I Revisted Katy Perry’s ‘Witness’ So You Don’t Have To
A track by track look at the album that everybody loves to hate
Spin called it a “spectacular failure”. NME called it “socially aware”. Stan culture deemed it the demise of a once-loved superstar. Fans assured us it’s not as bad as the fuss made out. Whatever side of the battle line you stand on, one thing’s for sure: the Witness era was a messy one.
As a usual believer in Katy Perry’s phenomenal ability to mechanic pop magic, I was more than a little disappointed with Witness on my first few listens. It felt overthought and confused by its own intentions; 17 track stepping stoning their way in entirely different directions. I gave up on it.
More than two years later, I’m giving it another whirl with fresh ears. Buckle up: it’s a wild ride.
- Witness
It takes a bit of watch-watching, but when Witness decides to get going, it really gets going. Strung along by some Max Martin magic on production (think Britney’s greatest hits, Taylor’s pop turnaround and Katy’s earlier work), Witness harbours a chorus that the rest of the album aspires to. Of course, it’s all a little nonsensical lyrically, but with piano this melodical, it’s hard to have a proper moan. A respectable opening number.
2. Hey Hey Hey
Written by Sia, you’d expect Hey Hey Hey to pack more of punch. But with nuggets like “LOL at all your limits”, we’re left a little yearnful. It’s another Max Martin number, which shows, but it’s a little hefty at times with grinding production that envelopes the song and takes away from what could be the album’s most earworm-worthy track. It’s fun but little else, and a track two it does not make.
3. Roulette
Roulette is one of Witness’s deeper troughs. It’s rare that a pop song can successfully rest so much of its weight on a single metaphor that really means absolutely nothing, and that’s probably why Roulette fails quite astonishingly. Lyrically it's perhaps the most hollow song on the whole record, as Perry squawks millennial mush about iMessaging and sharing her location with pals before a night out. It’s disingenuous, and three tracks in, it’s not a good look.
4. Swish Swish (feat. Nicki Minaj)
Almost ironically, Swish Swish is one of the records biggest triumphs. Hey, at least its bombastic approach, pre-teen disses and memeability match the album’s marketing strategy. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a wonderful song, yet it suits the dorky, cartoon character image Perry has (intentionally or not) attached herself to since 2010’s Teenage Dream. It’s the cohesion we’re so far dangerously lacking.
5. Déjà Vu
Put simply, Déjà Vu is vacant. It opens with perhaps the record’s most uncomfortable couplet, “I live off the echoes of your ‘I love you’s’, but I still feel the blows from all of your ‘don’t want to’s”, and it unfortunately doesn’t sky rocket afterwards. Sadly, the dancefloor-ready beat that underpins the chorus is lost through uninspired lyrics sang, well, uninspiringly.
6. Power
The choice of collaborator on Power is indicative of what it’s trying to be. BRIT award winner Jack Garrat lends his indie-pop powers in the form of production and songwriting on this sledgehammering ode to a woman reborn after a toxic relationship. Whilst it wouldn’t be out of place in an awkwardly seductive car advert, ultimately Garrat’s influence pays off. It’s not quite the groundbreaking anthem I think it wants to be but it’s a thumping pop song with a story — and on Witness, that seems to be a rare find.
7. Mind Maze
If Mind Maze is anything, it’s interesting. It stands out as one of the less watery tracks thanks to a vocally manipulated chorus contrasting what is probably the album’s most organic vocal performance on the verses. It’s a bit of a mixed bag that doesn’t particularly go anywhere, but props for experimenting. That, I figure, is down to production (and likely direction) from synth pop band Purity Ring — another of the albums more diverse and strategic collaborators.
8. Miss You More
Look, Katy Perry is known for having some of the best pop ballads in the biz (CC: Unconditionally, The One That Got Away, Not Like The Movies). The woman wrote Thinking Of You solo for crying out loud. Maybe that’s why this all feels like one big, fat lie. Miss You More lacks the authenticity to carry it into successful ballad territory, and lyrically it’s a fad: opening with “Saw your picture on accident” puts the nail in the coffin before the body has even gone cold. It’s the track that reeks most of disappointment, because with a discography that can get as doomy and gloomy as Perry’s, you’d expect this to be the one guaranteed stonker.
9. Chained To The Rhythm
On paper, Chained To The Rhythm is not a bad pop song. The problem here lies in Katy Perry not being a pop star known to rely on her offerings being simply ‘not bad’. Compared with her prior leads, the modern classic (albeit problematic) I Kissed A Girl, 2010’s sugar-coated California Girls, and the anthemic Roar, Chained To The Rhythm just doesn’t cut the mustard.
