No matter your taste in pop music, Katy Perry is the name on everybody’s lips with her brand new album 143. Named after Katy’s theorised angel number, this collection is her emotional grand comeback to the music industry, first teased at her hugely successful Las Vegas residency Play which ran from 2021 to 2023. It’s a return to the excessive, silly joys of her early works, custom-made as a thirty-three minute party with Perry.
143 toys with two distinctive sonic worlds across its run time. The first is Katy’s trademark bright bubblegum pop, which occasionally draws upon throwback samples and elements of house to get the dancefloor pumping. On the flip side, the album also dives deep into darker trap pop, for fans of her more experimental, moody hits like ‘Dark Horse’ and ‘Bon Appetit’. These different sounds weave together through carefully crafted production which emulates a DJ style non-stop dance mix, seamlessly blending each song into the next.
Much of the lighter pop fare deals with the core ideas of spirituality present in Perry’s work since her iconic 2013 album Prism. Standout ‘Nirvana’ is a total release, its dynamic chorus building to a drop with transcendent lyrics about how love can take you to paradise. It’s light and sparkling, then collapses into a pounding electropop beat. This concept reappears on ‘All The Love’, a sweeping track insisting that everyone is promised love which ebbs and flows throughout their time on earth. This commanding reminder that all forms of love including romantic, familial and platonic forms much of the material on 143.
Multiple songs inspired by Katy’s daughter Daisy delve into this belief. Katy explores their eternal family connection on ‘Lifetimes’, which shudders under the weight of its bombastic sound and anthemic hook. The album closer ‘Wonder’ also teaches us a lesson Katy has learnt from Daisy. She seeks to bring Daisy’s childlike innocence into adulthood, in spite of the possibility that curiosity gets “Lost in a cynical world”. This song’s EDM style makes for a freeing sensation not unlike that of early 2010s David Guetta.
As for the record’s more hip-hop influenced half, the centrepiece is ‘I’m His, He’s Mine’, a collaboration with Doechii which premiered during Katy’s legacy performance at the recent VMAs. Sampling Crystal Waters’ beloved tune ‘Gypsy Woman’, the song revolves around ideas of feminine power rooted in sexuality. The lyrics envision Katy and Doechii as the ideal women, embodying every facet of the population within themselves. Perhaps this is a conceptual reference to Chaka Khan’s hit ‘I’m Every Woman’. Its smoky, sultry vocals and the interplay between the two performers makes the song almost too hot to handle.
Kim Petras helps Katy tackle this same theme again on ‘Gorgeous’, where the two reigning KPs team up to celebrate girl power out on the town. Kim’s wordplay echoes her style from her spooky hit ‘Unholy’, walking the line between silly and sexy in her wordplay and rhythmic delivery, as Katy’s rasping vocals add charisma and a certain sense of irony to the track. 21 Savage also does his part with ‘Gimme Gimme’, where he plays a potential love interest to Katy. The simple but effective beat provides the basis for an alluring play-by-play between the two, where Katy brings back her classic level of camp with goofy lyrical imagery.
Undeniably, 143 gets better as it goes on, with its best moments coming in the final three-track run. ‘Artificial’ is a brief but booming number featuring JID, painting a picture of a simulated romance that needs to be proven real. Its slick synth chorus makes for an impressive contrast against the haunting verses and hook, and the rap section captures a truly thrilling flow. ‘Truth’ follows, offering up catchy melodies that show off Katy’s more expressive vocals. It’s a story of focusing on intuition, with a heartbreaking underbelly beneath the glossy dance pop production. These songs make for the “Dark before the dawn”, as the storm clears for the saccharine acoustic guitars of ‘Wonder’ and makes 143 feel like a fully structured journey of personal growth.
Dedicated Katy Perry fans are in for a treat with 143. It’s an album that delivers on her signature sound to a tee, and expands on her personal mindset in love, family and identity in her pure purposeful pop way. Though the days of the Teenage Dream might be over, Katy is growing up without losing that sense of whimsical youth, and she’s here to be your angel on this powerful new project.
