So what can Katy Perry do now?
A decade after her chart smash hits 'Teenage Dream' and 'Prism', Katy's career is less like a firework and more circling the drain. Is there any way to revive her career or is it (never) really over?
Back in 2008, I was six years old. Wearing some god-awful outfit that my parents picked out, I went to primary school and learnt how to count. Katy Perry, in comparison, by 2008 had already had a number one song (I Kissed a Girl) and followed this up with Hot n’ Cold which reached the second position that same year. Our lives couldn’t be any more different.
I was never really much of a Katy Perry fan when I was younger. Whilst yes, I found many of her songs catchy and she was by far one of the prettiest pop stars we had at the time (her eyes entranced younger me), her presence in my life felt more like an omnipresent force - not something that I was conscious of but was there. Katy made hits from 2008 to 2014(/17 if you are less picky on what makes a song a hit), and was always in the charts. Her having a big song was something that you could bet on to make an easy buck, like saying whether gravity exists, the sun is hot or if Cher is still around (hint: she’s older than God). But something happened, in 2015 she took a hiatus, and in 2016 came back with a song called ‘Rise’. It was meant to be an anthemic soundtrack for the 2016 Olympics held in Rio, but debuted at 11 in the States and even worse at 25 in the UK, where traditionally she thrived. This faltering in her career was cemented when in 2017, she released ‘Chained to the Rhythm’ which peaked at 4 in the US Hot 100 - her first lead single to not go number 1.
During the witness era she was struck by multiple controversies (accusations of racism with her shoe brand, hate over her appearance, and cultural appropriation), and her later singles couldn’t reach top 40, her downfall was a popular meme with users mocking her dance moves, using drag queens and even sending her death threats on Instagram live. Even three years later in 2020 when she released her fifth studio album ‘Smile’, she was mocked online for “flopping” as it marked her first album to not reach number 1 on the Billboard 200 (debuting at 5).
In 2024, after her highly successful Vegas Residency (which I hate that I wasn’t rich enough to fly over the Atlantic to go see because it looked amazing), she announced her departure from American Idol because she wanted freedom for her new era. KPSex as it was called by her and her fans, was meant to restart Katy’s musical career and her team were clearly expecting it to be the album of the year. As I’m sure all of you know - it was not. Woman’s World was ridiculed with Tweets and TikTok's getting millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes, for its limited lyrics and for its producer, Dr Luke, an old collaborator of Katy’s who back in 2014 was accused by fellow pop singer Kesha of raping her. Katy in the years of that trial did not work with him, but following the end of the trial (that ended up settling outside of court) she got him to work on her 2024 album 143, (or her team, she hasn’t expanded on what led to this collaboration despite her fans begging her to explain why). The album went on to have zero top 50 songs. Going back to her team expecting this to be a hit, they had her booked to win a Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, walk for Vogue in Paris, perform at the 2024 MTV Music Awards, headline Rock in Rio festival and the Australian AFL Grand Final, as well as working with ITV in the UK for a special titled “Katy Perry: A Night of a Lifetime. All of this coinciding with her ultimate 2025 “eras tour” of her own - The Lifetimes Tour.
So can Katy ever reach the highs of Teenage Dream and Prism ever again?
I would have to say yes … potentially.
Now I would not place any sort of money on this bet, but it is clear that Katy has her eyes on regaining her industry respect and place in pop music royalty. I mean she gave up $25 million a season working on American Idol and has proven that she is truly a performing force, with her VMA performance being one of the only moments of reprieve she was granted last year. Her and her team seem to understand that she is one of the best performers and that a tour is a great idea - especially if she’s able to lean on her older hits that the general public still know. Who wouldn’t want to dance to Dark Horse or I Kissed a Girl?
But outside of performing what direction could she take to improve her charting power? Its not impossible for an artist to redirect their career after a stumble, look at Taylor swift who in 2019 hadn’t reached her regular peak with Lover, and decided in the 2020 lockdown to do something different and birthed Folklore. This effectively hijacked her out of entering Khia Asylum (as Twitter fans call it), and put her on the pedestal she’s currently on as the number one artist in the world.
Katy could go back to her roots and pick up the electric guitar and go down the rock route. This was the style of her first Katy Perry album ‘One of the Boys’ (I’m not including her technical first album ‘Katy Hudson’ since her label went bankrupt immediately after she released it, and she wasn’t known as Katy Perry yet), which first showed Katy’s fun and quirky personality to the general public. Although on second thought, Demi Lovato tried this same trick a couple years ago with ‘Holy Fvck’ and could only debut with 33k sales at 7 on the Billboard 200, so maybe not.
Or else Katy could try to continue with this electronic/futuristic niche she’s developing for herself. She’s clearly interested in the effects of technology on the human psyche, reflecting on it back in 2017 on the Witness track ‘Save as Draft’ (and overall themes, using synths and heavy reverb on the other tracks), and her 2022 song ‘When I’m Gone’ with DJ Alesso, which featured Spot, Boston Dynamics’ famous robot-dog and more themes of glitching. Katy became so heavy handed with her interest in technology and how damaging she finds it with various tweets through the years too. Ok so where can she go with this? The general public and Stans clearly don’t engage with this topic, based on the lack of success she’s had when touching on this topic time and time again, most recently on her 143 song ‘Artificial’.
“Why you so, why you so
Why you so, why you so (artificial)?You get me divin' deep in your system
I'm just a prisoner in your prison
You got me hooked on your algorithm
Are you real or (artificial)?
So what's the deal, huh?
Tell me, are you fake or are you real, huh?
How do I connect if I can't feel ya?
Sooner or later, I will reveal ya
Artificial, so what you thinkin'?
Do you put emotions over reason?
Are you gonna love me like a human?
Can you touch me in a simulation?”
Katy Perry ‘Artificial’
In my opinion, I think Katy needs to do something that she has attempted time and time again but has always failed to do - escape bubble gum pop. Katy is one of the greatest at making radio friendly pop music, its unquestionably her biggest talent (other than closing one eye like a doll), but once you’ve reached your peak its worthless to try and attempt it again. How about Katy in the next couple of years makes a couple of changes to her career and see what happens - she can’t really do any worse. Change your label, ditch your team, work with fresh faces in the industry. She’s Katy Perry and evidently no matter what she can earn 40k units minimum per album so why not release projects more frequently than every 4 years? Remix your album like Charli XCX, make a B side like Taylor Swift, or try something completely different, the world is truly her oyster. It’s her time to quit copying trends and experiment with her career, why not? Honey she’s rich!
If you liked this article please consider following my Substack, and I’ve also been toying around with the idea of making a rebranding Katy Perry series; focusing individual articles on her fashion, genre + collaborators, brands, activations etc (essentially fantasy football but with a pop star) so let me know if you would like to see this!
Anyway see you soon :)