Album Review: Katy Perry Cannibalises Migos, Taylor Swift and More on "Witness"

On Witness, Katy Perry combines “purposeful” (and problematic) pop with shady music made for voguing and the worst turns of phrase we’ve ever heard. Yep, she’s back.

What does Katy Perry want to be? The new Madonna? The next Billy Bragg? Forever the second fiddle to Taylor Swift in an endless feud deserving of its own Ryan Murphy miniseries?

No answer arrives on Witness, her fifth studio album, where break-up tunes and feminist mission statements intermingle with political manifestos, relitigations of professional rivalries and an ode to being a human sex-buffet. (“Bon Appétit, bebe.”)

Cultures are appropriated, racial blind spots remain ignored and metaphors are mangled. (“You’re about cute as an old coupon, expired,” on “Swish Swish”. What?)

Perry is a frustrating figure. And yet, Witness still occasionally shows Katy at her irrepressible best.

You could play the album for someone unfamiliar with her work, and they’d suddenly understand her appeal, as well as her limitations.

Though many of its songs focus on heartbreak, her prototypical torch songs are few and far between. Witness instead leans on the side of the sinister, giving us a series of club-ready tracks, replete with finger snaps, designed to be vogued to. “Dark Horse”, the big hit from her last effort, Prism, is clearly the inspiration. She used to describe romance as “walking on air”. Now, she likens it to Chinese water torture, mind mazes and actual cannibalism. Juicy J, what have you wrought?

The production behind Witness is crisp and audacious—veering from future-dancehall to deep house to trap—especially compared with her contemporaries, particularly Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus, who have retreated to the realm of country music in an attempt to "heal" a Trump-led America. Katy’s not afraid of sharing her political persuasions, but even she knows the only thing to unite a fractured nation is getting everyone onto the dancefloor for a monocultural hit like “Teenage Dream”.

She comes close with the catchy protest tune “Chained to the Rhythm”, though its ultimately too morose and finger-wagging to succeed. It also features Skip Marley, forever attributed to tone-deaf bandwagon-jumping thanks to his soundtracking of the infamous “Kendell Jenner ends racism with a Pepsi” ad, weakening Katy’s already vague clarion call to wake up, sheeple.

She comes closer on “Swish Swish”, where the conflicting poles of Perry’s personality go to war. You can actually hear how the song might have originated, via the skeletal piano theme that opens the track and interrupts occasionally. In another world, “Swish Swish” could have been a stock-standard Perry anthem, except about publicly shaming your enemies instead of self-actualisation; the rare “reverse-‘Firework’”. With the help of producer Duke Dumont, it’s infectiously remade for runway struts. Hearing the beat wrestle Katy’s more earnest, inspirational impulses is dizzy-making.

On the other hand, its lyrics, cribbed liberally—and perhaps cravenly—from every RuPaul’s Drag Race GIF there’s ever been, tumble clumsily out of Perry’s mouth. They’re better suited to guest Nicki Minaj, who sashays past Perry and the song’s much-shaded target, Taylor Swift, to drill a few more nails into Remy Ma’s coffin.

It also flies in the face of the album’s big (and, unfortunately, embarrassing) female empowerment tune “Hey Hey Hey”, which attempts to blow minds by contrasting “a babydoll with a briefcase” and “a big beautiful brain with a pretty face”. The line “Marilyn Monroe in a monster truck” would not feel out of place on David Brent’s label, Juxtaposition Records.

Other single “Bon Appétit”, a barrage of sexy food puns for which there is only one appropriate reaction, is catchy and super awkward. If it survives on the radio, it’ll be on the back of Migos, who lend a few verses and proxy permission to let Katy and co-writer Max Martin borrow Atlanta’s sound. (But maybe Migos need Katy—a prominent ally of the gay community— as much as Katy needs Migos, following their own offensive reaction to ILoveMakonnen’s coming out.)

If her new haircut is any indication, maybe Annie Lennox is Perry’s new north star. She practically makes that clear with the opening synth run of “Roulette”, which is nearly identical to the intro for “Sweet Dreams”, suggesting the only thing Katy’s playing Russian Roulette with is copyright law.

It’s hard to fault Perry’s taste in collaborators. Many of Witness’ highlights are accompanied by production credits from the aforementioned Migos, the dream-poppy Purity Ring (“Mind Maze”), superstar producer Mike WiLL Made-It (“Tsunami”) and Australia’s own Hayden James (“Déjà Vu”). But a defining, entirely satisfying and single-minded album continues to elude Katy Perry; a feat that actually has been met by Taylor Swift, and mastered by popland’s reigning queen, Beyoncé.

Her vocals remain strong, yet Perry’s haphazard curation of her brand feels out of character. You come to the end of Witness not quite knowing what to make of her, or what she makes of herself. Identity is everything in pop, second only to delivering songs that get stuck in heads. And ideally, your catchiest songs aren’t also the ones that remind listeners of everything that makes you problematic.

3/5

Witness is now available.