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| Me trying to look away from this train-wreck of an album |
1. Witness - 8/10
Katy brings out the big guns right away, dropping one of the best songs of the album, and even name-dropping the album. Usually I'm not a fan of the first song of the album being it's titular track (it just feels, like, lazy), but... I'll let it slide. There's a great airy quality to the opening, which pumps up into a fast and frantic pre-chorus. And then the bridge strips it down, slowly going towards the big drop- it's good stuff. The main chorus though is pretty subpar, and the verses sort of just happen.
2. Hey Hey Hey - 6/10
Nay nay nay! Okay, I know a lot of fans like this track a lot, but it just didn't click for me. The track is about how Katy is beautiful AND smart! Without coming across as either. The lyrics are just generic tumblr 2010 feminism ("'Cause I'm feminine and soft, but I'm still a boss, yeah"), and the production sounds just as dated. Still "got my own cha-ching in my chubby little wallet" is hilarious, so it gains points there.
3. Roulette - 8/10
Now this song actually does sound kinda sexy. Katy even acknowledges the dangers and high violence rates females face when hooking up... I might be stretching on that last point. Still, the verses are HOT, and speed along with a dark flow, before the chorus bursts into a perfectly acceptable breakdown. The majority of the metaphors are a stretch, like someone first thought the word "Roulette" was a good pop hook then made a song around it. Still, it's a fun track that knows what it is and accomplishes that well.
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| Actual screengrab of Katy's face the moment Taylor dropped LWYMMD the same day as this video |
Katy Perry, one of the whitest white girls of our pop generation, tries to lay down a diss track and comes across a bit more like Katy Petty. The boasts and disses are about as elementary as they get ("Funny my name keeps comin' outcho mouth
/ 'Cause I stay winning"). But even though objectively this is pretty shit tier, I can't hate it. The chorus is way more catchy than it has any right to be, and Nicki is featured! She literally could rap the phone book and would STILL switch up her flow 4 times a page.
5. Deja Vu - 6/10
This, in my humble blogspot domain level opinion, is where the album starts to lose momentum. It's not that this is a bad song, it's just not super interesting. I honestly don't even have much to say about it. You could say this song is giving me... deja vu. Okay I'm gonna stop now before this gets worse.
6. Power - 5/10
Oh Power. Oh, oh Power.
"Yeah, I am my mother's daughterThat doesn't even rhyme!!! You make us sit through these slow ass tell-not-show white feminism 101 verses, and they don't even rhyme?
And there are so many things I love about her
But I have, I have to break the cycle
So I can sit first at the dinner table"
No.
I'm just gonna keep ranting. The thing that pisses me off about this track besides it's boring production and listening experience, is that Katy seems to be taking interesting feminist pop-voices and distilling away all the nuance of what made them interesting. The "seat at the table" line to me conjures up images of Solange's recent solo album, which in its original form was a daring and personal look at WOC, but here it's just the end of a boring verse about girl power. The line about being "a goddess and you know it" reminds me of Banks, but without the personal tell-all details that make Banks so interesting. It doesn't matter if Katy took these ideas or not, what's important is that they've been done, done earlier, and done with more nuance and intrigue. Katy is trying so hard to cast this image as a woke pop-star, but everything we're getting from her is Gender Studies 100, down to the impersonal textbook adages. It's not bad, it's just boring.
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| *groans loudly* |
Okay, I'm back. This song isn't that bad actually. The lyrics are still super vague and filled with either cliche imagery (" ") or sayings (" "), but the production for the chorus is actually kinda a bop. The echoing verses, rippling electronics of the verses, the building pre-chorus, all bilding to the bouncing electronics of the chorus. This shit sounds like a mind maze!! There's a lot to like on this track, even if there's not really anything to love.
8. Miss You More - 6/10
What is it with Katy Perry and balloons? "Saw a balloon floating away /
I thought did someone let go, or did they lose it?" is definitely a line 5th grader me would be proud to come up with, which makes it a lil weird for it to appear on what ostensibly is an adult contemporary song. Also, what is it with her and not rhyming lines together?
The questions continue. Does this album really need another mid-tempo ballad? Why did this song need seven producers? And most importantly, why did this song exist? It sounds like a C-side for Adele's 25, right down to the overly dramatic drum beat chorus that I still kinda fall for, and the eight word chorus. Why Katy?
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| Deep in thought about the ownership of balloons. |
We made it to the lead single! And me and CTTR have a very interesting relationship. When it first released, I listened to it and was like "welp, that's a single," and kinda forgot about it. But since I'm a white twink, I obviously went back eventually, and almost liked it - until I realized the song is trying to be a critique on modern society and political discourse.
