katy perry - prism

http://siliconangle.com/files/2013/06/NSA-Prism-logo.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/X68XXAF.jpg

Katy Perrys not my favorite. Her parents though gave my friend a bunch of $$ once (he is an accordian player/busker in gettysburg pa)

Katy Perry: Part of Me >> Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

kinda terrified of her not being able to work with dr luke again but we should get at least 1 good single

so wait is bonnie mckee's entire career a way to keep dr. luke dr. luking (although I know there've been pushes for it to exist at least a year prior)

lol @ the all lower-case title for a thread that's probably going to wind up with 18,000 posts. It's called "presentation," markers!

her not being able to work with dr luke again is probably a good thing since most of his songs lately have been ass (and usually not doing well on the charts, which i guess would matter for someone like katy)

I'm actually surprised that Bonnie McKee's American Girl wasn't co-written or produced by Dr Luke.

Greg Kurstin has been producing for this apparently.

Well, he and Sia seem to travel in a pack.

She is vile.

sometimes i think that secretly benny blanco was the real reason for dr. luke's 2010 reign of terror on the billboard top 10

lmao is kp going altered zones

probably be about as listenable as laurel halo tbf

the title makes me think that Katy will be covering Dark Side of the Moon for this album.

Greg Kurstin has been producing for this apparently.

― Greer, Tuesday, July 30, 2013 12:46 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

part of me is yay, part of me wishes he would spend his time on not katy perry

THIS IS THE PART OF ME

katy perry in listening to fun. shocker

http://donxxx.tumblr.com/post/57879423842/world-premiere-katy-perry-roar

roa-oa-oa-oa-oa-oar

The little Lumineers-y "hey!" stabs are making me die inside.

this sucks, unsurprisingly!

I don't know how I'll feel in two years about it. I originally thought "Firework" was one of the dumbest things I ever laid ears on, and now I love it unconditionally.

it's like mixing the lumineers, fun. and ke$ha in a blender and the result being almost as bad as you could have imagined

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FtjSa3y6mg

i don't hate it, amazingly (give it time, though). it's like a more tolerable "Girl On Fire."

i'm shocked i like this but i do

lyrics are crazy dumb tho

despite despising all but like 3 of katy perry's singles i'm still somehow terrified of what's gonna come of this album w/ no dr luke involvement

an interesting bit of stockholm syndrome

i really wish the lyrics on this weren't so awful... even worse than firework

I now wish i'd been louder 6 months ago when predicting that her next single would incorporate elements of civil war wave. I haven't heard the song yet, but just from reading the last page of posts... in writing it's predictable as hell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjecYugTbIQ

pretty sure dr. luke IS on this album after all: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/katy-perry-reteams-with-dr-luke-for-new-album-20130419

it appears that "roar" is luke/max/bonnie.

"[Wells] allows me to vomit words," Perry said.

wait she does that intentionally?!

Pretty much her signing technique.

thanking you ward fowler, that was tremendous

it's ok

wow, another empowerment anthem for gays and 12 year old girls, i'm so shocked

so sick of pop music pandering to lions, too

did you hear this Ward? katy perry sending a special message to Boycott. pretty funny.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01dz5mh

needs actual roars

"Perry also called working with "California Gurls" and "Teenage Dream" collaborator Bonnie McKee 'like an emotional abuse session'..."

ah, sensitive as always

As a songwriter she has this obnoxious habit of using cliched metaphors and turns of phrases in lieu of more specific lyrical details and this song might be the worst offender in her catalog on this front: bite my tongue, rock the boat, brush off the dust, eye of the tiger, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, zero to hero.

she seems the kind of person who would think the stock phrases on a motivational poster are actually really poignant.

homie its ok if u want to say she's dumb

keep in mind this is the person who wrote "do you ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind wanting to start again" and expected it to be meaningful

what would a plastic bag be doing with its second chance anyway

http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/recycle3.jpg

http://www.etsy.com/search?q=recycled+plastic+bags

recycled plastic bags man
could be anything, another bag, a bottle, a rly cheap dildo, breathing tubes, hulk hogans shirt, a slip n slide, a project runway dress. sky's the limit, thats why the song is so inspiring 2 me.

unsurprisingly i love ROAR to bits

(sounds good in the car btw)

roar is just kp singing successories slogans over sara bareilles verses and butch walker choruses and the 'two weeks' beat

w/e

http://www.wonderworkshop.co.uk/images/iggy/iggy01.jpg

Surm otm

did anyone put any effort into this song? even by perry's standards this doesn't exactly scream lead single

and the lyrics are some platonic ideal of placeholder triteness

urgh this is horrible

i like the slogans; classic rock blankness

the chorus brings out the 13 year old girl in me, with one of those stretch headbands

wait maybe i mean 7 year old girl

it is a little shocking to me how much better this is than Gaga's single, especially considering that this isn't anything particularly special

in what universe is this better than gaga's single (which isn't even all that great)

the universe where someone spent more than three seconds hacking together a poorly-EQed backing track on Katy's single and where someone allowed Gaga to sing the verses on hers like she was Tom Cruise's Lestat from Interview With A Vampire

entranced by this song after a few listens and i feel like i have to apologize

Just sonically-speaking, I'm going to have more time for a song that sounds like a generic pop song than a song that sounds like someone pastiching Madonna's "Girls Gone Wild" and "Give Me All Your Luvin'" (particularly after the whole "Express Yourself This Way" thing); I haven't even gotten to the point where I care about one being dumber than the other.

see, I almost always prefer "loud and wrong" to "boring and right". to me the problem with "Applause" is that it ISN'T weird enough. (how would that pastiche not sound like a generic pop song, anyway?)

By "generic" I meant "I can't identify a specific song that this reminds me of" (which, going by other comments on this thread, means that my campaign to actively avoid The Lumineers has been much more successful than my Owl City and Foster the People campaigns were), not that Gaga's song sounds in any way out there or shocking.

uh well funny you should mention that

http://music-mix.ew.com/2013/08/12/katy-perry-roar-sara-bareilles-brave/

okay well now I just think they're both terrible

i never thought i'd say this because it's really taken me a long time to come around on katy, but "roar" >>>> "applause"

The similarities to Sara Bareilles' Brave are really kind of unsettling. You can basically lay the instrumentals on top of each other. It's like a slightly sped up version of it.

I think everyone should have a clause drawn up in the case they find themselves copying Sara Bareilles and die of mortification

i don't think i've ever knowningly heard that Bareilles song

just by following a big album with an even bigger album perry's reached a pretty impressive tier for someone who's most distinctive quality is the degree to which she's campishly complicit in (if not downright enthusiastic about) her own objectification (and to be clear, i think her singles have been uniformly strong, I'm just saying this seems to be what makes Teenage Dream different from other multi-hit smashes, like say, Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway or Paula Abdul's Forever Your Girl). But making the self-empowerment ballad the first single rather than the third (esp when it's wan and derivative rather than striking) kinda suggests some vanity on her part ("Hey, now that I'm undeniably huge, let's focus on what I REALLY want to do"). The fact that she's also jacking the Listen Without Prejudice "burning artifacts of your old hits" motif suggests this might be the end of the road. At least until she accepts Cherhood with some dramatic novelty ballads.

the "Roar"/"Brave" thing is confusing to me because i actually like Sara Bareilles generally so i have a capacity to be disappointed in her doing that song but Katy Perry doing it is like well that's as good as it gets with her i guess.

