For a measure of how well things have been going for Katy Perry as she prepares to release her seventh album, a headline in New York Magazine’s the Cut this week said it all: “Finally, Some Good News for Katy Perry” – namely MTV’s announcement that the 39-year-old pop star will receive the lifetime achievement Video Vanguard award at its Video Music Awards on 11 September, and perform a medley of her greatest hits.
Presumably that won’t include either of the advance singles from her new record, 143. Released in July, lead track Woman’s World garnered universal pans, including a one-star review from the Guardian, for what critics perceived as its outdated girlboss-feminist messaging and a video that Perry claimed satirised the male gaze – but seemed to many viewers to directly perpetuate it. It peaked at No 47 in the UK and No 63 in the US – an ignominious outcome for a pop star who once tied Michael Jackson’s record for sending five songs from a single album, 2010’s Teenage Dream, to No 1.
