Hey, hi, and hello, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well.

We need to talk about the slow-motion immolation of one of the most popular and successful chart-topping pop stars of all time, Ms. Katy Perry. Since breaking through in the late 2000s, Katy Perry has remained, for quite a while, one of the strongest commercial forces in all of mainstream pop music. And on records like Teenage Dream, as as well as Prism, perform some of the biggest radio pop hits of the 2010s.

It's not just about the music because in many ways, Katy Perry has remained a cultural force for years as well. The Super Bowl performance that everybody has memed to high heaven. I'm setting this up to show that it's been really strange to watch her career suddenly undergo this very sudden and also quiet downturn. It's as if she's just fading away into the background, but considering how big of a place she had in pop music to begin with, that process shouldn't be as quiet and as sad as it's proving to be. Because not only commercially and artistically was her last full-length LP in 2020, Smile, a complete and utter flop.

Also with this upcoming album and everything she has been rolling out in promotion for at 143, she is not projecting much of a comeback from that project. As many many naysayers and even fans of Ms. Perry have pointed out and taken issue with the fact that on this project, she is working with none other than Dr. Luke, who, given allegations that were leveled against him by Kesha, is a pariah in the music industry, in some pockets, in some circles, not all.

Kesha herself took to the internet to have a bit of a laugh at the fact that not only is Katy Perry working with Dr. Luke on this new record, but the first single, the big teaser to get our mouths watering for this album, was titled "Woman's World", which, I mean, the irony, you can't help but laugh.

But really, the true tragedy of this track is just how mediocre and boring it is. It's just this really straightforward bit of somewhat retro-futuristic electropop with throbbing bass synths and vocals that, for Perry, sound so touched up, almost inhuman. Not to mention that the lyrics of the song represent this white, commercialized brand of feminism that is so profoundly pandering that it's disgusting.

The track fell off the charts pretty quickly. Not to mention the promotional art that has been teasing toward the record, as well as one single cover art piece that looked like she was ripping off Arca. None of it looks good.

Now, maybe in hopes of actually salvaging things on some level, Katy Perry has seen fit to release another single, another teaser to this next album. That would be the song "Lifetimes". I don't know. I just don't see how it could possibly be worse than "Woman's World". I mean, fingers crossed that it's a bit better just for my sake because I've got to listen to it. But with one disappointment and L after the next in the promotion of this new album, Katy Perry really needs something that is going to pull anticipation for this record up a little bit.

Katy Perry, Lifetimes. Let's see what it's got.

Jesus, what? Are you kidding me? What is this? This just sounds so plain and dated. Why is Katy Perry even going out of her way to work with someone like Dr. Luke or anybody involved in this track? Because miraculously, there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 different people involved in the creation of this song that are credited on Apple Music.

I mean, this sounds like something one person could have made in an afternoon. This takes eight people> The tune is basic. The lyrics are uninspired. "You're going to love me for lifetimes." Oh, in whatever time period or dimension that we're both inhabiting. "I know you feel it / Can you believe it? / I'm going to love you till the end / And then repeat it."

To be completely honest, as obnoxious and as just self-centered, a lot of the content on the Tortured Poets Department was earlier this year. It was deeper and more personal than what Katy Perry is doing right now on this.

While Katy's music doesn't necessarily have a big reputation for being very revealing or super duper introspective, I feel like we could be scratching down to a depth that's just a little bit deeper than "I'm going to love you for life, for life, for life, for life, for life, for life", which, of course, is being delivered by vocals that once more are so touched up and so pitched and so airbrush that it doesn't even really sound like Katy Perry's voice. Really anybody could be singing this with these effects on the track.

Then on top of that, the production is just about the most plain flavorless piece of house and dance-pop that I think I've heard all year. I don't know if I could say this track is worse than "Woman's World" per se, because, again, the pandering on that song really did suck and make it horribly annoying. But this song is no more interesting than that one was, or it's hitting a similar level of just painfully basic that makes it really just borderline offensive.

What's shocking and a shame is that you have to assume on some these tracks, Katy and her team, are really trying to put their best feet forward in the promotion of this album. If this is potentially the best of what the record has to offer, imagine what the rest of it must sound like. Like, the thing somehow get more basic and one-dimensional and formulaic than this? Because if so, this album is going to be a bit of a shock. Those are my thoughts on this song and the weird sudden spiral of Katy Perry's career that we're currently witnessing.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, I don't really know if we can attribute it to anything more than Katy Perry is just really unable at this point to stop dropping mid. 143 is mid. Smile was painfully mid. And Witness, while it did have its experimental moments here and there, was mostly a mixed bag. Unfortunately, unless this song lands on some dressing room playlists real fast, I'm not seeing it garnering a whole of plays over the next week. And I think I'm going to leave it there.

Let me know your thoughts on "Lifetimes", if you've even bothered to hear it, in the comments. I'm sure you will. "Woman's World" as well, if you have an opinion on that and the direction Katy Perry has been going in lately downward.

Anthony Fantano, Lifetimes, Forever.