Katy Perry is a famous American pop singer, born in Santa Barbara California. She has been known for having summer hits and always being on top of the charts. She started at age 15 when she made a gospel record and since then kept on progressing in her music. Her career blasted off with "I kissed a girl" which made her be known all across America and the world, and it may have also cause controversial due to the LGBT theme within the song. She then started working hard and giving us hits like "Teenage Dream," "California Gurls," "Firework," "Roar," and "Dark Horse."
Her fourth and most recent album studio was released in July 2017 and was titled "Witness." This new era started with the controversial song "Chained to the rhythm." We say it's controversial because it had political views and other media influences. She made that very clear with her lyrical content and also her music video. In the video, we can see an amusement park called "Oblivia."
This amusement park contained many political and American historical references such as the time when a grand part of the United States had an economic decline and the housing market crashed. She shows a ride called “the American dream drop" which references that incident.
The next references are crucial, such as her showing the impact social media has on people and how we really aren't aware of what's going on in the world.
She also shows how there is still so much inequality when it comes to gender. She shows how men are given more validation than women
She gives small hints on the wall that our president Donald J. Trump wants to build to keep immigrants from entering the country. In the video, you can see people being tossed out of the amusement park and they go past a white picket fence that says "safe trip home"
Katy Perry came up with a very smart and creative way to give a sense of what is going on in the world and how people are being oblivious to the whole situation.
Katy Perry's witness album is her exploration through life and growing out, becoming a new and better person. Although she gave controversy with her first single, that is not what the whole album is about. In her next single of this era she talks about sexual harassment and sexual exploitation against women in her video "Bon appetit," although the song contains sexy and sexual lyrics, it's really about how women are viewed from the perspective of society and men.
Her following songs on the album are about her personal life, in her song "hey hey hey" and “power" she references the idea of not needing a man to be successful or be valued as a person and a woman. For "save as draft" and "miss you more" she talks about the heartbreaks she has had in her love life. And songs like "witness," "pendulum" and "into me you see" are songs about empowerment and finding yourself so you can seek happiness and self-love. The whole concept of this album is amazing. Not many artists take the risks to talk about issues that are so important.
And I guess this is why "Witness" was not successful at all. The reason is that people expected Katy Perry to be the typical mainstream artist that only makes hit songs and jams. Katy Perry was tired of that and wanted to show her true self with this era and she deserves a well round of applause for demonstrating that she is so much more than just a hit song.