Its political undertone is far too sloppy to prevail as its selling point, whilst the biting point teeters on monotone and clunky, as though it’s been decided “We’re all chained to the rhythm” will stick as the chorus despite not fitting particularly comfortably. The Skip Marley feature serves to fill time. Placed as an album track or even promotional track, Chained To The Rhythm could be Witness’s best effort; the fact it was chosen as the lead leaves a sour taste in the mouth listen after listen.
10. Tsunami
Tsunami is more like a little, semi-therapeutic wave: strategically placed as a sort of checkpoint in the tracklist, it offers respite from heavy-handed, faux beats (though faux lyrics remain well intact). It’s one of the more enjoyable tracks the album has to offer, perhaps because it requires minimal dissection. Perfect for when you’ve got an hour or two on a sun lounger at a Turkish all inclusive, or when you’ve got the boyfriend’s grandparents over for tea, maybe.
11. Bon Appétit (feat. Migos)
Bon Appetit is a euphemism-laden elegy to eating out a lover’s genitals like a buffet, much like you might devour a handful of vau-le-vants at the wake of a dearly departed relative. All in all it’s a masterpiece, and it took me a fair while (about a year) to recognise this, once even tweeting that I felt sorry for those who enjoyed it. Oh, to be so hideously young and naive.
It’s as steamy and as muggy as an orgy in a Fitness First sauna, and it’s just as cheap, but do you know what? It’s a testament to how proceeding with absolutely no subtlety is sometimes the best way forward in this manic world of pop.
12. Bigger Than Me
Bigger Than Me spends four minutes and one second circling the drain. It’s not terrible — Oscar Holter’s (Taylor Swift, Charli XCX) tropical production clings it together — but it’s unremarkable. Perry’s flat introspectiveness is all too ambiguous, and I don’t think we’re left caring enough to dig for answers.
13. Save As Draft
Another ballad that shreds hope of legitimacy after shamelessly rhyming ‘struggle’ with ‘juggle’. It’s regrettable, predominately because collaborator Noonie Bao has created magical work elsewhere (Troye Sivan, Demi Lovato). It’s a shame also as Save As Draft is peppered with vulnerability which, again, is missing elsewhere, as well as giving us one of the more headstrong middle eights. It has potential, but it’s poorly executed.
14. Pendulum
Nonchalant yet punchy, Pendulum restores some much-needed Perryism. The toe-tapping factor is set to high, the lyrics of empowerment are gentle and cliched but at the least present, and we’re left with what would probably suffice on most Perry albums — past, present and future. We’re just left hoping the beige metaphors will drop off right about…now.
15. Into Me You See
It all ticks along like clockwork on Into Me You See, a mellow, piano-led number that closes the standard edition of Witness. That is until the chorus smacks us much like a low flying bird might smack a kitchen window, with the lyric: “Into me you see, you broke me wide open, open sesame.”
It’s not a spectacular song even without this gasp-worthy, lead balloon of a lyric, so this blow really hits hard. If there’s anything to fully bring down what could be a so-so ballad about intimacy, it’s the image of Hermoine Granger desperately trying to open a jar of pickles.
16. Dance With The Devil
If Witness succeeds at anything, it’s enabling Perry to lightly feel up genres outside of her usual remit. She’s touched on house and electronic, and Dance With The Devil sees her branching into moody, gothic synth-pop. It joins the vast majority of the album in being placid, however. It tries to achieve so much that it really achieves nothing at all, leaving us emotionless. Sad!
17. Act My Age
Possibly the most bizarre twist to come from the Witness saga is that the album’s creme de la crap — the bouncy and playful Act My Age — is left to rot as a bonus track. It’s the most easily identifiable as quintessential Perry: a flip-off to the confines of adulthood and a start-to-finish solid pop banger, yet it’s left disposable and unheard by the masses, paying the album as a whole no favours. Slip it in at track four and we could have been dealing with a whole other kettle of fish.
It’s a sorry state of affairs esteemed pop lovers, but here we go: Witness has not aged well. In fact, it hasn’t aged at all. The milk was not left to sour in the sun, we were sold it sour: spoiled, undrinkable milk that makes our coffee taste like shit.
But is this really the end of Katy Perry as an iconic pop entity? No. Absolutely not. Already, she has sprung back into action with the better-than-good Never Really Over and appears to be back on semi-top form. I have everything crossed that 2019 will see one of the 21st century’s most prolific purveyors of pop back at number one in the charts and in our hearts once again.
