In 2010 and 2011, Katy Perry was all over the radio. Every pop and \u201cadult rock\u201d station, every mall and many of the stores in that mall were constantly playing the hits from Teenage Dream<\/i>, and with a total of five No. 1 hits off the disc she was in company only occupied by superstars like Michael Jackson. Even a repackaging of Teenage Dream<\/i> called The Complete Confection <\/i>sold well, with a new song off that one turning into a hit as well.<\/p>\n
Problem was, this was in service of true bubblegum pop, candy-coated radio-ready cartoonish hits without much substance, perhaps better than the debut, but not by much. The all-night Playboy party of \u201cTeenage Dream,\u201d \u201cCalifornia Gurls\u201d and \u201cTGIF\u201d was a blast, sure, but it had to end sometime. Perry had to grow up, and she does on Prism.<\/i><\/p>\n
Age, maturity, her divorce and a growing sense of songwriting are all factors here, as well as a sense of wanting to be a long-lasting artist, not a sensation tasked by the public to recreate the same hits year after year and having to resort to theatrics to stay relevant. And so Perry delivers a set of midtempo, deliberate songs, missing the giddy colorful rush of, say, \u201cHot And Cold\u201d but offering instead a sense of gravity and empowerment. \u201cRoar,\u201d the opening single, was of course an enormous hit, an anthem that played well in stadiums, cars and Old Navy, and it remains a fine song, if a bit lacking in emotion.<\/p>\n
The disco flavor and Jackson-isms of \u201cBirthday\u201d are an early highlight and a holdover in spirit from Teenage Dream <\/i>(\u201cLet me get you in your birthday suit,\u201d she purrs), while \u201cThis is How We Do\u201d is a sequel to \u201cTGIF,\u201d detailing a girls\u2019 night out with nails, karaoke and waking up the next morning in last night\u2019s dress. Sometimes you never learn, I guess, but these songs are the exception, the ones that will get radio play while Perry explores the other facets of her personality and musical approach.<\/p>\n
Here, she and her producers\/songwriters go for slower, more introspective and darker pieces, with mixed results. The better songs are the album cuts; despite their hit status, \u201cUnconditionally\u201d tries to be heart-thumpingly romantic but falls short of its intended emotional mark and \u201cDark Horse\u201d (with Juicy J) is irritating as hell, its screechy keyboards and jerky rhythms (especially after the chorus) ruining whatever layered vocal work Perry brings to the song.<\/p>\n
If this story sounds familiar, it\u2019s kind of like how Madonna shifted from her bubbly Material Girl image to her \u201cPapa Don\u2019t Preach\u201d\/ \u201cLike A Prayer\u201d era, broadening her sound and lyrical scope while still writing catchy pop songs. \u201cWalking On Air\u201d and \u201cLegendary Lovers\u201d capture this new approach, and it\u2019s welcome for those turned off by the sexual come-ons all over Teenage Dream<\/i>. Some critics have panned this, but they are wrong; Perry is growing up, putting a short marriage behind her and moving on as an artist, as she should be. Where she succeeds is exploring these tough topics \u2013 that marriage and her emotional baggage and recovery from it informs many of the lyrics, as on \u201cGhost\u201d \u2013 and setting it to catchy music that will please her true fans.<\/p>\n
Obviously, there will be growing pains here; it\u2019s not like Perry has recorded her Ray Of Light <\/i>or anything, and several songs on the second half of the disc tend toward the mundane (\u201cInternational Smile,\u201d \u201cLove Me,\u201d \u201cThis Moment,\u201d) but they are still better than most of those first two albums. \u201cBy The Grace Of God\u201d closes the disc with an air of finality, finding Perry on the bathroom floor, picking herself up, looking in the mirror and moving on. It\u2019s the most emotionally fragile and vulnerable we\u2019ve seen this lady.<\/p>\n
Prism <\/i>was the record Perry needed to make for both herself and her career. About half of it is quite good from a musical standpoint, which is expected in an evolution, but in its lyrics and spirit Perry \u2013 and her fans who will relate to this album \u2013 fully encompasses her party side, her friend side, her romantic side and her spiritual side. It\u2019s the most complete, coherent and mature record of Perry\u2019s career, and as her contemporaries (Miley, Taylor Swift, Sia, Lady Gaga) flail about changing their sound and\/or being outlandish, Perry has risen above as a true pop artist. No wonder she gets to play the Super Bowl in three weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8632],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-44004","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-katy-perry","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44004"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}