Witness by Katy Perry
Katy Perry achieved maturation with Prism, the 2013 album anchored on the self-empowerment anthem "Roar" and the club smash "Dark Horse." Considering how "Roar" scored the closing stages of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, it would've seemed like a logical move for Perry to build upon its adult alternative affirmation but she's instead chosen to use "Dark Horse" as a blueprint for Witness, the long-awaited 2017 successor to Prism. Perhaps Perry shifted her approach after "Rise," the "Roar"-alike written for the 2016 Olympics that she also performed at that year's Democratic National Convention, failed to crack the Top Ten, perhaps she always planned to construct this album with electronic beats and synths, but Witness is so slick with synths it seems slippery. It also feels relentless and a shade desperate. Some of this is due to timing. Arriving on the heels of Prism, a record littered with AAA crossover ballads, the dance-heavy Witness feels like a slide backwards into adolescence, even if the album is filled with songs where Perry attempts to address big cultural issues while walking a musical cutting edge. These conflicting desires surface on a tune as effervescent as "Chained to the Rhythm" -- the only track here that could be called that, although "Pendulum" comes close -- and a song as somnolent as "Bigger Than Me," the second of two ballads on the record and the one that addresses the fallout of the 2016 presidential election. Despite some sociological broad strokes, Perry generally keeps her focus personal -- and usually romantic, although "Swish Swish" plays like a swipe at another superstar -- a decision that, when married to aggressive EDM-pop, erodes whatever adult contemporary progress Perry made with Prism. So, Witness is a conceptual muddle but that incoherence could've been excused if there were hooks in either its grooves or melodies. Instead, Witness is populated with busy, tuneless tracks that seemed designed to pulsate in the background of a regrettable night. Perry's insistence on delving deep into electronic dance doesn't play like a pop visionary charting new directions forward; it seems anxious, as if she can sense her youth -- and perhaps more importantly, her stardom among youth -- slipping away.
In the almost four years between <i>PRISM</i> and <i>Witness</i>, one of pop music’s most consistent hitmakers went through a period of emotional, physical and political transformation—she fell in and out of love multiple times, went on the 2016 campaign trial with Democratic nominee and presidential runner-up Hillary Clinton, and sported a head-turning platinum pixie cut as if shedding away a younger, more naive version of herself. She also entered her thirties. Does one major life milestone matter more than another in this case? Probably not, but it might help explain the contours of Katy Perry’s fourth, and most divisive, major-label album—a self-described “purposeful pop” project with sinister synthwave edges, centred on a pleading, forthright hope that society will become better. Perry’s music has always had a liberatory streak, but <i>Witness</i> is most on the nose with its political intonations. “Chained to the Rhythm” (featuring Skip Marley) enlists Perry’s longtime collaborator Max Martin, synth-pop star and friend Sia, and the grandson of “Concrete Jungle” singer Bob Marley himself to spread a cautioning message about the walls we build to hide governmental atrocities, all wrapped up in glistening euphoria. It gives the sense that Perry might be singing more for herself than anyone else—the artist felt her conservative Pentecostal past was retriggered by the shock of the Donald Trump presidency, and she felt empowered to act on her sadness not just personally but publicly. To that end are songs about obliterating self-made boundaries with no pretence: the Nicki Minaj-aided “Swish Swish” is a slamming diss track with a moody house beat, while “Bon Appétit” (featuring Migos) celebrates the fine art of dining on carnal pleasure with an addictive, tropical bounce, Perry sashaying through a charcuterie board of double entendres with her signature nonchalance. But it’s on <i>Witness</i>’ less avant-garde tracks that her political and melodic voices truly shine in tandem: the groovy retro-soul of “Pendulum” highlights her deep vocals powering an uplifting self-acceptance missive, and on the soft ballad “Into Me You See”, she sings the praises of a loved one who sees beyond her hardened public shell. For Katy Perry, even the most dramatic of changes can’t hide a person’s inner spirit.
