I... wow, this album.
I wanted to give this a fair chance, I really did. All the bad buzz about it, its ending of Katy Perry's cultural relevance. Three years later, the writing remains on the wall for this album. It was a complete disappointment, and only served to showcase how limited Katy Perry is as an artist.
And I can't say I disagree. This album was a chore to get through. It's tonally inconsistent and self-defeating, with "Chained to the Rhythm" being the antithesis to this whole vapid, shallow experience. (It doesn't help that it's simultaneously one of the better songs on that album as well as not that great).
Man... this truly is a trainwreck. What was the thought process going into this thing? The production and lyrical choices are too weird to just be a run-of-the-mill pop album, to say nothing of the horrific album cover. If that were me on there, I'd be covering my ears, just sayin'.
I'm not really sure there's anything to recommend here. Even the passable songs don't stack up to Katy Perry's best work, and the bad songs are just awful. They exist to remind us all that artists are human and can make many, many terrible mistakes. And that's what this album feels like: a terrible mistake. Just look at the singles rollout: A song about being woker than thou and recognizing the vapid pop industry within which we are all complicit... followed by a song that takes food-sex metaphors to a breaking point that I have not heard since Justin Timbaland's "Carry Out". Just about the only person who comes out of this looking somewhat decent is, surprisingly, Nicki Minaj, who delivers a rap verse on "Swish Swish", that, while far from her best, still looms large over the rest of the song, which... does this even need a stamp of disapproval? It's Katy Perry trying to do a diss track. Let's just pretend this never happened.
Actually, that might be a great thing for everyone, including Katy Perry, to do with this album. This never happened! Katy's career faded out naturally like the tide, and may one day come back again, like the tide. Or not. This is the problem with bad metaphors. Like being "spread like a buffet". Ugh.
4/10
"Best" Tracks: "Witness" and "Roulette" are acceptable enough, but again, nowhere near Katy Perry's peak. You probably don't need me to tell you this, but seriously, skip this one.
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