Even levitating in space, Katy Perry manages to get dunked on | Lifestyle News

Almost as soon as pop star Katy Perry had returned from a very brief trip to space with a group hosted Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, the derisive comments started.In Slate, Heather Schwedel wrote: “It was one thing to understand intellectually that Katy Perry, Gayle King, and Lauren Sánchez’s much hyped ‘all-female’ trip to space aboard a Blue Origin rocket would in actuality only be an underwhelming 11 minutes long. But it was another to watch it play out over a multihour, breathless livestream that culminated with Perry kissing the Earth like a soldier returning from war and not a multimillionaire returning from the world’s shortest influencer trip.”ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO
Ellen Cushing, writing for The Atlantic, proclaimed Perry to be the “perfect pop star for a dumb stunt.” Various celebrities, like actress Olivia Wilde and model Emily Ratajkowski, criticized Perry and the Blue Origin flight.
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Even the social media X account for Wendy’s came after Perry on Tuesday in a series of posts (among them: “can we send her back”). On its face, this seemed a little strange. Why was a fast-food chain offering sideline snark about a pop star heading into space?
But a decade-plus after songwriter Linda Perry described Katy Perry’s music as microwave popcorn, one could be forgiven for wondering if the posts from Wendy’s were an erstwhile purveyor of empty calories picking a fight with another.
Perry, after all, is the singer who in her 2010 “California Gurls” video, wore a bra made to look like giant cupcakes that ultimately shot out whipped cream. (The point was contained in the lyrics: “we’ll melt your Popsicle.”)
Soon after, Perry released the single “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.),” an anthem about the joy of waking up after a weekend bender.Story continues below this ad
“There’s a stranger in my bed,” she sang. “There’s a pounding in my head. Glitter all over the room. Pink flamingos in the pool.”
Comedian and actor Rob Delaney penned a humor piece for Vice about the song, in which he responded to the lyric “is this a hickey or a bruise” saying: “Hold up! There’s a huge difference,” and asked, “did the aforementioned ‘stranger’ punch you in the neck?”
Perry, for what it’s worth, has often championed other arts over the years. They have often declined to return the favor.
Take, for example, Ron, the Scandinavian high priestess of plaintive dance-pop, who opened for Perry on her 2011 tour promoting “Last Friday Night” and “California Gurls.”Story continues below this ad
When Time Out New York asked Ron whether she was a fan of Perry’s, she laughed and said: “You know what? I have to go now.”
Of course, there is room for arts to age and grow. (Compare, for example, the Beyoncé of Destiny’s Child with the Beyoncé of “Lemonade,” “Renaissance” and “Cowboy Carter.”)
But Perry’s attempts at stretching artically have mostly involved aping the work of other more acclaimed women in music and getting clocked for it.
In his review of Perry’s 2019 song “Never Really Over,” New York Times music critic Jon Caramanica wrote: “A new Billie Eilish song from Katy Perry. A new Norwegianish Spotifycore song from Katy Perry. A new Haim song from Katy Perry. A new Pink song from Katy Perry. A new bubble-pop Taylor Swift song from Katy Perry. A new Mumford & Sons song from Katy Perry. A new Abba song from Katy Perry.”Story continues below this ad
And in fact, “Never Really Over” borrowed so heavily from a 2017 song called “Love You Like That,” Norwegian art Dagny, that Dagny ended up with a writing credit on the song.
Promoting the single at an event in Shanghai, she stood there in her pleated metallic dress in front of a wind machine that turned her giant blond extensions into a moving object. Just as Madonna had stood there for the Brit Awards in 1995 in her pleated silver dress in front of a wind machine that turned her giant blond extensions into a moving object.
In 2024, Perry was back with a new album, “143,” whose title, she said, represented her “angel number.”
The first single was “Woman’s World,” and the video for it featured Perry done up in a red and white bandanna like Rosie the Riveter.Story continues below this ad
Then, the camera panned back and showed her wearing Daisy Dukes and an American flag bikini top that barely concealed her breasts.
The lyrics discussed how she felt: “Sexy, confident, so intelligent.”
To prove the point, Perry pours whiskey into her mouth, letting it spill all over herself.
The song was co-written and co-produced Swedish super-producer Lukasz Gottwald, better known as Dr. Luke, who in 2014 was accused pop singer Kesha of sexual misconduct. Over the next nine years, Kesha and Dr. Luke traded lawsuits before settling their claims out of court.Story continues below this ad
The reviews for “143” were withering. On Metacritic, it has a rating of 37 out of 100, making it the site’s lowest-rated album since 2011 and the worst-reviewed album a woman in the site’s 24-year hory.
Rich Juzwiak, writing for Pitchfork, said the “material here is so devoid of anything dinguishing that it makes one suspicious it’s a troll or cynical attempt for the campy realm of so bad it’s good.”
The Times devoted an entire podcast to the question of whether the album was “really that bad.” (The answer, critic Lindsay Zoladz said, was “complicated.” This still was not exactly a compliment.)
So the sight of Perry levitating inside a phallic rocket as she held onto a daisy — a tribute to her daughter, Daisy, that she said in interviews she chose to bring with her because the flowers are often described as “weeds” because they are really resilient — was perfectly in keeping with the image she had designed for herself.Story continues below this ad
The event was trumpeted as having something vaguely to do with feminism, but in one of the numerous criticisms delivered celebrities after the spaceflight, Wilde summed up the experience succinctly on Instagram, sharing a photo of Perry with the flower along with the message, “Billion dollars bought some good memes, I guess.”