getting called out for the bareilles/beyonce rip-offs just underscores how little she has to offer beyond Martin/Luke jams and a Playboy-Bunny-doing-charity-work persona. That she hasn't made a go of hollywood yet when even Rihanna's been in a blockbuster doesn't bode well for career longevity.

oh wait, I forgot she's smurfette

I'm sure this is how it went down in 2007:

http://bluebuddies.com/help/jpg/SmurfetteCreation1.jpg

I think that's the narrative she's setting up with those teaser videos, but in no way is this kind of self-help anthem a commercial risk for an artist of her size in 2013. Basically she just took two annoying yet popular trends in pop music of the last 3 years--popstars as self-help gurus and Lumineers-esque shout and clap mid-tempos--and synthesized them into one song. Radio will devour this and beg for seconds and thirds.

i'd agree, esp if they've got some "Hooray For Butts" bubblegum follow-up all lined up, but I think the Sara Bareilles thing is really going to take the wind out of the sails for this one

I'm still shocked she had the restraint to not make Peacock a single. On that note, this apparently almost made it onto Teenage Dream.

http://youtu.be/B5Nvi99zq6E

nobody is going to give a shit about the Sara Bareilles thing commercially. Kelly Clarkson's "Already Gone" was an actual, documentable case of plagiarism (self-plagiarism, but still), and it was just as big a radio hit as "Halo."

Oh I know ppl will still buy this, I just think artistically you should be super mortified if you find yourself copying Sara Bareilles

it's so amazing: there isn't a single verse that coheres into any kind of sense. When she drops the "eye of the tiger" line she might as well have said "smell like I sound/I'm lost and I'm found" before those horrifying chorus war whoops.

yeah i was thinking of "Already Gone," but between this and the beyonce thing I'm not convinced the gravy train is just gonna barrel forward. I mean, it's rare enough someone who has smashes off their debut has even more on their sophomore album (Debbie, Cyndi, Paula, etc failed). You either need to have pipes (Mariah, Kelly) or be canny as fuck (Madonna, Rihanna) and I'm not totally sold on the latter being true.

also that "eye of the tiger" sounds almost like "this girl is on fire"

and obv when i say "end of the road" i don't necessarily mean she'll reach tiffany levels of obscurity, just that she'll probably be in a judge's chair sooner than she hoped

Great. I never need reminders to hate Alicia Keys too.

ehh i think worst case scenario for KP with such a clearly-not-rocking-the-boat project is that she'll have "only" 2 or 3 chart-toppers off this project instead of 5 or 6.

I will post pictures of myself literally eating a hat if this isn't a hit

it certainly has a better chance of knocking "Blurred Lines" out of #1 than "Applause"

hey the #1 on Listen Without Prejudice was "Praying For Time" not "Freedom" so yeah, this may well be a hit

http://www.englishforum.ch/attachments/daily-life/8849d1253055003-living-rural-community-switzerland-dragan-dabic-eating-hat01a.jpg

i'm a card-carrying kp hater but idk i'm kinda riding with surm on this. it gets something right that all the loathsome things it's quite rightly compared to don't

yeah I don't really hate this even though the Sara Bareillis mentions make me really want to

wau guys`

I dunno, I am not a Bareilles fan but Bareilles can sing and if anything Perry's got even worse

as for the lyrics they only really make sense if you see them as a branding extension. like the "tiger" and "lion" stuff exists 95% because Katy Perry calls and markets to her fanbase as "Katycats." (5% is "...it's the thrill of the fight!")

"I'm the queen of the night"

I imagine the video will feature lots of tiger patterns.

Perry can sing as well, she is just cursed with a really ugly voice

she also seems insistent on making songs that highlight the worst features of her voice. Like, the last chorus on this is gonna be torture to witness live.

ehh i think worst case scenario for KP with such a clearly-not-rocking-the-boat project is that she'll have "only" 2 or 3 chart-toppers off this project instead of 5 or 6.

― some dude, mardi 13 août 2013 22:26 (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Might be wishful thinking, but radio can turn on you pretty quickly. Look at what happened to Ke$ha this year. And like someone mentioned upthread, Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Gibson, and Paula Abdul. They had a big hit with their comeback single and maybe a second one, but the rest was pretty much ignored and they faded away.

hoping this turns out Perry's New Jersey.

ha i'll admit i was thinking this would definitely make a good first single for one

ok lulz at this ytube comment on brave

MsKatiekittykat 2 hours ago
They have a similar drumbeat, a similar melody line, and that's it. The chord progression is similar but not the same and just because it has an uplifting tone does not mean that one stole it from the other. Katy could've heard Sara's awesome song and been inspired by it, prompting roar, or both artists could've written it a long time ago and they just happened to sound similar. JUST SIT BACK AND ENJOY.

they have the same beat and the same melody guys but that's it

oh and the same message, but that's really it

prompting roar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s0hEi8zhmg

Katy could've heard Sara's awesome song

https://twitter.com/katyperry/status/334851857967104001

i dunno about this bareilles thing. are they really that similar? i guess both have the peppy piano riff but then again so does lily allen's "fuck you" and grizzly bear's "two weeks"

chord progressions are vaguely similar but perry's song is so much louder and huge-r

i hear a lot more "girl on fire" tbh. that, and "fun." and the quavering backdrop synth in the verses + cinematic string flourishes scan kinda LDR.

i'm a card-carrying kp hater but idk i'm kinda riding with surm on this. it gets something right that all the loathsome things it's quite rightly compared to don't

― r|t|c, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 22:46 (Yesterday) Permalink

glad to hear it. i dunno i mean when that chorus kicks in i get a rush. also i don't hear the Lumineers thing, and i'm a card carrying Lumineers something

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/katy-perrys-roar-expected-to-out-sell-lady-gagas-applause-20130815

neat. i read recently that katy has opened about having OCD. she was also in Vogue recently and i liked her pictures and quotes. she doesn't seem like a bad person.

katy's coming off 8 straight songs that never peaked lower than #3, only two songs off gaga's last album got that high. not surprising katy's got more enthusiasm out of the gate

also universal-to-banal empowerment number vs shrill meta electro

i got some inside bits about Gaga bc she is working with one of my friend's art studios for the album art. she sounds kind of like a dummy

gaga's projected numbers are surprisingly low

xp gaga's last lead single combined universal-to-banal empowerment with shrill meta electro and shifted huge units

katy's coming off 8 straight songs

following her two bi ones

I'm curious what her first week album sales will look like coming off the back of 8 (soon to be 9) hit singles. KP is basically where Gaga was going from The Fame Monster into Born This Way in terms of public good will and chart success.

The timetable they're on is interesting though. Perry has no time for a second single in-between now and the album date, so her label must have had a lot of faith in this song doing well. Whereas Gaga has enough time to release another if this one doesn't take before the album's out.

i don't think KP has nearly the public goodwill Gaga had at her peak, in terms of non-stans generally agreeing on her talent/importance. Teenage Dream outsold Born This Way, but there's still this big disconnect between how Teenage Dream was kind of had steady but unspectacular sales relative to its Thriller-like singles campaign.

Yeah, but non-stans might still like her songs even if they agree she isn't particularly noteworthy talentwise. But most importantly, after 8 hit songs, radio definitely likes her.

And do you mean in the US, because a quick google search says Born This Way outsold Teenage Dream by a big margin worldwide, which is why I was curious about her album sales this time around. Will Katy be a Rihanna with hit after hit but surprisingly mediocre album sales, or will she be able to convince the public, especially the global public to invest in an album from her now?

i might like this one more than any of her other songs, which isn't saying much, but i came around on "teenage dream." and i like this a lot better than the sara bareilles song, definitely, so w/e about that. "brave" doesn't have the swooshy gigantic guitar sound in the chorus, and that's the whole hook of "roar" for me

THAT SWOOSH MAKES ME DRUNK

the way she pronounces the word "past" in the first verse irritates me every time, most of all because it should be impossible to pronounce that word weirdly

but yeah i meant in the US specifically Teenage Dream outsold Born This Way. Gaga def has more international appeal.

