I can still remember how my friends and I used to blast “Roar” and “California Gurls” by Katy Perry when we were younger, acting like professional singers while holding our hairbrushes. It was magic, full of energy and life. When I saw that Katy Perry had recently released a new album, 143, I had similar expectations, hoping for something that could bring me the same type of excitement and nostalgia.
Instead, it was like opening a nicely wrapped box with a bag of unwanted candy. Something awesome was promised, but the execution fell short. Perry’s imagination used to seem like Mary Poppins’s bottomless bag of surprises, but with this album, it’s as if she forgot to pack the glitter.
143 is Perry’s seventh studio album which was released on Sep. 20 through Capitol Records. The album title is supposed to represent the phrase “I love you” and is Perry’s symbolic angel number. She calls this album a “dance-pop” album, and while she worked with some previous collaborations, Dr. Luke and Stargate, she also collaborated with some other artists for the first time. Three singles were released before the rest of the album came out, but they did not gain much popularity, even with one featuring American rapper Doechii.
While the singles had minimal popularity, 143 debuted at number six on the US Billboard 200 (billboard). After this, the album received many negative reviews from music critics, making it the worst-reviewed album of Perry’s career. Some even compared 143 to AI-generated music.
Three months later, Perry released a deluxe edition and titled it 1432, which had four additional tracks. In an effort to support the album, she plans to do a tour called the Lifetimes Tour later in 2025. Safe to say, I will not be attending this tour, nor will many others.
Although there are many songs I would like to talk about, here are a select few that show how this album and its singles did not come together in the way everyone anticipated.
One of the singles that was released prior to the album is called “I’m him, He’s Mine (Feat. Doechii).” I had high expectations for this song, but it undoubtedly did not reach them. The lyrics are repetitive, and Perry is repeating the same phrases over and over, which gets boring very fast, making me want to skip it as soon as it begins, but for the sake of this review, I had to keep listening. Doechii’s verse is pleasant, although it adds nothing to the song. This song is a mess of genres: pop, R&B, and a bit of hip-hop, which don’t mix well together at all.
The ninth track on this album is “Artificial (Feat. JID).” While this song starts out interesting, it gets worse quickly. JID’s rapid-fire lyrics are undeniably impressive, but Perry’s contribution to help the song is drowned in some overly repetitive lines that sound like she just read off of a script made for her. Everything about this song feels artificial; the entire track has a strange energy that doesn’t quite gel.
“Wonder” is one of those songs that tries hard to be deep but ends up failing. I actually enjoyed the beginning, where Perry reminisces on how quickly children lose their innocence and spark when they get older. After the first 30 seconds, the song becomes difficult to listen to, making me wonder what Perry was going for here. The idea behind this song had so much potential, but the repetitive beats and lyrics make it difficult to listen to more than once. This is one of those songs that I want to like but just can’t because of how painful it becomes after listening repeatedly.
Instead of putting her usual creativity into the music, on this album, Perry seems content to dance, look pretty, and act like she’s more into the image than the substance. It’s the musical version of setting a trendy song to an Instagram brand deal video, surface-level and hollow. Perry once ruled as pop’s queen; this one seems to have lost some of that spark or at least not tried hard enough to revive it.
All in all, Perry’s new album ends up being disappointing; this feels like a last-ditch effort to stay relevant and increase her popularity rather than some sort of artistic statement. Listeners who expected the bold, innovative pop that originally launched Perry’s career will find this album to be a disappointing step backward. If you were expecting some kind of reinvention or evolution, then you’re better off looking elsewhere or at least back at some of her older albums that still have the joy, depth, and creativity we were all hoping for in 143.
