Too Close to the Sun

With 143, Katy Perry joins the cursed ranks of pop flameouts this year.

THE ARDUOUS ROLLOUT of Katy Perry's seventh studio album was a rare gaffeonly product launch. While 143's lead single, "Woman's World," signaled an aggressive pivot to the disco of Beyoncé's "Break My Soul" and Lizzo's "About Damn Time," Perry's play at a comeback was derailed by the lyrical simplicity on display, which felt better suited to pharmaceutical ads. The music video's absurdist gestures so confused its feminist intent that Perry later claimed it was satire. The presence of hitmaker Łukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald, whose nearly decadelong legal war with Kesha over sexual-assault allegations was finally settled out of court last year, undermined the theme of women's empowerment. Neglecting to sufficiently address the thorn in her charm campaign, the singer instead spoke of triumph over emotional adversity and an itch to have fun again: "If you don't find a way to sow seeds in the valleys," she recently told radio DJ Zane Lowe, "you never find those fruits in the peaks." 2020's Smile was her exploration of those lows, but 143, which revels in joy without urgency, is stilted by its own one-note message.

Yet to anoint it a contender for Pop Flameout of the Year would be to ignore the trends that merged to form this Infinity Gauntlet of missteps. Two years after Beyoncé's Renaissance-and ten after Taylor Swift's bubbly juggernaut 1989-neat, unobtrusive synth pop feels perfunctory. Everybody's doing it because everybody's doing it. The Weeknd single "Dancing in the Flames" huffs the glory of "Blinding Lights"; the 1989-core on Swift's The Tortured Poets Department was outshone by the deluxe edition's folk musings. This decade (in which even Paris Hilton is reworking old house anthems) may well be marked by a torrent of popular but noncommittal dance music.