Good song!

roar is a total earworm.

if you took a songwriting robot and programmed in "girl on fire" "stronger" the recent p!nk catalogue and some shit by the script you'd get this basically, right?

so awesome how katy perry is overcoming the haters, way to go katy *yaaaawn*

this will sell a zillion copies but this is strictly mid-range, "wide awake" level katy perry song

every time i accidentally hear this song it horrifies me

if you took a songwriting robot and programmed in "girl on fire" "stronger" the recent p!nk catalogue and some shit by the script you'd get this basically, right?

mmm thanks I love the taste of vomit in my mouth

seriously though, the lyrics, i'd have loved to be there during the songwriting process: you CANNOT pack this many clichés into a song unless you're being self-aware, but there's nothing in perry's delivery to suggest this

perry is always self-aware i think, and her delivery always isn't. that's like her thing.

i feel like it's the opposite; she's always got an audible smirk but every time she's tried to be funny on purpose she's totally blown it

yeah i don't think she really pulls off self-awareness or humor that well... rebecca black was so much better at both of those things in the "TGIF" video

"roar" strikes me as the baldest pop grab imaginable, i don't think there's anything ironic about it. straight shamelessness imo.

yeah...she's probably been told how inspiring "Firework" was by so many people that she's trying to uplift the human race all over again.

yep

but it's working so c'est la vie

i kind of like the shouts on the verses. reminds me of miguel's WHHAP more than the lumineers or whatever.

oh come on, pretty sure a chorus beginning with "i'm the eye of the tiger" is a bit more tongue-in-cheek/self-aware than y'all are making it out to be

the whole thing's basically (purposely) a series of arranged motivational poster cliches, just a fun harmless late-summer anthem -- no gravitas detectable imo

the wide awake chorus is actually really beautiful but the verses are shit

p much the same with Roar

Katy Perry gives the impression that she believes "I'm the eye of the tiger" is an affirmation like the St. Francis prayer.

just a fun harmless late-summer anthem

rock bottom standards

what makes something a "late summer" anthem

coming out in august?

basically

rock bottom standards

― lex pretend, Sunday, August 18, 2013 5:10 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

plus DELICIOUS GUITAR SWOOSHES

coming out in august?

― 1staethyr, Sunday, August 18, 2013 5:38 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

basically

― fuck your movie theater yacht (zachlyon), Sunday, August 18, 2013 7:18 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

so that makes "blurred lines" a... spring anthem

blurred lines really is so weird, it sounds like it would be in a commercial for kohl's

hahahahahaha

apparently katy and john mayer have a new song on his album - crossing my fingers it leads to something like this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_the_Hard_Way

all of these songs are coming out in winter for me

so that makes "blurred lines" a... spring anthem

― J0rdan S., Sunday, August 18, 2013 7:27 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sort of? i think there's a difference between songs that come out in spring and get play throughout the summer and songs that come out in august/september. less expectation and "event"ness

(regardless of the massive ad campaign involved w/this)

Late-summer anthem runoff:
"Roar" vs. "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

there is not a summer blockbuster season for music like there is with movies, much as the 'song of the summer' thinkpiece industry wants to will one into being.

OK IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER

it's still summer wtf
end-of-summer jams are still summer jams IMO

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSJKUJtB7_wZG2jmfAOPj7Ep7zzE5EBh8der-9hx7stguxSJ-2J

don't let big song-of-the-summer thinkpiece industry fool u, drake was an inside job

i remember when "Drop It Like It's Hot" was released just before Labor Day and just instantly got played in every DJ set that whole weekend, that was kind of an end-of-summer jam (xp)

I think summer blockbuster songs replaced summer blockbuster movies this year. I mean, what's Man of Steel compared to "Blurred Lines"?

i recall mariah carey releasing "fantasy" with the intent of supplying a good "end of summer" song.

"Bust A Move" was definitely August into first semester.

fantasy is ultimate summer jam

"California Girls" was definitely timed for the summer very deliberately, and then the singles campaign ended up lasting so long that "Last Friday Night" was a big song the next summer. so i wouldn't be surprised if when her label decided to release the album in October they were like "let's save the summery song for the 3rd or 4th single next year and release 'Roar' for the fall."

i remember when all the girls where making that ohhhohohoh sound in california gurls in the clubs all summer

I dunno, to me "end-of-summer song" implies wistfulness. the song I always think of (which is shit but) is "Stereo Hearts."

I think of Boys of Summer

that too; basically anything that acknowledges "the end of summer" is a bit loaded

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/86799045/August+And+Everything+After+Counting+Crows++August+And+Eve.png

Heard "Roar" for the first time. Not bad! Could have made a nice Pink song.

So who is this Bonnie McKee person? She doesn't get talked about as much as Dr. Luke and Max Martin.

songwriters don't get as much press as producers

Looking at her songwriting discography, I came away with the impression that she pretty much *is* pop music songwriting for the last 3-4 years.

I remember seeing McKee in one of those Blender mag "Teen Pop WS 20" lists circa 2004.

Her first album cover is very 2004 Blender WS:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517A1JVZBSL.jpg

She's got a second album coming out, I guess.

we talked about her a bit on the rolling pop thread. i'm super keen on american girl.

Yeah, "American Girl" is p good.

the sort of more explicit vicious irony in the song casts a fair amount of light on the 'intentionality' behind her hits for perry

by which i just mean that its hilariously self-aware and it makes it easier to see that perry's stuff is also maybe moreso than we give it credit for

The writing of "American Girl" http://www.americansongwriter.com/2013/08/how-did-they-write-that-bonnie-mckee-american-girl/

"American Girl" is so awful that it makes a fairly frightening case for how much better Katy Perry pulls off these kinds of songs than anybody else could.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/5646340/singles-lady-bonnie-mckee-is-looking-out-for-number-one

harrowing profile that reveals she did meth after her first album flopped and as a teenager was the 'Fergie' in a rap group with Macklemore

it's kinda past awful into a special hypnotic realm tbh

like just... that poor old woman won't somebody help her

i think cos the name is like a subconscious mashup of bonnie tyler and maria mckee as well you're just thinking wtf ur not showing me heaven anymore

when "five-inch electric-teal Christian Louboutin stilettos, Daisy Dukes, popsicle-pink hair, baseball cap with 'Loser' scrawled on the bill, eyes hidden behind cat-eyed Prada sunglasses" is what you wear to a print interview, you're trying too hard.

left out the best part: "A half shirt emblazoned with the phrase 'As If' bares serious midriff"

smh that i mean wtf does this woman have to do so ppl will recognize she's in on the joek

maybe tell a better joek idk

i think if she wore a shirt that said "As If" oh wait

bonnie mckee + ester dean + sean garrett supergroup

in a game of strip poker where they remove an article of clothing each time they get a year closer to turning 40 without dropping an album

