‘143’ Album Review: Far From Roaring, Katy Perry Stumbles into Late-Stage Mediocrity

All that is old is new again. After a brief time away from the limelight, pop music has once again returned to the forefront of popular culture, buoyed by the likes of Chappell Roan and Charlie XCX. Yet even among these newer stars, the vaunted vanguard — the likes of Taylor Swift, Adele, and Lady Gaga — has stood strong. That is, all but one: Katy Perry. Perry occupies a strange superposition in the cultural memory, an erstwhile popular darling who once topped charts, but now a flop finding only contempt from former fans and critics alike.

So if there was ever a time for Perry to bring back the saccharine, ever-so-slightly vacuous pop that brought her to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist of the 2010s, that time would be now. Following the arguable peak of her career with 2013’s “Prism,” her discography has consisted of self-described “purposeful pop” in the commercial and critical failures of “Witness” (2017) and “Smile” (2020). With four years’ distance and a legion of songwriters, “143” should have been the album that roared Perry back into relevance.

But it hasn’t.

“143” captures neither the essence of modern pop nor the spirit of Katy Perry’s older hits. Rather, it is a collection of overproduced, vaguely empowering elevator music. At its best, “143” is a decade stale; at its worst, it has the sticking power of an old piece of tape. Perry’s vocals lack the character and intensity that marked her earlier songs, so uninspired that they seem almost like an afterthought — but an afterthought to exactly what is a much trickier question. The entire album sounds like the same, rehashed EDM dance-pop that Perry has clung to long past its expiration date, so much so that some songs, particularly “All the Love,” would be right at home as a B-side off “Teenage Dream.”

Even the features, which have long been redeeming tracks in Perry’s discography, cannot save this album. 21 Savage, Doechii, and Kim Petras all make forgettable appearances on “143.” Rather than being artistic additions, all they really accomplish is to give a brief respite from the droning mediocrity of Perry’s vocals. Such little artistic development may have been accepted in the bubblegum-pop-obsessed 2010s, but in an era where the genre evolves with every new album release, Perry’s artistic stagnation is clearly exposed. It seems that the star judge of “American Idol” has taken to acting in her music career, cast as a musical philistine entrenched in the trends of the past.

Yet while the music may be sterile, it is far from the most offensive aspect of this album. That dishonor is reserved purely for the lyrical atrocities that Perry commits. Perhaps the worst offense comes from the hypocrisy that mires the lead single, “Woman’s World,” on which Perry declares that “It’s a woman’s world.” If only she hadn’t chosen Dr. Luke to produce the album, a controversial figure embroiled in sexual harassment and misogyny allegations — a woman’s world indeed, at least until Perry needs a hit single.

Such juxtaposition is only heightened by the fact that the rest of the album is more of the same kvetching and kvelling about men and love with which Perry has become largely associated. But even in this familiar territory, Perry manages to come up with some genuinely cringe worthy lines. Arguably the worst comes on “Gimme Gimme,” where she describes her lover as “crawling on me like a centipede,” but the laughable redundancy of “I’m just a prisoner in your prison” on “Artificial” and the painfully obvious attempts to fit the rhyme scheme with “if you want the digits to my cellular” on “Gorgeous” all show that Perry’s lyrical abilities, which even at their best were lackluster, have atrophied to the point that she can merely sing empty platitudes with soulless messaging.

“143” seems more like the result of asking generative AI to create a Katy Perry album rather than an actual product from Perry herself. It seems that the irony of having a song squarely targeted at AI on the album, “Artificial,” was lost on Perry — after a few listens, one becomes inclined to ask her, “Why you so, why you so artificial?”

“143” is not an explicitly bad album. Despite moments of genuine bewilderment about how certain ideas made it past the drawing board, there are still some songs that somewhat capture the spirit that Perry put in her previous releases. But its issue lies in a cardinal sin of the modern world — “143” is irredeemably forgettable. It lacks the gravitational pull that defined Perry’s early hits, and its supposed “purpose” of female empowerment comes off as stale and halfhearted.

Her indiscriminate use of anyone or anything that could make her relevant once more — from tarnished producers to her own daughter’s vocals on “Wonder” — gives the album a sense of cringeworthy desperation, a bygone star clinging desperately to the last remaining shreds of her fame.

Perry should have been pop’s Peter Pan — a stalwart of our past, never meant to grow up. In “143,” she instead declares that she wants to grow up. But without the rosy lens of nostalgia, Perry falls flat for all she is — a forgettable has-been in a sea of actual talent.