The Reviews Are In: Critics Rip Katy Perry's New Album 143 To Shreds
The reviews are in, and it's not looking good for Katy Perry and her seventh studio album 143. As of this posting, the album holds a Metascore of 34. Ouch.
The Los Angeles Times: The problem for Perry is that these songs are bad, and not even in a fun way. “143” is an oddly cold dance-pop album with boring melodies, utilitarian grooves and vocal performances that feel vaguely AI-derived; Perry writes and sings with none of the genuine emotional yearning or the sharp sense of humor that defined classics like “California Gurls” and the title track from “Teenage Dream.” ...
“143’s” saucelessness is all the sadder given that pop music, after years of gloomy whispering, has finally circled back around to the wit and pageantry of Perry’s glory days. The success of sparkly bops like Carpenter’s “Espresso” and Roan’s “Hot to Go!” proves that listeners are hungry for what Perry used to serve up, albeit now on the condition that it contain the kind of endearing quirk - Carpenter’s daffy neologisms in “Espresso,” for instance - that Perry seems paradoxically to have avoided in her eagerness to please. “I wanna know the truth, even if it hurts me,” she sings in “Truth,” so here it is: “143” isn’t a failure of circumstance - it’s a failure of imagination.
Variety: Effectively, “143” strips away the remnants of the perky personality that catapulted Perry into early 2010s superstardom. The album is flat, coasting on cascades of lyrical cliches and musical ideas that rarely crest. Across many of its 11 songs, Perry sounds disaffected and removed, as if she’d just punched in between “American Idol” tapings. Little of the clever wit that emboldened some of her biggest hits peeks out on the album, a disappointing slide away from the savvy she once so effortlessly exuded.
The Guardian: And that’s 143’s big problem. It feels slightly out of time, a common-or-garden mediocre pop album with the misfortune to be scheduled in the wake of Charli xcx’s Brat, Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet, a trio of messily inventive and hugely successful albums that collectively suggest a certain raising of the pop bar has taken place. What would once have sufficed, at least commercially, now won’t: that its author and her team didn’t notice seems far more intrinsic to 143’s downfall than questionable choices of collaborator, misfiring videos or indeed damage to the sand dunes of S’Espalmador. ★★☆☆☆
All Music: Ultimately, Perry’s ongoing fall from grace is solidified on 143 not because she failed to adapt to trends or turn in something as frivolously fun and undeniably catchy as “California Gurls” 14 years later, but simply because there simply isn’t a lot to like about these songs, and it’s desperately lacking in the kind of lighthearted, sometimes silly, sometimes salacious fun that used to define her stardom. 143 rings the death knell for Perry for no other reason than it commits pop music’s ultimate sin: it’s boring.
Rolling Stone: 143 ends with “Wonder,” a high-gloss banger that recalls the most banal 2010s EDM-fest-pop while telling the next generation to shake off the “weight of the world” and stay “wild” and “pure.” “Can somebody promise me our innocence doesn’t get lost in a cynical world?” Perry asks at one point - a great question to ask in 2024. But coming after the previous 10 tracks’ flop-sweat-flecked effort to crowbar Perry back into the zeitgeist, it sounds utterly hollow - and including her daughter Daisy on the track, which also happens to be the lone offering without any Luke involvement (it was instead produced by the Norwegian pop architects Stargate), feels more like a deflection against critique than a hope that the next generation will find a way to transcend the present’s muckiest parts. To drive home that point, Daisy gets the last word on the album, asking, “someday when we’re wiser/Will our hearts still have that fire?” It’s a pity that Perry doesn’t seem to have asked herself that while putting together this confused attempt to recapture pop listeners’ attention. 1 and 1/2 stars
Slant Magazine: Throughout 143, whose default setting is lifeless EDM beats, Perry recruits an eclectic array of guest talent, but most of them turn in half-hearted verses. ... But despite those moments, and the album’s generally upbeat vibe, 143 feels surprisingly joyless. Coming from one of pop’s premier hitmakers, who once roared with apparent confidence and invincibility, it shouldn’t be so hard to dig up more gems.
Clash: A brash dose of colour for a drab post-Millennial pop scene, she was the bulldozer through the critics doors. On ‘143’ however, there’s a feeling that the world has moved on - with Chappell Roan’s tour sparking Beatlemania-esque scenes of adoration and Sabrina Carpenter maintaining a stranglehold on the charts, you struggle to see where this playful yet unsatisfying record fits into pop’s firmament.
NME: The result is a record that sometimes hits the target but rarely leaves a lasting impression. Pop fans have a fondness for resurrecting “flop” albums that were given short shrift when they first came out: Mariah Carey’s ill-fated soundtrack album ‘Glitter’ and Christina Aguilera’s sonic hodgepodge ‘Bionic’ have both become cult classics of sorts. But even this fate seems unlikely for ‘143’, a serviceable but slightly dull collection on which Perry struggles to relocate her old sense of fun. ★★☆☆☆
The Independent (UK): Everything on 143 - the number of letters in “I love you” on a pager - feels painfully dated, steeped in a misunderstanding about the Nineties nostalgia that permeates much of 2020s culture. Most of the songs are driven by house-influenced beats, dragging the record down into a bass-heavy quagmire.
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