"thematic fans"

when you put your hands on me in my demographic niche, be my thematic fan tonight

we pulled up the livestream of katy perry doing the red carpet for the VMA's. she's a profesh

verses of that bonnie mckee song sound a lot like "video killed the radio star"

i'm sure there was an early draft that went 'i was raised by a television that killed the radio star, oh-wa-oh' that was deemed too subtle

lol

https://twitter.com/katyperry/status/375956149004414976/photo/1

coochie cutters ‏@BrbSelenaGomez 24m
@katyperry SLAY

Baffling that you wouldn't change the title of the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vknABmlOPwU

kinda like that

Trying her hand at 90s house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4D5egXVqSg

i dunno, this album sounds kind of incredible

http://www.justjared.com/2013/10/15/katy-perry-prism-song-previews-listen-now/

like

https://soundcloud.com/francislctorres/katy-perry-birthday-snippet

good Weird Katy Perry

https://soundcloud.com/francislctorres/katy-perry-this-is-how-we-do

lyrics are crazy dumb but

https://soundcloud.com/francislctorres/katy-perry-international-smile

bloodshy

https://soundcloud.com/francislctorres/katy-perry-love-me-snippet

(i'm skipping over the thunderous "roar" rewrites obv)

("roar" is amazing though, love that song)

ya ive grown to love roar, somehow

Most of these are really good.

ya ive grown to love roar, somehow

Me too, but I almost expected that to happen. I think the only Katy Perry single I originally hated that I still hate is I Kissed a Girl.

"I Kissed A Girl" rules and will always rule

it does not and has never goddAMmiT

Listening to this playlist of snippets on soundcloud and just realized Dark Horse isn't even on here. Isn't that supposed to be single #2?

Oh wait, Roar isn't on there either. Maybe he bumped the tracks people have already heard?

I heard that song and I liked it
The crassness and blatant pander
I heard that song and I liked it
A sequel would be grander
It sounds so wrong
But feels so right
Hope my cred still stays airtight
I heard that song and I liked it
I liked it

kjp

"Dark Horse" is track #6 on the album -- i don't think it's the 2nd radio single, though, just one they threw out to retail before the rest of the album. wiki says next single is "Unconditionally" although that "Walking On Air" one she did on SNL was pretty good.

"Walking on Air" sounds great until she opens her mouth and destroys the engineer, producer, techies, and everything else in the recording studio.

i wanna like "walking on air" but it seems REALLY canned to me. i mean, i do like it. but it feels way too put on for me to ever love.

which is an achievement for me cuz until "Walking on Air" she hasn't released a single song I've liked.

she's going for a Roisin Murphy vibe that doesn't suit her heavyhandedness.

the story with "dark horse" from what i can tell is that it won a fan vote for which song she should release next, but i don't think the buzz was strong enough for the label to consider pushing it to radio

"unconditionally" sounds ok, a bit similar to "roar" though if the second single is gonna get swallowed up it might as well be that one

"birthday" sounds like it's gonna be absolutely her best song imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn1G7MbP3g0

man, all she needs is platform shoes and she'd be straight ripping charli xcx's style in this clip

is she really singing in this? i thought she was supposed to be a bad live singer but she sounds like a house diva at times here O_O

the idea that someone who popped up like 2 years ago invented that look is ridic

i would classify myself as a charli xcx stan these days so seeing boob tube + tartan skirt set off a fairly deluded alarm bell

obvs she is going for a super 90s look here which is obvs also charli's schtick (charli is kind of 80s/90s mishmash i guess)

Dark Horse was a promo single to promote pre-orders of the album, not an official single to follow-up Roar. The fact that it's selling so well means it will probably be a single down the line though. This same thing happened last album with E.T. btw, released as a preview to hype up the album, ended up becoming a single later in the campaign.

Birthday sounds good, as does International Smile and I can get over her terrible vocals to appreciate the other parts of Waking on Air, but she always has been and remains the worst part of her own music. The lifeless vocals on This is How We Do combined with her "teehee sex" references are cringe, plus the back half of this is very easy listening Christian Contemporary meets "songs people might play at The Bronze". Even the better pop songs just seem like "ok, cool, so you've heard a Robyn album."

shannon doherty xcx

is she really singing in this? i thought she was supposed to be a bad live singer but she sounds like a house diva at times here O_O

She is almost always hoarse when singing live, which made people think she couldn't actually sing.

Doesn't help that she seems insistent on making songs which highlight all the worst parts of her voice when performed live.

i like most of these... with reservations

Even the better pop songs just seem like "ok, cool, so you've heard a Robyn album."

yeah i would agree with this

the only part of "roar" i am super down with is the "hey!" sometimes i will wait for that part b4 i switch the station

this might be her best album since a day without rain

lol

this song is SO GOOD http://andrewpresents.com/post/64206072416/katy-perry-birthday-major-tune-alert-from

i lol'd at the bridge tbh

Birthday sounds SO MUCH like Betty Who.

i rly like it, surely this will be an album highlight (or single??)

Andrew Presents also posted International Smile. I like the vocoder solo inna Daft Punk stylee.

I think being raised Christian gave me a soft spot for CCM or something cause I kinda like this one too. http://poponandon.com/single-premiere-katy-perry-uncondtionally/

"international smile" does something that i believe the pitbull/chris brown song did, which was put "international" in the title and then shout out primarily new york, los angeles and miami

the vocoder solo on this is hilarious/insane/amazing

this comes out on friday apparently?

came out today in like Germany, hence the leaks.

The whole thing (incl. bonus tracks) is out there now btw.

the guitar tone in "roar" is the best thing in the world, i want it everywhere

apparently stargate and benny blanco had yet to write a song called "this moment"

i would like to edit katy perry entirely out of this album

So far, most of the album is going through one ear and out the other but I'll this much, that "This Is How We Do" is a lot better than AlunaGeorge's awful and disastrous cover of the similarly-titled "This Is How We Do It".

Also, maybe because I was distracted during listening, but this album seems VERY front-loaded.

It is.

yea 'this is how we do' feels really calculated, moreso than the degree to which all of this & all pop is calculated, but i dearly love it

<insert Katy Perry 'front loaded' joke>

only just picked up on mariah carey-okoe

this album is much stronger than the last one IMO but still mostly 4 amazing songs and a buncha shit i don't ever need to hear again

the vocoder solo though... there's no reason for something that good to be in a katy perry album cut

There was actually a pretty similar vocoder solo on an album track from Ke$ha's last LP.

roar sounds like a children's song to me. maybe she can perform it on sesame street?

(nb that is not a bad thing)

International Smile is basically a lift of Daft Punk's Discovery-era sound anyway, so the vocoder solo is almost there by necessity.

Gave this a play today and it's basically a Robyn album without any discernible personality.

so... it's a Robyn album?

i don't even feel an urge of duty to listen to a new katy perry album, like...you guys, c'mon, look at your lives and choices etc

lol

is katy perry blacklisted from sesame street?

maybe if she wears something a little less revealing they'll let her back? i didn't think her outfit was so bad tbh

She is almost always hoarse when singing live, which made people think she couldn't actually sing.

― Bitch Fantastic (DJP), Tuesday, October 15, 2013 7:39 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Case in point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pytq1JrQQwk#t=141

"Unconditionally" stinks of death.

birthday is like janet jackson meets Wham!

( ... which is fine obviously)

ha that's an interesting description

I'm not kidding when I say Birthday sounds exactly like Betty Who. You may be into her, surm, if you aren't already.

yeah the bit where she goes into her head voice and says "youUUU should call" is v v v Betty Who

hmm i should take a look!

okay on "Dark Horse", is that an Art of Noise sample or a pastiche?

"This Is How We Do" better not ever be a single, what a shitshow

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/katy-perry-tops-billboard-worst-week-album-sales-230701753.html

"Katy Perry has become one of the biggest pop stars in the world by not making us worry about her."

