8 minute read
Katy Perry is Learning to Smile Once More
by Sarah Smith / The Big Issue Australia / courtesy of INSP.ngo
Katy Perry has an uncanny knack for making you feel like she’s your best friend. “I want to know about you Sarah – Sarah, question: what have you been craving?” Only a handful of minutes into our interview Perry, who is almost full term in her first pregnancy when we speak, wants to know all about mine.
Eschewing the distant diva archetype in favor of gal-whomight-just-crash-your-Friday-night-Zoom-party (something she did in May to surprise fans for the launch of her single "Daisies"), Perry consistently finds connection beyond the kitsch.
It’s a skill that has cemented the singer as one of the biggest pop stars of our generation, and helped her maintain a fierce and loyal following of fans – the most hardcore of which are known as KatyCats – that have stuck thick, even when things have not gone to plan. Like, in the wake of her ill-fated “purposeful pop” reinvention of 2017.
No stranger to controversy, having been accused variously over the course of her career of cultural appropriation and reinvention fixation, Perry – born Katheryn Hudson to Pentecostal pastors, Mary and Keith – faced a loaded backlash upon the release of her last album, Witness. During that cycle, Perry told press that she was ready to reveal the real Katheryn Hudson and, with a fresh new pixie cut, went about promoting the more “conscious” version of Katy that had apparently been hiding away beneath the bubblegum aesthetic.
To do so, she launched a Big Brother-style live stream event called "Witness World Wide," where 49 million viewers watched Perry eat, cook, sleep, do yoga and hold a therapy session in which she candidly discussed battles with depression, alcohol and her difficult childhood. But the world didn’t buy it, neither figuratively nor literally. Neither did the critics.
While Witness debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, it soon fell away, selling less than one million copies. More tellingly, though, the record’s singles "Chained to the Rhythm," "Bon Appétit" and "Swish Swish" simply didn’t connect, none of them reaching No. 1 in the US.
When you’ve achieved the kind of success that Perry did so early on in her career – equaling Michael Jackson’s record of five No. 1 singles off the one album for 2010’s game-changing Teenage Dream – it’s hard to maintain those dizzying heights. But the soft response to Witness felt more personal. After a decade of adoration, the world had seemingly turned on Katy Perry.
“I think [back then] I was still getting really high off of my own supply,” Perry laughs when reflecting on the last album. Speaking from her home in Los Angeles, which she shares with fiancé actor Orlando Bloom, the singer admits that the reality check was a long time coming – one that led to a period of intense self-reflection, and her new album Smile.
“I was really at the precipice of my own personal change when I was putting out Witness and I was, like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I can go on this trajectory anymore.’ I felt like I was stuck in this loop of sorts: write a record, go on tour, fans, audience, validation, celebrity, more, more, more!” she says, with both a hint of humor and despondency.
Katy Perry
courtesy of EMI Records
“I don’t really have that [desperation] anymore because my expectations weren’t 100 percent met last time and that was what kind of caused the shift in me. And it was a necessary shift…the time between Witness and Smile has pushed me to evolve into a more dimensional human being than just a thirsty pop star.”
But this personal evolution came at a price. In addition to temporarily splitting from Bloom in 2017, Perry slipped into a deep depression as she dealt with the reality of failure. “A lot of Smile is about growing through that pain. And now, obviously, I’m hopeful [about the new record], but I think I’m not putting everything of my worth into this basket.”
Perry attributes this shift from thirsty pop star to satiated singer to re-prioritizing what was important in her life, and also to the support of Bloom, whom she says is always there for a reality check.
“I have a great partner who is very real with me, and isn’t with me because he is a Katy Perry fan. Obviously we support each other, but he is interested in my spiritual, mental and sometimes physical evolution,” she laughs. “And that’s what we are to each other – we’re really real to each other. So that was very helpful. But this shake forced me to get grounded.”
