving a thorough roasting – because Perry has somehow sucked all the life out of one of the best songs of all time. Even Doechii sounds bored. It’s not looking good.

How did it all go so wrong?

Katy Perry making her return to music should and COULD have been a monuments success – with a genuine hunger and desire to see her do well being at the forefront of most of us who have a legacy of loving and adoring her pop music at its best. And yet a myriad of poor decision making has seen this whole era be marred by fan wars between Kesha loyalists and Perry truthers. It’s ugly, it’s messy and it’s not going to end well.

In my opinion, Katy Perry has missed the mark and underestimated her audience. No one wants a song that feels forced, a clinical attempt at empowerment with lazy lyricism. Your words will fall on deaf ears when people can sense inauthenticity, and the Woman’s World fiasco is pretty much a what not to do guide to flop in pop music.

For more like this rundown of the Katy Perry new song drama and all the latest music and entertainment news and gossip, like Pop Culture Shrine on Facebook.

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