Katy Perry’s last album, Witness, was an undisputed flop, rife with weird, vague social messages and a gimmicky live-stream of her life to promote it. If you think I’m being cruel, Perry herself admitted it didn’t meet her expectations. “That was the first time, in a long time, that I didn’t get my way,” she told Glamour in 2018. But Perry, who has had great pop hits in her before (Teenage Dream is a classic, like I even need to say this, and I’d give anything for her to make another “Hot N Cold”) is crawling back to music.
On Friday, she released her new song “Never Really Over,” complete with a music video that looks like it takes place at the sort of hippie, self-help retreat Don Draper might find himself at in his darkest moments. Surprisingly, I’m getting serious Haim vibes from the song’s melody, with its words-all-running-together chorus, and the production would find itself at home on Carly Rae Jepsen’s Dedicated. It’s new for Katy, for sure, but will it be a hit?