Staying grounded when you’re one of the biggest pop stars in the world is easier said than done. The fact is, Perry has a new record to promote and that means talking to strangers, like me, for hours on end about every aspect of her life. At the time of our interview a quick Google of her name reveals hundreds of headlines speculating about Perry’s due date, her baby’s name, whether Jennifer Aniston is godmotherto-be. The idea, then, of having to maintain two versions of yourself – one private (Katheryn Hudson) and one public (Katy Perry) – makes sense as a kind of survival mechanism. Although, these days, Perry says the two versions are closer than ever.
“I think that they [Katheryn and Katy] are both now a little bit more grown up so they can hang out,” she muses. “I think, when I started singing at 9, and essentially started grooming my Katy Perry life, I was really trying to escape a reality I didn’t really love.”
That reality is one she has spoken about at length over her career. Perry was raised in an ultraconservative Evangelical family, who picketed rock concerts and didn’t allow popular music or literature in the household. Her first “conversion” of sorts came upon hearing a Queen song, age 15, at a friend’s house. But the specter of such an upbringing has loomed large over her adult life, and while the world watched Perry evolve from Christian pop singer through countless versions of “Katy,” she has been undergoing her own personal processing.
Katy Perry
Liza Voloshin
“Not to be dark, or anything,” she continues, “but that’s why you see a lot of artists that don’t live to be Grandma and Grandpa. Like, they have unfortunate endings a lot of them, because eventually the pain that helped them start creating turns against them. But if you don’t fucking deal with it – it’s not going to help you write the songs. It’s one of those things that I learned in the last two-and-a-half years: that I don’t have to stay in pain to be what I feel is a valid contributing artist.”
Perry is a notoriously hard worker in an industry that is insatiably demanding, especially for women. Ever since Madonna vogued from Modern Marilyn on "Material Girl" to Saucy Lapsed Catholic on "Like a Prayer," the expectations on female pop stars to constantly reinvent themselves has become normalized. Album cycles blur into one another, as world tours and media blitzes stretch out over years. The pressures of this lifestyle were captured on Perry’s 2012 documentary "Part of Me" – one of its most memorable scenes sees her pre-show crying uncontrollably, quite literally up until the very second she is spat up onto the stage via a scissor lift, beaming beatifically at her screaming fans.
The emotional link between this moment, and the cover art for Smile is a tempting one: dressed as a clown – replete with red nose – Perry is slumped forward, head resting on her hands, staring glumly at her fans. Katy Perry is the archetypal Sad Clown.
But the image, she says, is more hopeful than that.
“I think that this journey is about getting my smile back and getting my playfulness back and getting that purity back,” she says. “A smile
is an incredible physical indicator of your wellbeing and you can read someone by the way they smile… [With the cover] I’m not going to shove happiness down anyone’s throat. It’s more of hopefulness – it’s very melancholy, but I’m very aware of the seriousness of your mental wellbeing and how you have to look after it. I can’t visit fantasy land as much as I could in my 20s, because the longer you live the more real life gets.”
And Smile is a hopeful album. The early singles – "Never Really Over," "Smile" and even "Harleys in Hawaii" – recall, both musically and in their simple themes of gratitude and triumphing over adversity, her most ubiquitous hits like "Roar" and "Firework." It’s territory that’s always been kind to Perry, and in that sense it’s both a return to something familiar and an attempt at realizing a more evolved version of herself. While there is kitsch and playfulness aplenty in the imagery and film clips, there are no songs about cunnilingus or Taylor Swift. It’s a nod to the past, and a step towards the future.
While Perry is adamant she is no longer thirsty for validation, she is human, and still seeks an authentic confirmation of her decisions. Although, these days, the singer tells me that acknowledgement is coming from all the right places.
“When fans write me letters and tell me what these songs mean to them or how they help in whatever circumstances – fuck a number one. Who cares! It’s about that – it’s about changing a life, not hitting a number and that’s become really real to me and that’s how I measure my success. I measure my own success on my own happiness and the resonation of the songs with the listeners.”
