By Carly Shankowitz
Staff Writer
Katy Perry’s “Prism” proves to be disappointing despite her promise of a career shift out of pop. “Prism” provides almost no significant changes, other than the lyrics, to her typical pop-love songs, essentially creating a Teenage Dream 2.0. It is the product of Swedish hit makers Dr. Luke and Max Martin. However Perry’s falls flat of growing as an artist and doesn’t take any risks. She sticks to what she knows best, pop and breakup songs.
Perry began her career as a pop sensation with her first hit single I Kissed A Girl back in 2008. She then went on to create two albums, ‘One of the Boys’ and ‘Teenage Dream’, with songs like ‘Hot n Cold’ ‘TGIF’ and ‘California Gurls’ which dominated the charts.
With two years separating the releases of ‘Teenage Dream’ and ‘Prism’, fans anticipated how well she would perform with this new album out after her recent split from ex husband, Russell Brand. Many wondered if this could possibly affect her career in any way. It most certainly did with multiple references in the album to the couples break up. After so much success, one would think that her music career could only skyrocket from there but Prism fails to impress.
The album kicks of with the already hyped single, ‘Roar’ which is simply about how a boy broke her heart and she is strong enough to move on. This seems to be a recurring theme in each of her songs. ‘Roar’ contains drab and imitative lyrics like “zero to my own hero,” “ I am the champion,” and “stinging like a bee I earn my stripes”. The lyrics are extremely overused throughout the song and album itself.
Similar to ‘Roar”, include songs like ‘Walking On Air’, ‘Love Me’, and ‘Birthday’, which are is direct copy of Rihanna’s hit single, ‘Birthday Cake’. Shes is extremely boring in her songs and lacks originality.
Perry then tries to switch up the popish style with songs like ‘This is How We Do’ but miserably fails. They all provoke a provocative undertone that Perry’s younger fans should not be introduced to.
‘Prism’ also provides a darker side most likely due to her divorce with songs like ‘Ghost’ and ‘Unconditionally’. Both works contain a melancholy tone of desperation and depression. Perry then shifts to more of a rap-wanna be with her song ‘Dark Horse’ featuring Juicy J. It contains a weak bass drop, and unnecessary references in the lyrics “She eat your heart out like Jeffrey Dahmer,” which is extremely parallel to a lyric in Ke$ha’s song ‘Cannibal’ further proving her lack of imagination.
‘Prism’ goes all over the place and has no clear direction of artistry. It is jumbled, confusing, boring, and the same as every other song she sings. It is unclean and uninteresting to the point that I found myself pressing the next button and turning it off. The unoriginal vibe of the album makes ‘Prism’ nothing special and because of this, she may face the end of her career with this album.
“Prism” is now available digitally and in retail.
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