Following one of the bumpiest roll-outs in recent pop history – including backlash over her choice of collaborators, confusion over her music videos and even an investigation from environmental authorities after one particular shoot – Katy Perry’s new album 143 is here.
And sorry Katy, but the reception hasn’t exactly been glowing.
Critics began having their say on Friday morning, and while the album itself hasn’t been derided quite as much as lead single Woman’s World, early reviews are disappointed at Katy’s latest output, particularly given how strong some of her past pop offerings have been.
Here’s a selection of the early reviews of Katy Perry’s 143…
The Guardian (2/5)
“It feels slightly out of time, a common-or-garden mediocre pop album with the misfortune to be scheduled in the wake of Charli xcx’s Brat, Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet [...] What would once have sufficed, at least commercially, now won’t.”
The Independent (2/5)
“Perry was always at her best when she was being playful [...] On 143, that’s been replaced by a weariness (or perhaps wariness) of the industry she once dominated. Most songs here have an underlying hesitance, too preoccupied by their commercial aspirations to have any real fun.”
Clash (5/10)
“143 isn’t all that bad a pop album. In places, her melodic flourish and penchant for Millennial camp come to the fore in a manner that suggests the creative fires are still burning. There’s a curious sense of being out of time, however [...] this feels curiously dated next to her blossoming peers.”
“The album is flat, coasting on cascades of lyrical cliches and musical ideas that rarely crest. Across many of its 11 songs, Perry sounds disaffected and removed, as if she’d just punched in between American Idol tapings. Little of the clever wit that emboldened some of her biggest hits peeks out on the album, a disappointing slide away from the savvy she once so effortlessly exuded.”
NME (2/5)
“Pop fans have a fondness for resurrecting ‘flop’ albums that were given short shrift when they first came out: Mariah Carey’s ill-fated soundtrack album Glitter and Christina Aguilera’s sonic hodgepodge Bionic have both become cult classics of sorts. But even this fate seems unlikely for 143, a serviceable but slightly dull collection on which Perry struggles to relocate her old sense of fun.”