Katy Perry has struggled commercially for a long time. Perhaps her songs are simply not good enough, and that's fair. That doesn't make her a bad person, though, nor a reason to proverbially kick her when she is down.
A recent article by Scaachi Koul of Slate does just that, however. Perry is, to be fair, low-hanging fruit. She was once a highly successful artist who has stumbled for the last decade. Her most recent album, 143, has not done well, as have none of the albums she has released since 2013's Prism.
Again, though, that does not make her a human worthy of criticism. Ultimately, if she fails, she is the one who suffers, not the music-listening public.
Music journalist kicks Katy Perry while she is down
Koul points out several things in her article. One is that the restaurant chain, Wendy's, has mocked Perry on X/Twitter. OK, fine. Wendy's Twitter handle does that with lots of different personalities. That's part of the joke.
Koul also points out that she saw Perry on her most recent tour in Oklahoma City. During the show, the singer invited an 11-year-old onstage, and Perry gave the child a shoe that appeared to have been cotton candy. Koul was not clear on this point.
What was very unclear was what Koul found wrong with the situation. A performer asking a child to come up on stage? That happens all the time. That the shoe might have been a gag that was a confection? That is slightly weird, but not that strange.
Without breaking the paragraph into two, Koul then goes on at length about Perry having a fan-choice part of the show, only the QR code that appeared on the screen on the stage seemingly did not work. Perry asked fans if they voted, and many appeared to respond that they hadn't, and Perry said the WiFi must have been the issue.
The comment by Koul seemed like an attempt to make Perry look dumb, but Perry isn't stupid. Glitches also happen in concerts.
Oddly, Koul comes across as sexist, though she is herself female. She says the "over-40 pop star is a relatively new advancement..." (which is false), but what she means is over-40 women, because that is all she mentions in the paragraph referring to the issue.
She also writes, "What set 2010 Perry apart wasn’t her big blue eyes or her breasts or her voice, though they were all helpful in launching her into the stratosphere." Two-thirds of that was about Perry's looks. Weird. Maybe her songs were pretty good, too.
Koul adds, "Her support of Kamala Harris’ girlboss political campaign (and Hillary Clinton’s too) felt desultory as a result (of her working with a music producer who had been accused of sexual assault)", while also adding later, "She wasn’t going full #GirlBoss, nor was she burning her bras and demanding equal pay. Not full bimbo, and not quite an intellectual, Perry occupied a complex third position of a guy’s girl and a girl’s girl."
So, is "girlboss" a good thing or a bad thing to Koul? If it's a bad thing, she implies she doesn't like Perry, nor does she care for Kamala Harris. Odd.
Why all the hate toward Perry, though? Her career is currently digressing. That doesn't make her a bad human being. Koul would have you believe otherwise.