katy perry - prism

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