Smile- Smile or Perry will kill you, empowerment pop never tried so hard yet felt so cold.

Music Review- Katy Perry- Smile (2020)

Starting with its best two tracks and then nose-diving from there, Smile is not the return to greatness I and Ms Perry wished it to be. After a tumultuous couple of years, Katy Perry was meant to come back and reassert her dominance in the pop world by reminding us why we love her: glossy pop hooks that get stuck in your head and brighten up your day. She forgot this on Witness as the heavy production drowned any hope in drabness and focussed on the mundane. Here Perry does improve by bringing the brightness back to her lyrics and production, but her perfect Perry pop lacks any distinct flavour that it feels like a blend up of everything a Katy Perry hater would label a Perry album: bland, uninspired, vague pop tracks that wont be remembered in a couple months.

With a narrative that seems to follow Perry getting over a break up, the album follows up Never really over's twinged sadness with empowerment anthem after empowerment anthem to get her over her break up. But, Perry is often trying too hard with her lyrics and delivery as the constant empowerment anthem feels like she is holding a gun to the listener's head and demanding them to 'smile or I will kill you'. It just feels uninspired, forced and repetitive after the first two tracks.

2020 is a year where pop cliché just doesn't cut it: suffering is all around us and hollow advice like 'live, laugh, love' and 'cry about it later' don't give the relief that they might have when life was a bit more rosy. Though Taylor Swift and Katy Perry's 'feud' is over, comparing their approaches to music in 2020 offers a more in-depth understanding of why one works and the other doesn't. Smile is poptastic with a veneer of depth that offers vague capture-all lyrics that give you little to analyse or think about, it is made for radio listening on the way to work or while you are shopping; whereas, Swift's folklore forces you to listen to the lyrics and explores a new fictional world as the specific nuances adds something if you are willing to find it. Both are good in their own right, but in 2020 audiences want their music to fill their time and give them something to think about in order to escape the suffering of the world not just give them hollow advice of 'it'll be okay' because it doesn't feel like it will. This album would have hit better in a year where repeating "guess it's never really over" over and over is less haunting and real.

That is the thing, this is not a bad album. It is fun Perry pop that is inoffensive and fun as long as you don't think about it. It just needed to be a lot more than okay, if we ever needed a bright pop album it is now.

Album Review: 5

Track By Track Breakdown:

Never really over- Released a year before the album without actually being tied to an album, Never really over is the only track from Smile to crack the UK top 40. It is the kind of gooey summer pop that is bright and fun yet not cringe-worthy; it has a carefree attitude which is severely lacking from Perry's latest work where she has been too try-hard and desperate for a hit. Never really over is perfect to play loud and try your best to sing along to the chorus. However, the speed of Perry's delivery on the chorus can feel like a hammering on the head with words if played on repeat (the reason why it was never going to be a radio hit). Though, every now and then it is the perfect sweet pop treat that captures everything 2020 Katy Perry should be. Working as a song about not being able to get over a boy and commentary that Perry will bounce back from any 'flop' era, the catchy hook stays with you adding further message to both narratives. (7)

Cry about it later- Easily the best slice of pop on the album, the track encapsulates Perry and pop perfection. She wants to put off all her problems and just dance in the club, exactly what good pop should be. With a guitar ripped from some of the good tracks from Witness, Perry manages to make a pop song with some teeth that isn't weighed down by a heavy drab production (e.g. Witness). Even the wohoos in the background sound like they are from a different Witness track. It is vague, repetitive, uninspired and mindless, but it is fun and catchy so who the fuck cares. It is her best chance at a hit on the album as it has slight similarities to T.G.I.F.. The production is gooey and dramatic, and Perry's vocals are sultry af that you just get lost in the song and put little thought into anything else, the sign of a good pop song. (7)

Teary eyes- A sister track to Cry about it later with exactly the same message and similarly Witness inspired production. The disco twinged swurls over the chorus do make you want to dance, and are one of the only redeeming features. Before the first minute of the song, you have heard everything this track has to offer as it just goes through a repetitive spiral from there and doesn't lead to anywhere. Again, it is unimaginative and repetitive that is too safe to be memorable. Surely alarm bells should have rung for Ms Perry that the previous song is basically the same but does it better as we are up to track three and it already feels like she is out of ideas and things to say. (4)

Daisies- The not so lead lead single of the album. Perry attempts to reframe her image by capitalising on her American Idol success and using mature pop to capture the middle aged audience. And, it works. Maybe more muted than one would hope, but this is an euphoric Katy Perry empowerment anthem that would be home on one of her better albums such as Prism. Yes the lyrics are basic and the 'never change' mantra is problematic (we are always growing, falling and learning and that is beautiful), but the chorus is hopeful and impactful as she screams "daisies, daisies, daisies". Now with added revenace as Perry has named her newly-born daughter Daisy, the song takes on a new joy for the future filled with hope and strength, and this year we need songs like Daisies. (7)

