Katy Perry's comeback album 143 has been a complete mess. How did this happen?

"Tone-deaf." "Like its author had to have feminism explained to her by the top half of the first page of Google." "Made me feel stupider every sorry time I listened to it." "Stuck in 2016."

These are just some of the reviews for Katy Perry's comeback single 'Woman's World', which led to a disastrous rollout of the pop star's sixth album, 143, out on Friday.

Perhaps more damning than the reviews was the discourse within the Katy Kats (the pop star's devoted fan group) when a song snippet leaked pre-release. Some were sure it was an AI-generated fake, if not a complete troll ahead of a real comeback single.

Its music video - a parody of girlboss feminism that sees Perry and female dancers wear decidedly non-OHS outfits on a construction site, among other confounding scenes - only alienated audiences further, unsure whether the song was intended as a sincere feminist anthem, a piss-take or both at once.

In July, 'Woman's World' became Perry's worst-performing single release from an album in her 16-year career, debuting at #63 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and at #47 in the UK before dropping off both charts entirely the next week.

In Australia - early adopters of Perry, in no small part due to her single 'Hot n Cold' being MasterChef Australia's theme song for more than a decade - the song did not appear on the ARIAs charts at all.

Add in follow-up single 'Lifetimes' failing to chart, anger over Perry's choice of producer, early tepid album reviews and a mini-ecological scandal with the Balearic Islands, and 143 has been a masterclass in how to not launch an album in 2024.

But can Katy Perry - whose album Teenage Dream provided five #1 US singles, a feat only matched by Michael Jackson's Bad - turn it around? Or does 2024's pop landscape have no room for the queen of kitsch?

1-142: A refresher on Katy Perry

To understand how Perry got here, let's look back at how she became one of the highest-selling artists of all time.

Raised by Pentecostal preacher parents in California, Perry began her music career as a Christian artist. In 2001 at 16-years-old, she released a self-titled album under her legal name, Katy Hudson, which sold less than 200 copies.

Hudson resurfaced as Perry in 2008 with 'I Kissed A Girl', a pointedly un-Pentecostal debut single that landed at #1 in more than 20 countries, including the US and Australia. Tinged with the lightest touch of pop-punk, Perry's debut album, One of the Boys, established her as an unfussy fun time during a period when pop stars were more tightly wound.

But it is Teenage Dream that is considered Perry's magnum opus, filled with cotton-candy pop, anthems about fun in the sun ('California Gurls'), living for the weekend ('T.G.I.F') and embracing your inner spark ('Firework'). It is timeless in that it has spent 390 weeks - or seven-and-a-half-years - in the US Billboard 200 charts.

"This is not an artist who had a one-hit wonder or had one album that popped off and then she was not able to repeat it," says Sam Murphy, an Australian pop music critic who has written extensively about Perry (and considers himself a huge fan).

"She did it three albums in a row," referring to the back-to-back hits of One of The Boys, Teenage Dream and Prism (2013).

If you need proof of her prowess, look no further than last week's VMAs performance, where she performed a medley of hits to accept the Video Vanguard Award.

Tides shifted with Witness (2017), which Perry billed as a turn to "purposeful pop".While Perry changed her Twitter bio to include the word "activist", it was unclear what Migos collaboration 'Bon Appetit' or a Taylor Swift diss track were activating.

"Witness got so much heat for being a flop because the height she fell from was so high," says Murphy. "But in the context of any other pop star, it wouldn't have been that much of a disaster."

But 143 is shaping up to be worse on another level.

"This new album is already a proper flop. What I find interesting is that there's a lot of attention around her, but none of it is translating to streams. Not even, 'I want to see if it's really that bad' streams. There's just no chart love for her."

It's a Woman's World, but is it Katy Perry's?

Katy Perry has insisted that the cringey 'Woman's World' single (and its even cringier music video) was satire.

But Grace Sharkey, a lecturer in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney, says that satire was "clunky and weak", out of sync with our current moment.

"It was clearly meant to be an exciting pop culture moment," she says. "One that would capitalise on our popular investment in feminist politics, but people are increasingly resistant to what they perceive as the commodification of feminist politics.

"I also think part of the negative response to Woman's World is because it is simply bad."

For critics and fans alike, the single's satirical feminist messaging was made more flaccid by the news that one of its six co-writers and four co-producers was Dr Luke.

Real name Lukasz Gottwald, Dr Luke was accused in 2014 by pop star Kesha, in a dismissed claim, of sexual assault and emotional abuse - allegations he denies. The two reached a settlement in 2023, after almost a decade of suits and countersuits.

