Review of Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World”: Even worse than feared

• Katy Perry released “Woman’s World” on Thursday as the first single from her new album “143”.
• The song is a mindless attempt at female empowerment and was co-written and co-produced by Dr. Luke.
• Dr. Luke has been accused of sexual abuse, which makes “Woman’s World” ironic in every way.

This week, Katy Perry announced her new album “143” with an ominous promise: “Sleep tight, because tomorrow the portal opens.”

When I listen to the album’s first single, “Woman’s World,” I have to assume that it is a portal to the past.

“Woman’s World,” released Thursday, can only be read as a desperate attempt to recapture the magic of Perry’s pop dominance in the 2010s – those bygone days when the girlboss mentality reigned supreme and it was considered radical to say women could do anything men can do, and we’ll do it in high heels!

In the music video for “Woman’s World,” Perry’s imagery is clearly intended to be ironic. She portrays herself as a hypersexualized version of Rosie the Riveter, running around in a star-studded bikini before being crushed by an anvil.

She is later revived as a sexy half-cyborg, wielding an influencer’s ring light as a symbol of Venus and driving a monster truck with a rhinestone-studded uterus hanging from its bumper.

Perry’s indiscreet attempts at satiricalness are at odds with the actual lyrics of the song. Satire only works when it has something to say, and there’s not the slightest hint of complexity, self-awareness, or cultural analysis in lyrics like “She’s a flower, she’s a thorn / Superhuman, No. 1 / She’s a sister, she’s a mother.”

The Venus symbol and the glittering womb don’t seem subversive in this context; they fit perfectly with Perry’s gender essentialist imagery. The whole song is like that: flat and ingratiating without any material goal, even more mindless than the first teasers suggested.

It’s been four years since Perry concluded her last album, “Smile,” with an almost identical sentiment: “Is it the way we / Keep the whole world going / In high heels? / Yeah, that’s what makes a woman.”

A lot has changed since then, but apparently not for Perry. Somehow she still believes that listing a list of random adjectives and arbitrarily associating stilettos with strength is the epitome of feminism.

Perry commissioned Dr. Luke and his team to write this alleged feminist anthem

In fact, one thing is different. Five people are credited as songwriters for “What Makes a Woman,” but none of them overlap with the six writers credited for “Woman’s World.” It took six people to come up with the rhyme “feminine divine” for “born to shine” – and as you may have heard, one of them is Dr. Luke.

Perry has worked with Dr. Luke many times. He was instrumental in the success of Perry’s “Teenage Dream” and “Prism” eras. However, Perry had not worked with Dr. Luke since 2014, when he was sued by Kesha for emotional and sexual abuse.

Kesha’s civil suit details a decade of life-threatening eating disorders and psychological torture at the hands of Dr. Luke, the man who discovered her as a teenager. It includes allegations that he drugged and raped her. Dr. Luke has denied all of these.

Dr. Luke was never convicted in court. His lawyers fought Kesha’s civil suit on a technicality, and it was dismissed in 2018 because the statute of limitations had expired, not because her claims were deemed without merit.

Even when Dr. Luke sued Kesha for defamation, the case never went to trial. Instead, the parties agreed to an undisclosed settlement last year.

Only one year after the end of the legal battle involving Dr. Luke, he was welcomed back into Perry’s circle.

Perry is certainly not the only artist to have worked with the disgraced pop producer since Kesha’s allegations rocked the industry. His name (and his various pseudonyms, including Tyson Trax and Loctor Duke) can be found scattered throughout the credits of Doja Cat’s Grammy-nominated album “Planet Her,” Nicki Minaj’s “Pink Friday 2” and Kim Petras’ entire catalog.

In fact, Dr. Luke has quietly made a comeback in recent years, earning Grammy nominations for his work on signature Doja tracks like “Say So” and “Best Friend,” as well as an award for “Kiss Me More.” Although Doja distanced herself from Dr. Luke in 2021 (his name is absent from her latest album, “Scarlet”), others are still interested in collaborating with an established hitmaker, regardless of his reputation.

So no, Perry is not alone, but the hypocrisy at work here is breathtaking. Casting an accused abuser on a song about female empowerment – a song literally called “Woman’s World” – is ironic in a way that’s almost too obvious to comprehend. It might be funny if it weren’t so disgusting.

Wouldn’t it make more sense for Perry to work with female songwriters and producers to bring her feminine vision to life? Or at least with a man known for making women feel comfortable in the studio? There are many to choose from: Jack Antonoff and SG Lewis spring to mind, or perhaps Zedd, who produced “Never Really Over,” Perry’s biggest triumph of the last decade.

Perry made another, very conscious decision. She wanted Dr. Luke and all the baggage he brings with him; all four other songwriters on “Woman’s World” are contributors or signatories to Dr. Luke.

“Katy knew exactly what album she wanted to make and put the team together to make it happen,” a source at Capitol Records told Rolling Stone.

Perry’s “Woman’s World” proves that she is trapped in the sound of the past

Perry knew she’d face backlash – and for what? “Woman’s World” is not a good song, not at all. It has all the warmth and charisma of an AI chatbot, all the bombshell subtlety of a “Saturday Night Live” parody. In fact, the heavy-handed self-deprecation in “This Is Not a Feminist Song” is more comprehensive and nuanced than Perry’s latest work – and that sketch aired in 2016, when Hillary Clinton thought she was going to become the first female president.

Eight years later, during this campaign, Perry is dressing up as a version of herself: a moist-eyed heroine who no longer exists.

Turning to Dr. Luke to produce a song as bland and uninspired as this is the sign of an artist who is not only stuck in the past, but also unable to see the challenges beyond her narrow horizon.

Maybe Perry’s white, cisgender, super-rich household does feel like a woman’s world. For the rest of us living in reality, it’s anything but—and the superficial idealism of the 2010s that fueled Perry’s once-popular empowerment porn (“Firework,” “California Gurls,” “Roar”) now feels insensitive and condescending.

Whatever delusional utopia Perry is trying to sell, I’m not buying it. But the good news is that she could make some good money licensing this song for a Tampax commercial.