I’ve always been a sucker for pop music.

The buoyancy and optimism the pop genre generates never fails to up my mood. Whether it’s the catchy tune or my bias towards the specific artist, I love pop music. However, Katy Perry’s new album somehow contradicts that.   

Katy Perry was once hugely popular; one of her albums, Teenage Dream, for example, immensely blew up just over ten years ago. As a matter of fact, it is still a classic to this day. Knowing her past successes within the pop industry, I was expecting a breakout new album—something that would drop my. jaw. However, Smile, unfortunately, did not serve that justice.

Smile consists of a dozen cheesy tunes that do not satisfy my music taste at all whatsoever. Each song sounds oddly similar to the one before it, containing the same tune and background beats. “Smile” needs to be discussed first. Not the album itself but what song the album is centered around.

The introduction starts off super lively and exciting, yet it progressively worsens. It slowly develops to be extremely repetitive, with abrupt stops in Perry’s voice that don’t add much to the song. The chorus sings “Yeah I’m thankful, scratch that, baby, I’m grateful.” The lyrics are just so mediocre; I was anticipating so much more from Perry knowing her last few albums.

It’s almost like Perry is stuck in her past—stuck in the early 2000s. 

Another song I wasn’t impressed with was “Harleys in Hawaii.” Her album seemed to have a common theme of bliss, smiles, and rainbows, but this song changed the vibe completely. 

“Boy, tell me, can you take my breath away? Cruisin’ down a heart-shaped highway.”

These opening lyrics entirely draw the subject from herself and her feelings to being centered around a boy. Perry wrote and sung many songs about numerous boys in her past albums, therefore I feel it’s time she needs to move on to a more mature subject within her discography.

Although Perry’s album isn’t all bad, she did indeed hit us with a couple catchy and empowering songs: “Never Really Over” and “What Makes a Woman.” 

Perry did release “Never Really Over” quite a while ago, and it has done extremely well on the charts. The repetitiveness is surprisingly catchy, as well as the impressive notes she hits late into the song. 

I honestly love “What Makes a Woman.” It is a song full of girl power. Perry sings enthusiastically about how strong us women are in this day and age, and a song full of women empowerment is just what 2020 needs.

However, two likable songs don’t make up for the rest of the unexecuted ones on the album. To conclude, Smile left me disappointed as I was expecting more from Katy Perry than a mediocre album.