Katy Perry's Comeback Single "Woman's World" Is Getting Ripped To Shreds By Critics
Katy Perry: Woman’s World review - what regressive, warmed-over hell is this? https://t.co/gP1KnZjZbl
- Guardian US (@GuardianUS) July 12, 2024
The reviews are in and critics aren't exactly loving disgraced pop girlie Katy Perry's comeback single, "Woman's World."
Here are a few examples.
“Not to sound like one of those men (actually I’ll take Perry’s insistence that it’s my goddess-given right as a woman to be essentialist, OK!) but: this garbage has six writers. Granted, it is infernally catchy, but it is the Bic for Her of pop, the pink Yorkie for girls (get your lips around this!), a song that made me feel stupider every sorry time I listened to it.” -The Guardian
★☆☆☆☆
Pitchfork: Katy Perry's "Woman's World" is a monumental catastrophe
“Even if 'Woman’s World' didn’t sound like its author had to have feminism explained to her by the top half of the first page of Google, its message of empowerment would have rang false, simply because it was co-written and co-produced by Dr. Luke, the producer Kesha accused, in a since-dismissed lawsuit, of sexual assault and emotional abuse-allegations he denied. It’s sincerely twisted, if unsurprising-I generally believe you have to be at least be something of an amoral hypocrite to be a celebrity or pop star, and fair play to those willing to do it-but it also reveals 'Woman’s World' to be even more of a monumental catastrophe: If Perry was willing to cop the built-in bad press of making a song about women’s lib with an alleged abuser, shouldn’t the song at least be a banger? Instead, it’s unfathomably tepid, irritating at best. In the immortal words of Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, uttered moments before she died: 'Katy Perry, please stop.'”
No rating.
----
Vulture: ‘Woman’s World’ Is the Stalest Sort of Retread
“But an anthem needs a message too, and 'Woman’s World' doesn’t have one to offer. The song is stuck in vague feminist empowerment, which may have worked in 2014 but falls short in 2024...
...That’s all without accounting for Luke’s presence on 'Woman’s World,' which negates the song’s entire message. It takes a level of cognitive dissonance to sing about strength and sisterhood over a beat co-produced by an alleged rapist. (When Luke and Kesha settled his defamation lawsuit in 2023, he continued to deny wrongdoing.) As a project, the song has empowered more men than women: Perry’s writing team included four men in total, plus Chloe Angelides, a writer published by Luke’s Prescription Songs.”
No rating.
----
Business Insider: Katy Perry's new song 'Woman's World' isn't as bad as we feared. It's worse.
“Surely Perry knew she'd face backlash - and for what? 'Woman's World' is not a good song, not by any measure. It has all the warmth and charisma of an AI chatbot, all the bomb-like subtlety of a 'Saturday Night Live' parody. In fact, the heavy-handed self-ridicule in 'This Is Not a Feminist Song' is more inclusive and nuanced than Perry's latest work - and that skit aired in 2016, back when Hillary Clinton thought she would be the first female president.
Eight years later, Perry is cosplaying a version of herself on that very campaign trail, a dewy-eyed heroine who no longer exists.
Slinking back to Dr. Luke to produce a song like this, so insipid and uninspired, is the mark of an artist who's not only stuck in the past but unable to see the challenges beyond her narrow periphery ... Whatever kind of delusional utopia Perry is trying to sell, I'm not buying it. But on the bright side, she could make good money licensing this song for a Tampax commercial.”
No rating.
----
Consequence of Sound: Katy Perry & Dr. Luke’s Take on Feminism in “Woman’s World” Is as Bad as That Sounds
“Everything about the focus of the track feels 15 years too late to be interesting, and the music video doesn’t help. There’s obviously something to be said for escapist pop or harkening back to the sounds that dominated charts through the early 2000s, but 'Woman’s World' is a nothing burger served on a chrome plate. Take out any of the fun arena energy of 'Roar' and you’ve got this chorus: 'Celebrate! ‘Cause, baby, we ain’t goin’ away/ It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it.' Doesn’t the visual of jade rollers on Perry’s face make you feel lucky to be alive? This isn’t camp; this is boring. ... But whatever her intentions were, the song never comes together. This release falls as flat as the bottom of that anvil crushing Perry midway through the video.”
No rating.
----
The Cut: Katy Perry Is Stuck in 2016
“Perry is like Barbie in Barbie Land, stuck in a la-di-dah dimension in which Hillary Clinton is still the Democratic presidential nominee, 'Male Tears' mugs make bank on Etsy, and the most transgressive thing a celebrity can do is sing 'Fight Song.' (Coincidentally, as if bat-signaled by murmurs of a new female presidential candidate, Rachel Platten announced a new album this week.) In an interview with Zane Lowe, Perry guessed people recognize her mostly for 'songs with a message, songs that are captions on T-shirts and stuff,' betraying a fundamental misunderstanding of her appeal. She’s always been at her weakest when she comments on capital-S society, as in her 'wake-up sheeple' manifesto 'Chained to the Rhythm.' What people want from Katy Perry is fantasy, escapism. In the end, 'Woman’s World' comes off so forgettable, so cringe, that it overshadows the blatant hypocrisy of having an alleged predator produce it.”
No rating.
----
Dazed: Katy Perry’s new era is the epitome of 2010s girlboss feminism
“During Perry’s imperial phase, this 2012-era white liberal feminism might have passed. In the context of 2024, though, it feels reductive. 'Woman’s World' sounds like it was designed by a committee in a boardroom at Capitol Records whose sole objective was a sync on RuPaul’s Drag Race and generating comments of 'you ate' from white gays living in West Hollywood. It is female empowerment filtered through the lens of a Ryan Murphy show.”
No rating.
Thanks to angebleu for the Dazed review. :)
Sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7