He is also the producer behind Perry's first three and most successful albums, as well as #1 hits for Rihanna, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Doja Cat, among others. But after lukewarm commercial and critical reception to Witness and Smile (2020), the duo aimed to recreate past magic on 143, which credits Gottwald on every track.

When asked about Gottwald during an interview on popular podcast Call Her Daddy, Perry dodged the question, avoiding mentioning his name entirely.

"I understand that it started a lot of conversations, and he was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with. But the reality is, it comes from me," says Perry.

"When I speak about 'Woman's World', I speak about feeling so empowered now, as a mother, as a woman, giving birth, creating life, creating another set of organs. A brain! A heart! I created a whole-ass heart! And I did it, and I'm still doing it. I'm still a matriarch and feeling really grounded in that, that's where I'm speaking from. So I created all of this with several different collaborators, people that I've collaborated with from the past."

Round Two: Lifetimes

Thankfully for major labels, misguided first singles do not spell the end for a pop album.

'ME!', the lead single from Taylor Swift's 2019 album Lover, is accepted by even the most ardent Swifties as a strange choice. Ariana Grande's 'Focus' was scrapped entirely from 2016's Dangerous Woman when it did not connect as intended. The Weeknd's 'Beauty Behind The Madness' and Rihanna's 'Rated R' both landed #1 hits after so-so lead singles. (It happens often enough that perhaps there's a strategy, albeit confusing, with releasing a controversial or weak release to generate press, followed by more conventional hits that people can root for?)

But in all of these instances, the artist climbed the charts with each subsequent release. Arriving less than a month after 'Woman's World', 143's second single, 'Lifetimes', is far more palatable, if less interesting. It is a straight dance track and ode to the loves of her life: husband Orlando Bloom and four-year-old daughter Daisy.

"'Lifetimes' was a major course correction," says Murphy. "Here's a dance record that nobody can poke holes in. But it is so generic that it's sucked any kind of Katy Perry personality from it. 'Lifetimes' is a Rita Ora song, essentially."

That's not to say 'Lifetimes' sidestepped controversies entirely. Shot on S'Espalmador, a picturesque Spanish island near Ibiza, the video sees Perry rave, rest and love. After the video went live, the government of the Balearic Islands stated that Perry was being investigated for potential damage to "ecologically important sand dunes", and did not seek authorisation for shooting.

It is enough to believe that Perry is cursed by a nun. Almost.

Where to from here?

'Lifetimes' is far more representative of 143 than 'Woman's World' was. Its 11 tracks make up an album that largely forgets about Perry as a kitsch figure, in favour of respectable, digestible, house-tinged pop that can steadily generate streams via gym and cafe playlists. (Having said that, that wink-wink usually comes through clearest in music videos and live performances.)

'Highlights are Gorgeous' featuring Kim Petras , even if its naughty flirtation with SOPHIE-like mechanical sounds is more PG than PC Music, and Crush, which is clearly the next single, even if it does not quite go far enough with its manic Europop beat.

Nothing here is exactly an inspired choice, but it is safe, and dance-pop is traditionally a reliable route for pop stars past their imperial phase, where their commercial and creative peak coincide. (Kylie's 'Padam Padam' is the most recent example, but Lady Gaga, Madonna, Cher and plenty more have gone down this route).

"I think that there's a very obvious play to go into the dance space because of the moment that dance had off the back of Dua Lipa's 'Future Nostalgia'," says Murphy. "But she's a bit late to that trend."

"To me, it's like she's written on a whiteboard everything that's worked for other artists over the past four years, and has tried to tie a thread between it."

It is understandable for two reasons. First, Perry, 39, would be freshly aware of the ageism within an industry that prioritises youth (not to suggest 39 is old by any regular metric). Secondly, Perry's bread and butter of maximalist, candy-cotton pop rarely breaks charts in the 2020s, due to an (arguably Swift-led) move towards diaristic, confessional pop or "lore".

Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter's recent success suggest this could be turning around, but they both turn away from the gaudiness of, say, Left Shark, or leaning so heavily into a joke like with 'Woman's World', or as Perry did in 2007 with 'Ur So Gay'. (Both artists also balance that pure pop edge by pulling from their own experiences more directly than Perry ever has, with songs about queer identity and famous exes, respectively.) By the reaction to Perry's latest satire, maybe her brand of kitsch is simply too "cringe" in 2024.

Murphy foresees tours in her future, potentially taking a version of her 2022 Las Vegas residency out on the road as a way to "restore good faith".

As for the immediate future? She arrives in Melbourne next week to play the AFL grand final, transforming the half-time show into pop perfection. We hope she plays 'Hot n Cold'.

Katy Perry's 143 is out now.

- ABC