Gone are the days when Katy Perry topped the charts with catchy singles like California Gurls, Teenage Dream, and I Kissed A Girl.
Her comeback album, 143, released four years after her pandemic record Smile, is the worst of her entire career, according to review aggregation site Metacritic.
Highlights
- Katy Perry's album 143 received the worst Metacritic score of her career, at 35.
- Rolling Stone described the album as "boring" and "a rote attempt to rekindle those glory years."
- Her collaboration with Dr. Luke in the album drew significant criticism after Kesha accused the producer of sexual abuse.
The site creates an average score for music, movies, and TV shows based on reviews from professional critics.
Image credits: katyperry
The 11-track record is “an oddly cold dance-pop album with boring melodies, utilitarian grooves and vocal performances that feel vaguely AI-derived,” the review continued.
Variety wrote that 143 “is flat, coasting on cascades of lyrical cliches and musical ideas that rarely crest” and “a disappointing slide away from the savvy she once so effortlessly exuded.”
Meanwhile, Rolling Stone gave the album 2.5/5 stars, saying that it “more often than not comes off as boring, a rote attempt to rekindle those glory years with slightly updated reference points.”
Described as "flat" and "boring," the singer's comeback album has been slammed by netizens as the end of her career
Image credits: Katy Perry
“The landscape she’s returning to isn’t one easily swayed by cotton-candy bikinis and winking allusions to cherry Chapstick,” the magazine added.
“Thanks to the waning influence of radio, stardom even at the level of Perry’s doesn’t guarantee singles-chart success, while the maximalist productions that she used to lord over feel as dated as a Vine.”
Image credits: metacritic
143 is also the worst-reviewed album on Metacritic by a female artist and the ninth worst-reviewed album of all time, according to TheTab. (The lowest-scoring Metacritic album of all time is Kevin Federline’s Playing with Fire, which has a rating of 15.)
In addition to her melodic and lyrical choices, the former American Idol judge is being criticized for her decision to collaborate with producer Dr. Luke.
In 2014, Kesha sued the producer, alleging he had sexually, physically, and emotionally abused her nine years earlier.
Dr. Luke denied the singer’s claims. Last year, he and Kesha reached an agreement to settle a years-long legal battle.
“The landscape she’s returning to isn’t one easily swayed by cotton-candy bikinis and winking allusions to cherry Chapstick,” Rolling Stone wrote
Image credits: katyperry
“Only God knows what happened that night,” Kesha said after the settlement, while Dr. Luke denied having abused or drugged the TiK ToK singer.
Katy and Dr. Luke had previously worked together for some of her most successful hits, such as Hot N Cold in 2010 and Roar in 2013.
In 2018, Katy said that she “felt pressured” to support Kesha and that the producer was using her “as a pawn.” She also revealed that she was “annoyed” with both parties.
For her latest project, she and Dr. Luke returned to the studio for Woman’s World and Lifetimes.
Image credits: MTV
When the news of their recent collaboration came out, Kesha tweeted “lol,” expressing her disapproval of Katy’s decision.
Speaking on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Katy was asked why she chose to collaborate with the producer, born Lukasz Gottwald.
“Look, I understand that it started a lot of conversations, and he was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with, but the reality is it comes from me,” the Firework singer said.
“The truth is I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through this metamorphosis. And he was one of the people to help facilitate all that.”
The 39-year-old added that 143 is “really grounded” in “feeling so empowered now, as a mother, as a woman.”
Katy has also faced backlash for collaborating with Dr. Luke, a producer whom singer Kesha accused of sexual abuse in 2014
Image credits: katyperry
Katy, who recently performed a medley of her hits at the VMAs, has also been accused of “performative feminism,” as netizens said that the music video for her song Woman’s World mixes elements of female empowerment with hypersexualization.
The California-born singer has recently been under investigation by the Spanish government for allegedly filming a music video in ecologically sensitive dunes without authorization.
On social media, people shared their own reviews of Katy Perry's seventh album