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2013/11/18/131118crmu_music_frerejones

first of all that statement is true

2nd upon closer inspection i think Birthday is the best song i've ever heard

and Unconditionally is the worst

true

:)

I get irrationally angry with the bizarre syllable emphasis in how she says "unconditionally"

not irrational at all, makes perfect sense imo

i mean honestly it was almost worth hearing it just to laugh out loud

i still get emotional about how she mangles simple words like "hero" and "past" every time i hear "Roar"

nothing sounds so bad as her voice on WALKING ON AIR tho

also when i heard the walking on air chorus it was kind of like the malkovich scene in being john malkovich

gave this another try yesterday (no idea why tbh). what's with the "twaunie twaunie" pronunciation of 20/20 in 'Ghost'?

Her maxed (Maxed?) out voice in "Unconditionally" hurts my ears as bad as Miley's does in "Wrecking Ball." It's like amplifying a brick wall and then blowing it up.

So "Dark Horse" turned out to be a grower, huh?

Putting Unconditionally out as the second single instead of that really was a huge mistake. Dark Horse has already been a much bigger hit and they've not even put the video out yet.

"This Is How We Do" better not ever be a single, what a shitshow

― some dude, Wednesday, October 23, 2013 6:25 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this song is now in an ad for, i dunno, her fragrance or something, so i'm already bracing myself for it being the next single

"Unconditionally" really flopped fantastically -- it peaked at #14, where her NINE previous singles were all top 3

the thing that bothers me a bit is how much media's running with the "wow, 'Dark Horse' was such an unexpected hit! LIKE A DARK HORSE, SUCH SYNCHRONICITY" angle. of course it was a hit, it already got A/B tested against "Walking on Air"

"Unconditionally" really flopped fantastically -- it peaked at #14, where her NINE previous singles were all top 3

― scott c-word (some dude)

Same in the UK. Even a slot on the final of X Factor couldn't get it higher than 25. Only Thinking of You has charted lower out of all her singles. Feel like that choice of single lost her a lot of the Christmas sales as it didn't push the album any further when sales are at their highest.

the (relative) failure of "Unconditionally" makes me irrationally happy

(mostly I am fine with dark horse, because it is getting sarah hudson royalties, and good for her)

pardon my ignorance but who's she?

I was listening to "Dark Horse" last night after having not listened to it for a while. It's a cool tune.

Her previous nine singles went 1-1-1-1-1-3-1-2-1 in the Hot 100. Maybe they thought they could get away with anything.

Of course Dark Horse restarted the streak by also hitting #1.

one of the post-avril songwriters (see also skye sweetnam, katy rose, come to think of it probably katy perry too) from the mid-00s that got about an album each

Skye Sweetnam! i think for the last few years all my vague memories of her started to get conflated with Sky Ferreira

"Dark Horse" is the first Katy Perry single in a long while that doesn't desperately beg you to fall in love with it on first listen; that alone makes it a nice departure. But it's a great song on its own merits, and given how no critics singled it out as an obvious mega-hit, I understand the dark horse narrative

Isn't that sort of a case where critics are being dumb, considering that it was focused-grouped by her fans into being a single? I mean, I don't know the timeline so there's obvious overstatement going on there but when a megastar's large, rabid fanbase says "this is the song you should release as a single" and the artist does, should it take anyone by surprise that the single does well?

I'm flummoxed by the need to make this into a story; as clickbait it appeals to, like, 12 people in the United States.

it's not really a story so much as it just hit no. 1

Yeah, I mean, nobody should be surprised when any Katy Perry single does well, so it's hardly a man-bites-dog narrative. Just seems like people took to this one a little easier and more organically than is usually the case is all

fans only had song titles and 30 second snippets to go on when "Dark Horse" was voted for over "Walking On Air," it's not like it was some powerful mandate. the reason it became a single is because radio stations were playing it without it being officially promoted for weeks and weeks before the label finally gave in and gave it an early release (only 2 months after "Unconditionally" instead of the standard 3 month window).

Also it had managed to sell nearly a million digital copies despite not being the official single being promoted.

it was selling unusually well too even before radio started tossing some spins its way. like, i know all the advance promo singles sold well for like a week or whatever but "dark horse" just kept on selling.

pop radio really does pay attention to single sales now. "Still Into You" would not have become an airplay hit 6 months after it was released if it was not doing steady numbers on iTunes that whole time.

The speed with which Unconditionally plummeted on radio once the next single was announced was funny. It was like programmers couldn't wait to stop playing it.

looool totally

I mean if you're a fan and you're going to be purchasing album tracks early it's probably going to be the one you rallied behind previously (plus, 30-second snippets are basically standard anymore)

xp US radio amazes me. It took six months for a song as strong as Still Into You to become an airplay hit?

now that "unconditionally" has flopped by her standards i've begun to appreciate it

haha i've heard it a couple times in the last week and been like "yup, this was terrible, glad i didn't have to hear this around the clock"

I didn't realize "English speakers who sing English as if it's their third/fourth language" was a pet peeve of mine until I heard "Unconditionally"

unconditionally makes me lol every single time

of all the katy perrys of the world she's the katy perryest

I just can't stop listening to Birthday. It has everything I want from a pop song!

damn this album is so unfairly panned. at least 3 pop gems there.

out of like 16 tracks? how is that not a terrible ratio

depending on your interpretation of "gems" vs. "hits" teenage dream had about the same ratio

"dark horse" is kinda just a more tolerable version of "ET" isn't it

Except with more trap and less aliens and less "All the Things She Sad".

Forget what u said. It's a pretty boring album except for roar, unconditionally, and the second track

*I

i hope to hear "birthday" on the radio sometime later this year but yeah most of the album was pretty forgettable

"dark horse" is kinda just a more tolerable version of "ET" isn't it

― le goon (J0rdan S.), Monday, February 24, 2014 10:21 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Except with more trap and less aliens and less "All the Things She Sad".

― MarkoP, Monday, February 24, 2014 10:24 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dont forget "moments in love"-style synths. shit is the jams.

Spiritual is the real jam on this - love this droney bass during the verses (a bit of a smilar thing in Roar), could be a BoC instrumental.

"dark horse" is kinda just a more tolerable version of "ET" isn't it

― le goon (J0rdan S.), Monday, February 24, 2014

^ this

heard "Birthday" on the radio the other day, pretty glad if that's the next single

http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201433/rs_600x600-140403124855-BkUj2rNCMAAXOQr.jpg

yeah "birthday" is the jam

ridic

Birthday and Walking on Air are the two takeaways for me from this album so I'm not mad I'll be hearing this on the radio instead of Black Horse.

dark horse owns, into it way more than ET

Quite like the new single but the new video is just horrible. Think it's a huge misfire on every level.

http://www.popjustice.com/videos/katy-perry-birthday/126562/

yeah the video doesn't really work at all. it'll be a good radio jam anyway.

tbf even with at least a handful of good/tolerable singles, "Teenage Dream" is still pretty much her only video that isn't embarrassing on several levels

Still can't deal w her voice. Very yelpy

Jeez- first MIA and now Katy Perry, what is his secret?

http://www.eonline.com/news/587471/katy-perry-keeping-her-relationship-with-diplo-undercover-find-out-why

dating someone THAT famous seems like a minefield, i can't really fault anyone for trying to maintain some control and discretion tbh

you have to laugh at grown men sitting around listening to katy perry!

just my $0.02

well consider your invitation to my boys-only katy perry listening circle rescinded

One of my born-again friends on fb is losing his shit today because the choir sang "Roar" in church this morning.

lolol

so i really want to like bonnie mckee but this is excruciating https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ6BRY16jHo

"American Girl" was nothing if not excruciating (and "nothing" is a viable option)

I mean it's a holiday song

/special

with karmin and that violin star and etc. its like now that she went indie after not breaking on a major she's hanging with a whole bunch of youtube-famous viral ppl. i like the california winter single itself, but also generally bonnie mckee is a very boring lyricist.

the karmin performance is even by the standards of karmin performance something.. else

don't like the treatment of the vocals on that holiday song, otherwise I would have dug it (if I'd heard it at the appropriate time)

why new kp single debuts at no. 76 on hot 100

NEW JERSEY

Doesn't a New Jersey require its singles to be hits though?

