Review of Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World”: A hackneyed remake

Photo: Katy Perry via YouTube

When a major pop star needs a hit, they usually know who to call first. For Britney Spears and Ariana Grande, it’s Max Martin; for Justin Timberlake, it’s Timbaland; for Taylor Swift, it’s Jack Antonoff. For Katy Perry, unfortunately, it’s Dr. Luke. Since they partnered in 2007, Lukasz Gottwald has co-produced eight of Perry’s nine No. 1 songs. No one has been more crucial to Perry’s pop success than Luke, and no artist has shaped Luke’s popularity more than Perry.

And this year, Perry needed a hit. She hadn’t reached the top ten since “Chained to the Rhythm,” the opener to her confusing 2017 album. witness. Coincidentally, this was her first project without Luke, who was accused of sexual assault by Kesha in 2014 and had been hiding in the industry ever since. Other past collaborators like P!nk and Kelly Clarkson have moved on from him, but Perry never has. 2024 was starting to feel like a comeback year, as Perry was leaving her role. American Idol and hopes to make amends for their lukewarm performance in the 2020s Smile. So, regardless of the accusations, she needed her big gun to produce a new single and rekindle some of their electrifying connection. Too bad the song “Woman’s World” sounds like the most stale kind of rehash.

It is technically solid, even robust. The beat itself is a textbook example of dance-pop, little more than a gurgling bass and a thumping drum – a track that can make it into the club but will never be a highlight of the evening. (Perry’s goal sounds like Confessions-era Madonna, but the sound is so watered down that fans immediately compared it to Lady Gaga’s 2020 single “Stupid Love” instead.) Perry reminds us of her vocal talent without oversinging. Sonically, the chorus even has a lot to offer, with one of those powerful top melodies Perry used to reliably deliver.

But an anthem needs a message, too, and “Woman’s World” doesn’t have one. The song is caught up in a vague feminist empowerment that might have worked in 2014 but isn’t enough in 2024. The verses are a barrage of superlatives that don’t amount to much: “Sexy, confident / So intelligent / She’s a godsend / So gentle, so strong.” No, that’s not cheesy, it’s just obvious – even more so in the video, where Perry shows that women can actually may work in construction and also drink whiskey. Pop fans can hear more compelling interpretations of femininity from Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan and Ariana Grande this summer, so why settle for Perry reminding us, Baby, women are not going away? And that’s all without considering Luke’s presence on “Woman’s World,” which negates the song’s entire message. It takes a certain level of cognitive dissonance to sing about strength and sisterhood over a beat co-produced by an alleged rapist. (When Luke and Kesha settled his defamation lawsuit in 2023, he continued to deny any wrongdoing. Perry’s lawyers once accused Kesha of telling “egregious lies” about Luke in the case.) As a project, the song has empowered more men than women: Perry’s writing team included four men in total, plus Chloe Angelides, a writer who is published by Luke’s Prescription Songs.

In many ways, “Woman’s World” is similar to “Roar,” the last lead single Luke produced for Perry in 2013. Even then, she had something to prove, after the resounding success of Teenage dream in the early 2010s, and she proved it with another vague, confident anthem with another powerful, catchy chorus. And it worked too – “Roar” reached No. 1 and launched her fourth album prism set up for success and now has over a billion streams on Spotify. Appointing Luke to the job of “Woman’s World” may be indefensible, but it’s at least understandable – he’s had several hits since his comeback earlier this decade, including two No. 1s. But most of these new songs sounded sluggish, lacking the energy and vibrancy that characterized his early work with Perry. “Woman’s World,” a song that’s completely hollow beneath its barely strong enough bones, is no different. Perry is trying to return to a world that simply no longer exists.