Resilient- Pop songs are not meant to have ground breaking metaphors that change the worlds views on a subject, but it should at least try; resilient has Perry screaming "I am resilient, born to be brilliant" over and over and it's like could she not think of any other way to phrase it than the most basic, unimaginative and unnuanced way. Perry is better than this. Where are her beautiful metaphors and ideas from Wide awake, roar, part of me or firework which actually add something to the empowerment anthem model of basic pop. This feels recycled and stripped back to the most safe and uninspired way. The tiesto remix released months later than the album adds some edge and some interesting beats that elevate the track, but here it is the worst kind of Perry song. (2)

Not the end of the world- With lyrics that many people in the year 2020 need to be reminded of, Not the end of the world demands the listener must not lose hope no matter what happens. Another empowerment anthem about carrying on in the face of adversary, the fifth song in a row with presumably more to come, Perry is leaning in on the basic bitch empowerment anthem stereotype she has given herself. The imaginative inclusion of the football chant "NaNaNaNa" gives the song a sport-like feel to it as if the listener is waiting on the bench ready to be called on to stop the team from losing. However, it also makes it a tad cringe worthy especially with how dramatic the lyrics and production are: you can imagine the music video with all the rain and lightening thrashing about as Perry rises, is is just so overdramatic. (4)

Smile- The type of song that is cute once but cringe and irritating if left on repeat. The title track notes how Perry lost her smile but has had to work to get it back, presumably relating to how the world turned on her after Witness. Smile gets points for not sounding like any other song on the album as it has got a unique production even if the lyrics are similar to the six songs gone before it. It is a fun boppy pop track that does what it says on the tin and makes you smile, but its over joyous energy can be overbearing and too much in your face after a while. It perfectly captures the clown metaphor that she's presenting the album with as the over-the-top happiness (for cynics like me) suggests it is fake and painted on, yet Perry never wants to explore that. (5)

Champagne problems- Perry describes the euphoria of getting to the point in a relationship where the problems are so tiny that they don't matter as she is happy. After all the 'smile or I kill you' empowerment anthems, it is good for a change of lyrical pace. But, other than that, the track is non-descript as has nothing else to offer. Perry's problems are so minute that she doesn't care about them, and that results in a song that has little to care about. The production is cute, but sounds like everything we've heard before. Perry's vocals add nothing to come back for that cannot be found on a different track. It is just a solid meh that could have been better if it were not so risk averse. (3)

Tucked- A summer bop filled with playful lyrics of being able to indulge in flirtatious thoughts without having any consequences. The production is bright and airy and it calls for a cute summer vibed video. But, on multiple listens the transition form verse to chorus is irritating as the Nanana leans on dull and uninspired rather than fun. The lyrics just need a dash of colour rather than the blandness that is "I could do this, I could do that" which leaves you wanting more substance and screaming for Perry to "at least do something" rather than teasing us with what she could do. The production has a nice groove with enough trumpets and synths to give it a full energy, but it is thin enough that it sounds like every other summer song ever. (3)

Harleys in Hawaii- One of the tracks released before the album, that was presumed to face the chop like Charlie Puth's Small Talk, Harleys in Hawaii is Perry leaning in on her sex appeal with this slow and sensual slow burn pop. On first listen, it is a bland coo for attention, but the chorus is an ear worm that will get stuck in your head as you hum while doing your dishes. Admittedly, the song benefits greatly from its many remixes which turn up the heat from the tame album production to the more alive eleven out of ten and gets you moving and grinding. Without the remixes the song would not be as catchy or as enjoyable as it is because it seems to be sexual with the stabilizers on and needs the freedom of a remix to fully let loose. (5)

Only Love- With an opening ripped out of a musical, Only Love is the Perry ballad on the album. Perry lays out that we should all stop over thinking and appreciate everything a little more by calling back our mother and writing a letter to our father because if we had only one day to live then that would be what we would do. The sentiment is cute, it just feels a little over simplified as a discussion of over thinking and mental health- especially in the time of covid- that it doesn't come across as helpful as it intends to be. It is like a friend going "oh you've got nothing to be sad for cus you've got a nice family and people that love you" and you just sit there like "well thank you Katy you've solved my depression". It is cliché pop that is inoffensive and pleasant and probably one of the best productions on the album because of its distinct stripped back sound, but it never moves past from being nice when it is aiming for helpful and supportive. (5)

What makes a woman- Perry travels through a list of cliché's of what makes a woman and concludes that there is no definition you could come to, other than that women keep the world turning in a pair of heels. It is aiming for cute empowerment anthem for mothers and daughters to expel any limitations on the gender, but in a way Perry doesn't do anything to dispel the clichés even though that is presumably her intentions. Again, it is a gesture to a theme that is too vague to make it interesting. The pulsing production keeps the tension as Perry moves along the list like a recipe leading to the exciting conclusion, but the conclusion isn't very exciting and makes a rather meh feeling to end on ''is that it'': this is no gender theory or even a single gesture to an interesting statement about femininity or life as a woman in the music industry. Again, it is just a pleasant inoffensive track on this rather bland album. (5)