Or did you mean Prism is a New Jersey?

Prism=New Jersey, yes

why new kp single debuts at no. 76 on hot 100

Cause its gross.

it will probably fall off the chart next week then re-enter for one more week after the video drops before falling off again. i wonder how embarrassed and/or panicked the ppl at capitol are right now.

"The track is a dance-pop song with sexual double entendres involving food. "

pop music wikipedia makes me so sad

it's sorta crazy anyone involved heard that and was like "this is the song we need to save our suddenly flagging new album rollout"... maybe it was just the migos feature

This really was an odd choice for a single but I did think it would still do fairly well based on her name alone. I still think Chained To The Rhythm is a great song.

Love the music, but the vocals and lyric are TERRIBLE (and I really liked "Chained to the Rhythm" overall). The Migo rap is the best sounding vocal part.

that migos song is good as hell

beat's great, melodies great, its a hit record

>>>>> t-shirt

i mean.... it's not gonna be a hit record lol

you can stump for it as a song for whatever reason but it's already a flop basically

idk sure sounds like one to me

has radio even pushed it yet? katy perry isn't exactly the kind of artist whose songs hit no. 1 out the gate right?

?

are we talking about the same katy perry?

idk i dont follow her shit, i usually dont like her songs and then sometimes i do (teenage dream or w/e), this seems like a perfectly good summer record to me, but then im not invested in katy perry as a 'star'

maybe her star is falling cuz its the woke era or something, i dont really get what the problem would be w/ this single though, shit is catchy as hell

for comparison, "chained to the rhythm" debuted at #4. "bon appetit" debuted at #76.

i wonder if its similar to that effect w/ albums where people judge your single off the success of the last one

Katy Perry, a real dark horse on the Billboard charts.... not

the song is good enough imo that it feels like momentum would *really* have to be moving against her career in general for that not to do something

that's possible, but "chained to the rhythm" was only a flop in the context of katy perry insofar as it didn't hit #1 and stay there for weeks. it did fine otherwise tho.

another aspect is that they're going w/ the old school model of choosing specific pre-release singles w/ the album still months away, whereas i.e. bruno mars had a little trouble finding a second single after "24k magic" but the album was timed to where they were able to look at streaming data while "24k magic" was still on the charts, which led to the elevation of "that's what i like" as a people's choice pick that the label eventually got behind

"that's possible" is re the idea that this single is flopping bcuz "chained to the rhythm" also underperformed

i mean the obvious difference is: chained to the rhythm is a bad song, and this is not

many songs just take time to break regardless of who made them, 'thats what i like' was also not a hit out the gate even if it was a streaming fav

well, i disagree entirely that the song is any good... it struck me immediately as really generic from the beat to the concept, and the hook is muted, doesn't grab you at all. i'm stunned it's something that came from max martin frankly.

it's a retread of this song off her last album which is like 100 times better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4D5egXVqSg

there's no real history as far as i remember of a pre-album katy perry single taking any time whatsoever to climb the charts, but maybe this will be the one

it's currently #142 on itunes, which is two spots behind "slippery"

i dont hear the similarity between those two songs at all! walking on air is straight edm

I typically don't care about Katy Perry's chart success or failures all that much, but I guess I'm maybe 1% curious to see if this is her first album without a #1 or if she'll continue the streak.

I can't see her getting a number 1, particularly given the general scarcity of women in the upper echelons of the charts at the moment who aren't featured vocalists - see Maura's post on this in the New Jersey thread

her lead single spent two weeks in the top 10 -- its first two weeks. it likely would have spent zero weeks in the top 10 had she not performed on the grammys broadcast the week it dropped. as j0rdan pointed out this new one is plummeting at an alarming rate on itunes (where it never even cracked the top 10) + furthermore has paltry stats on the streaming services (where sleeper hits tend to show their early promise), is not doing the usual katy perry thing at radio. it's almost certain she will not be getting another number one hit this time around. it seems like a very real possibility that the album won't go #1 either.

I mean it's pretty obvious, she's not working with her old writers/producers anymore

the new haircut is not really on-brand

I'm not saying this is going number one or some shit im just saying it's good and I have trouble envisioning it as a flop... just seems an immediate and obviously appealing song tbh

i like the track but good god the lyrics. it's like that birthday song all over again.

Lol I mean it is katy perry

"i am your servant woman! i exist to please you!"

I remember thinking California girls had amazingly generic lyrics for a song w such massive and easy potential for memorable or vivid ones

Oh bikinis huh

california gurls is practically feminist compared to birthday and bon appetit

Idk, I like this song. It's birthday but with black guys and while white radio might have a problem with that, I don't. There's obviously some sort of KP backlash going on atm but I generally appreciate her shameless persona. The main problem w Chained was the skip marley iz MORPHEUS part. She should have fed him to the lions.

new song "swish swish" w/ nicki is surprisingly good, her last good single since... "dark horse" or "birthday" maybe?

not sure if true but i hear duke dumont produced?? wouldn't surprise me if true + maybe it would give him inroads to american pop radio

if it really was duke dumont behind the prod i'm surprised either of them got properly credited

It's like a shitty "Truffle Butter".

Well whoever produced it must have been listening to lesser known Fatboy Slim singles. Or Roland Clark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s765wPKjNRk

The writing credits for the album allegedly include Purity Ring, Hot Chip, Mike Will Made It and Noonie Bao, amongst others (no Dr Luke).

not bad but yea sounds like truffle buttre

hey wait, Purity Ring did a song on this?

per wikipedia, but it's also possible they were just sampled

"swish swish" isn't great... like "bon appetit" the concept quickly gets pretty strained. can't imagine it being popular either. this album is sort of fascinating.

The video for Bon Appetit is... something.

I'm weirdly excited for this album.

I don't mind either Bon Appetit or Swish Swish; neither is going to get the "play endlessly for a year" treatment I gave Dark Horse

Bon Appetit and Swish Swish are tanking down the Hot 100 - Bon Appetit went from 67 to 96, Swish Swish from 46 to 78.

Chained to the Rhythm has an Applause air to it, underperforming but still crushing the followup attempts.

taking the analogy further, "Bon Appétit" might be the "Swine" of this album - catchy as hell but ruined by gross lyrics.

Just listening to the new album. The title track is one of the best songs she's ever done.

Has anyone come up with a coherent reason why this record isn't finding a foothold? Personally I'm in the "only ever been moderately interested in Katy" camp but from where I'm standing this is a major step up for her production-wise, at least. Even the Max Martin stuff is like the peak version of that post-Wolf Cousins sweet spot he's been hitting lately.

women with personality who aren't rihanna are out of vogue on pop radio

and say what you will about katy perry, she is overflowing with personality

A good chunk of this album is excellent. Fantastic production, very of the moment but also unusually forward looking for a Katy Perry album. The roll out for the album has been a mess—bum singles, gross videos, desperate SNL performances, some weirdly testy interviews—but I gotta imagine this will more or less live up to sales expectations. There are singles here.

