Let it be stated. We love Katy Perry. She’s a hitmaker and a star. But we have to talk about this album rollout she’s doing. Okay, let’s do one thing at a time. Katy Perry wore a red dress with a long train during Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week, allegedly featuring the lyrics to her new single, “Woman’s World.” If only we could read it. If only we didn’t have to be told what it was.
Katy Perry’s long train featuring her new song is totally illegible—honestly, it just looks like AI-generated alphanumeric characters. It’s a tough time to be a popstar. Miss Perry is a human being, and she came up during a time when that, plus some talent, was enough. But now, in addition to a banger of a project, you have to have a successful stunt, and actually, not just one, but a series of them. It’s insane and damn near impossible. So I say this with total empathy to that. But yeah, Katy Perry, the dress didn’t drum up anything for the new record but confusion.
I’ll say here that I think I’m kind of over the idea that “all press is good press,” because while, sure, I love a sensationalist artist, I don’t even really know if that idea is true anymore. We live in a time where everything and everyone plays to sensationalism. Popstars, TikTokers, even the general online sense of humor has taken a sort of evil bent. It’s hard to get attention for your projects. The old tricks don’t work. The new tricks expire upon arrival. The casual fan is a card-carrying critic. On top of that, the viral factor is kind of all musicians have because streaming pays out so little, touring is so expensive, and nobody’s buying records. It’s brutal out there.
I think there’s something to be optimistic here though. The stunt game is just not sustainable, and we’re all getting tired of performing them and having to watch them play out. Maybe confusing stunts are the future. The sloppiness of this one has kind of endeared me to Katy Perry. Though not what she intended, the long, weird train is a clear display of effort and enthusiasm. She’s trying things, and sometimes they don’t work, and that’s kind of cool.