Now look, I'm not against political music, or even protest music. Anohni showed last year you can make a whole album of protest songs and still have it be a bop, and just last week I was popping my pussy to Liar Liar Ge2017. But Katy Perry to me is the opposite of that brand of music. Her style has always been escapism to out of this world pop fantasies, from the straight-male fantasy of lesbianism in "I Kissed a Girl" to the jungle fun of "Roar". When I listen to her music, I don't want to think, especially when what I'm supposed to be thinking about is generic, ironically hilarious lines like "are we toneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee deaf?".
So I stopped listening to the song. But to make a long story short, I'm fake as fuck, and came back around and actually think this is a pretty severe jam. Just as long as I don't listen to the lyrics too hard.
10. Tsunami - 6/10
No one cares about this song, it will never be performed live, you WILL skip this track, and frankly I don't feel compelled to review it.
11. Bon Appetit - 8/10
Have you noticed how, before the album was even released, Katy singled every single song that features someone? It's like her or her record label didn't feel Katy could carry her own cultural weight. Which, for someone who just a few short years ago couldn't seem to release a single without the Billboard 100 putting it on top, is kinda scary.
Anyway, Katy Perry's album about political awareness features a song by a homophobic rapper about eating pussy. It's pretty good. The song takes a little too long to become a jam (the drop at 2:15 is great, but by that point most listeners will have given up). I love me a good fun song about eating pussy, and this is another one of the rare songs on the album that doesn't fear just embracing its pop nature and having FUN. That is, until we get to that music video. Let's not discuss it.
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| She got a big booty so I call her puff pastry |
This song's placement makes it seem like the perfect album closer, but no, we're still 3 songs away from finishing the standard version of the album. Still, this song is pretty good. It's an unsubtle declaration of Katy's new political mission, but for the most part the song bops along with a nice beat, Katy moments, and even a sense of purpose. I actually buy listening to this song that Katy feels compelled to use her voice for change. It's one of the most successful of the "woke" songs on the record. Plus, that breakdown on the bridge is just divine.
13. Save As Draft - 9/10
Here we go guys. My favorite track of the whole damn album. There's so much to love about this song. Yes, the lyrics are still filled with saying and cliches, but there's also an above average amount of really simple, effective imagery. "Sometimes I swear I pass your SUV on Sunset Boulevard" is a line that would fit right on the best of Taylor Swift's tracks. And unlike so many tracks on this album, it doesn't feel distant, it doesn't feel boring, it's here, it's sad, she's writing this fucking text to her ex but keeps erasing it - this is what pop ballads are made of!
When the chorus kicks it, you can feel the desperate conflict of her not knowing what to do, the endless back and forth, the frustration and sadness. Out of nearly every song on this album, I buy that this is true and she truly feels this way, and it's shocking what a little empathy will do to ya. It even fits in with her more mature image by not giving the listener an easy answer. She doesn't give in and send the message, she doesn't delete his number and move on; she just puts it away, for one more endless night.
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| Isn't it great when we get actual e-mo-tion in our music? |
P.S. yeah I also don't know why they're trying to single this gem, like even I can't get behind that decision lol.
14. Pendulum - 6.5/10
So if this song was on any other spot on the album, I'd totally trash it for being a generic self-help song with no personality. That's still all true, but I have some good will after "Save As Draft," and this song isn't bad enough to totally squander it. It's still a very average, meandering feel-good anthem with generic lyrics, but so was Firework and people loved that one. So eh, I'll sway back and forth while listening to it and mumble along before skipping when I get bored halfway through.
15. Into Me You See - 6/10
No pop album needs to be 15 songs. Artpop was a victim of ignoring this fact, and Witness is the same. In the album, this song seems to just fill the spot that Bigger Than Me should have fit, as the grandiose statement closer, but unfortunately it's a lot more boring. It's another bland adult-contemp ballad about being yourself and breaking down walls with cringe worthy lyrics like "You broke me wide open, open sesame." I liked this track a lot more when it was called "I Think I'm Ready" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flFh0R0gRhY) and it was on her debut. (no seriously that song is so good).
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| Me and my two other personalities judging this album |
So yeah, this is a very uneven, middling album from what used to be one of the world's biggest pop stars. Will she be able to recover? Who knows, maybe if the Miley-copying people are talking about continues, she's only a few years away from a Malibu-esq comeback. Here's hoping she has some stud-ly backup dancers at least.