I always liked her personality. She's smart as hell and doesn't try to hide it (saw her in a concert a few years ago and even during the routine audience engagement parts she seemed to be cutting down fans with her wit) but I do think on this album cycle for some reason she's come across as testy, defensive and generally unlikable. Can't quite pinpoint what's putting me off this time around, but I think part of it is post-Miley I'm pretty weary of pop stars who suddenly reinvent themselves as way into rap culture.

The whole marketing of this album seems off. It's a savvy, club-friendly pop album (something there's always a market for) that tried to disguise itself as a late-to-the-party rap-minded pop album (something there's almost no market for right now, at time when many radio stations clip rap verses out of songs).

the rap part is explainable enough, "Dark Horse" was probably the biggest hit off Prism

Yeah, definitely get why they'd wanna return to that well. "Dark Horse" is her best song imo. But I think they learned the wrong lessons from that song. You coulda cut Juicy J out of that song and it still would have been a jam.

katy perry is still probably one of the most likable major musicians going rn imo

likable person or likable people in her songs?

Most of her songs are menaces.

likable person, the songs i avoid. though i'm willing to let 'roar' slide bc our 6 yr old loves it (and i suspect has a crush on her.)

This will change if/when she scores a real hit from the album, but right now the lasting image from this album cycle is her on SNL, doing this:

http://www.bet.com/music/2017/05/24/katy-perry-migos-snl-performance-reactions/_jcr_content/image.heroimage.dimg/__1495661949157/052417-Music-Katy-Perry-SNL-Awkward-Dance.gif

Beyond how ridiculous and unflattering that is, it confirms our worst suspicions about pop stars. Here she is, rolling her eyes at the very performance she's giving, winking and nudging her fans by saying, yeah, I'm doing this, but I'm not really into it. I'm way too smart for rap music.

likable person, the songs i avoid. though i'm willing to let 'roar' slide bc our 6 yr old loves it (and i suspect has a crush on her.)

― nomar, Friday, June 9, 2017 12:54 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My 6 year old as well! It's on her little playlist right next to the theme from Rocky III. Does the new album have any tunes about wildlife?

Beyond how ridiculous and unflattering that is, it confirms our worst suspicions about pop stars. Here she is, rolling her eyes at the very performance she's giving, winking and nudging her fans by saying, yeah, I'm doing this, but I'm not really into it. I'm way too smart for rap music.

Or... she is trying to do a stankface and is failing miserably at it.

These videos and gifs of her attempting to perform any of this music has been the best part of this whole campaign so far.

http://i.imgur.com/9nDMape.gif

and say what you will about katy perry, she is overflowing with personality

― maura, Friday, June 9, 2017 12:28 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark

i think people may sense a falseness and desperation about her in-your-face Personality

also i seriously hear next to nothing to like in this album, and i'll go to the mat for a lot of prism & even teenage dream. the roll out of this album's singles makes more sense hearing the rest of the album bcuz there really isn't much else to work with.

some of the decisions are just weird. like, she worked w/ dj mustard and hot chip and made two ballads?

a few of the songs w/ purity ring aren't bad tho

Katy Perry's wacky brashness is a huge part of her appeal, the problem with Witness is that she basically abandoned it.

She's our generation's Cyndi Lauper, "Chained to the Rhythm" was her "I Drove All Night" moment.

i wasn't saying it was a *good* personality

a few of the songs w/ purity ring aren't bad tho

These are the songs that made me stop processing the album as anonymous but serviceable club music and something actively terrible

I love both Purity Ring albums, too ;_;

grr "and turned it into something actively terrible"

She's our generation's Cyndi Lauper

I am pretty sure Cyndi Lauper is my generation's Cyndi Lauper

not surprised at all that this has shaped up to be her artpop commercially. personality-driven dance-pop like gaga and katy is being supplanted on top 40 by edm-pop crossovers in these last couple years. the music's barely any different but instead of being billed to the usually-female pop vocalist is increasingly billed to [dj bro/s] feat. [female pop vocalist] or [dj bro/s] "x" [female pop vocalist] (apparently an ampersand would imply an uncool degree of collaboration between the dj bro and the female pop star that might threaten to undermine dj bro's manufactured auteurist appeal). this is if the female pop vocalist is credited at all.

These are the songs that made me stop processing the album as anonymous but serviceable club music and something actively terrible

I love both Purity Ring albums, too ;_;

― PJD PDJ DPJ (DJP), Friday, June 9, 2017 1:17 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think the vocal manipulation on "mind maze" is maybe the best part of the album aside from the bhasker song at the end

i reviewed btw: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/review-katy-perrys-witness-w486805

She's our generation's Cyndi Lauper, "Chained to the Rhythm" was her "I Drove All Night" moment.

― Sutcliffe Juugin' (Whiney G. Weingarten),

Roy Orbison covered "Chained to the Rhythm"??

the fly in the ointment regarding any theorizing about what this album says about the music industry is that bon appetit and swish swish are noticeably not good at all

I like Tsunami and parts of Pendulum.

haven't listened to anything other than the singles but "swish swish" is the only one i like

"Bon Appetit" is an embarrassment, like a spilled drink.

I would like "Bon Appetit" so much more if it was Migos feat. Katy Perry.

I successfully ignored a lot of the lyrics on my listenthrough of the album and was enjoying myself up until around "Tsunami", at which point I threw my hands up in exasperation and wondered why she didn't call the album On The Nose.

yeah that one kinda uh... lays it on thick

speaking of, how come Robin never called an album Lay It on Thicke?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vFfSnx2Oqo

I blame the Miley Cyrus haircut. Joking...maybe

"pendulum" could have been great -- pino palladino on bass and a choir -- but the chorus is literally just... "like a pendulum / it all comes back around / like a pendulum, like a pendulum".......

hmm a pendulum doesn't really come back "around"

still baffled as to how katy "ur so gay" perry is likable

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/31/Katyursogayep.jpg

nice

like a pendulum / it all comes back around

deep. this must be that new social consciousness she is going on about.

david turner argued this in a piece today but isn't a part of the shift here not just creative but also abt the market shifting towards streaming and away from single sales & radio as major #influencers

we all know that three is the maximum number of michelin stars

you say "5-star michelin" and the youngsters growing up on chef's table know you're a fraud

to me it seems like the industry is putting a lot of effort into trying to retain radio's relevance when it comes to exposing consumers to new music. the huge disparity between what tends to be on the pop radio charts vs. what's doing well on the streaming services to me suggests that radio is making a pretty strong effort to hold on to some subset of 'mainstream pop' music that it can successfully introduce to its audience without just taking spotify et al's lead.

unfortunately for them they've been struggling massively to do this. to use katy perry as an example: "chained to the rhythm", as expected, performed poorly on the streaming services, but it also sold poorly and got terrible feedback in audience research (even "bad and boujee", which was obviously a huge streaming hit but which pop radio barely wanted to touch, did better on in mainstream top 40 audience research). the same pattern has held for many other songs top 40 radio's been trying to play in hopes of finding its own unique 'mainstream pop' hits. meanwhile, on the other side, labels tend to have to resort to costly measures to market these singles to radio because their sales and streaming stats are so paltry, namely discounting them on itunes for months on end and having them featured incessantly on the front page's "hot tracks" section, with both of these tactics costing a lot of money (not to mention lost revenue when discounted).

