Katy Perry - Smile ALBUM REVIEW

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Katy Perry has been stuck in a rut as of late. Once the biggest pop star ever, Katy Perry’s career has sort of died down within the past few years, mainly because of the lukewarm reception her last album Witness. Sure, Witness has its supporters, but nearly all critics and even some of her fans largely considered it to be a massive disappointment. It just seemed like Katy’s music hasn’t been too hot since Prism and Teenage Dream. Now, after taking a break and being a judge on American Idol, she’s back with her fifth studio album, Smile. I enjoyed the lead single from this, “Never Really Over,” quite a bit, so I figured that I should give this a listen. Let’s get into Smile and see if it lives up to the hype.

Smile is a pop album with electronic, synth-pop, reggae, and disco influences. Now, this album has gotten a mild response from critics for playing it way too safe, and I agree with that to an extent. I feel like this album is very… boring. There’s not a lot of things to say about Smile because after “Never Really Over,” it takes a whole left turn and just turns to generic synth-pop. One more thing I could say is that Katy isn’t reinventing herself. So many artists that blew up in the late 2000s like Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus or Lady Gaga have reinvented themselves as of late. Taylor Swift took an indie route on folklore to much success and acclaim, Lady Gaga returned to her old tricks on Chromatica, and Miley Cyrus has been constantly jumping from different sounds to see what she likes most, making her more of a versatile artist than she gets credit for. Smile isn’t a reinvention, yet the lead single was. It was quite confusing to me, and it also shows off how bland this album is.

As much as I hate to admit it, Smile is one of the biggest disappointments of 2020. Smile feels like a step back for Katy Perry’s career while her peers are innovating and changing up the game to stay relevant. While Katy will most definitely stay relevant because of her devoted fanbase, Smile is the case of a pop superstar stuck in a loop. I hope that she takes a few years off to help her family then come back and to the studio deliver a better album than this because Smile wasn’t worth the wait at all.


3/10


Stream Smile here

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