in the end, the only songs top 40 is breaking with ease are the edm-pop collabos like zedd x alessia cara and kygo x selena gomez, which, surprise surprise, actually pull pretty decent streaming numbers. once digital singles retail is killed off, which may come sooner than we all imagine with all this discounting nonsense happening (this is what killed the us's physical singles market too, btw), i think top 40 radio will have little choice but to follow streaming's lead.

i should add that while i'm talking mostly about top 40 radio above, other formats more in line with what's doing well on the streaming services (rhythmic, mainstream urban) still often manage to lag far behind what's popping on spotify, soundcloud and youtube. "xo tour llif3" and "tunnel vision" are only just now about to enter the top 10 on the r&b/hip hop airplay and rhythmic airplay charts, long long after having risen into the hot 100's top 10 based overwhelmingly on streaming.

really good breakdown dyl

labels tend to have to resort to costly measures to market these singles to radio because their sales and streaming stats are so paltry, namely discounting them on itunes for months on end and having them featured incessantly on the front page's "hot tracks" section, with both of these tactics costing a lot of money (not to mention lost revenue when discounted).

i'm not sure i get this. is plugging a song to radio more costly than it once was? why?

my impression was that pop radio in general is just getting lazy and playlisting whatever hits on streaming, but that the lag is only like a week. (i'm coming at this from a UK perspective keep in mind)

streaming vs radio here is pretty divided still, but radio just feels out of touch & like its lagging behind

radio lags way behind in the us still. here's an explanation of the itunes-plugging i'm referring to: http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7503298/itunes-69-cent-song-discounts-chart-ascents-radio-plays

in short, the majority of songs promoted via discounting and forced front-page exposure on itunes actually lose money; the hope is that the sales boost will convince radio pd's to bump airplay up enough to offset the loss in revenue in the long run (unfortunately, tho, my impression is that this tactic produces few radio hits of actual longevity -- the kind radio are seeking out). while the situation is not as dire as, say, when mariah carey's label lost a ton of money deep-discounting her #2 'hit' single "loverboy" to give it a massive boost it up the charts in 2001 (it consequently became among the very last non-american idol physical single to sell over half a million stateside), it easily could become a similar crisis if the volume of download sales continues to nosedive at the rate it has been (we're basically at 2005 levels right now). keeping the itunes store up-and-running is not free!

"witness" would be a great lead single

as maura pointed out in the Paramore thread, there are three women in the American top twenty who aren't "muses for EDM dudes."

no no. two of them are muses for edm dudes and the other is julia michaels. (who has that whole "sounds about to sneeze" vocal affect going on.)

oh yeah, sorry

It's probably been discussed in another thread, but I'm curious why women are being shut out of the charts. Is it a programmer thing? I remember reading about country music programmers believing people didn't want to hear two songs by women in a row, but does that extend to Top 40 now? (Sorry if the answer to this is obvious, but we discuss this phenomenon a lot and I really have no idea what's behind it)

Trump Executive Order

given that Katy Perry, Rihanna, Adele and Taylor Swift have dominated the charts for most of the decade it's hard to see some kind of new conspiracy to shut women out of the charts.

oh god it's not a conspiracy. it's the way streaming reflects certain norms of taste, which reflect certain gender biases. pay attention.

a conspiracy, smh. sorry that women had equal time for once. gotta get the men back in control so things are neutral.

Yeah, because that's just what I said, men deserve dominance over the pop charts. Whatever.

not to mention, if you're going to argue that gender norms are leading to biased use of streaming by listeners, that's exactly the opposite of a conspiracy in the charts, unless the conspiracy was to include streaming in the chart formulas in the first place.

I would not be surprised if there was some stan-war element to it, people giving poor feedback to their pop stars not of choice

, if you're going to argue that gender norms are leading to biased use of streaming by listeners, that's exactly the opposite of a conspiracy in the chart

not to speak for maura but i think that's exactly what she's saying?

in other news tay zonday just followed me on twitter :o

here's a nice depressing image to remind us of how unkind/averse to women mass culture has been:

http://i.imgur.com/8qVw9ms.png

women rarely performed more than a quarter of hit singles on the pop charts and even in their "best" period (which was shortly before the dawn of the rock era) still weren't even cracking 40%. data in this graph only go to 1990 but i doubt it changed much in the years that followed. i have lots of recent years' chart data d/l'd to my computer so if i find the time maybe i will crunch numbers for the past few years to see just how badly representation of women has declined since that one summer when billboard was posting articles about how women were ruling.

(the figure comes from this 2005 research paper: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/9925/1/Liddle-charting%20Gender.pdf )

my pet hypothesis is that the radio-format landscape is so divided along implicit gender and racial lines nowadays that you end up with one of two scenarios: when mainstream/top 40 pop is popping, (white) women can thrive and men temporarily take the backseat. when crossover hits are favored*, men dominate to an obscene extent. (women of color who aren't already established stars lose no matter what.)

(* from any direction; most non-pop radio formats are even more heavily male-dominated than pop is. adult contemporary is the only exception. however, mainstream ac is, with the exception of adele, virtually unable to break new singles nowadays, and for each rachel platten/p!nk single that hot ac manages to break, there'll be like 3 white-guys-with-guitars making the same moves.)

Really liking the music/production on this but the vocal lines/hooks are increidbly plodding.

i really hate the lyric you're 'bout as cute as an old coupon expired

Witness; officially a flop. But she has a cunning plan. Supposedly..

http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/katy-perrys-label-boss-says-shes-planning-a-comeback-after-a-disappointing-response-to-her-latest-album-witness__21456/

Not sure this will get Katy back on track commercially, but I really dig her new collaboration with Zedd. The video is great too and oddly moving. The whole thing kind of feels like a more successful attempt at what she was going for on Witness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrbgUtCfnC0

I liked Ex Machina in music video form better when Bjork did it twenty years ago and the tone of the song and visuals matched

new single, co-written with dagny! it's...good?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEb5gNsmGJ8

that's surprisingly nice, certainly the most i've ever liked one of her singles

this sound would have been a good fit for Taylor actually lol but alas

This is pretty good

it's funny taylor beat her to the pre-chorus marching band snares lol but this chorus does go to an unexpected place. not sure i would call it good exactly but it is something

the chorus is quite good imo

I really wasn't expecting that chorus. It's very I Want You by Savage Garden.

Really love this. Just the kind of single she needed to put out right now.

this song is fine but almost literally any other pop singer working today would deliver it better. (my first thought was carly rae jepsen, but I could easily imagine halsey, kelsea ballerini, even someone like sabrina carpenter)

Well Dagny already had a go at it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnQBqinwlwQ

I'm not particular about technical skills or talent in pop music but her voice is distractingly bad on this, sometimes she is a great pop star and sometimes she is just a pop star but it still amazes me that she's managed to have such longevity given how obvious her strain in her voice is

i think it's pretty good. certainly an improvement over the single that led off witness.

Her new single isn't bad either, and this might bode well for her upcoming album whenever it'll come out, but Katy Perry will still be the worst thing about Katy Perry songs

major label artists aren't permitted to release albums anymore unless they score a big hit single (a 'bullet') first, unless they have an adele/swift-like track record of pushing units in the past. maybe she'll get to put out an ep.

it's pretty boring to me but perhaps the charlie puth stans will like it given his involvement

Small Talk is nice enough, but it's too slight to give her the big hit she/they want to launch another album.

Never Really Over remains one of the best songs of the year. I'm shocked it wasn't massive.

i grew to love it

"never really over" i mean, not the new song which i haven't heard

lol so now i've heard it and when she sang "small talk" i was like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTZdC7vvUCo