Katy Perry is pretty far down the runway of what’s likely to be a very aggressive push for her new album, 143, and we might have just had the official lift-off: The release of the album’s first music video, “Woman’s World,” in which Perry positions herself as a short of satirical truth-telling robot woman, as one does.
As we often do in our day-to-day lives, we found ourselves contemplating the old It’s Always Sunny “Who are we doing it versus?” question as we watched Perry’s new video, which juxtaposes the cheerful summer vibes of the song proper with a broadside attack on the way female empowerment is frequently co-opted by capitalism. (Including briefly cutting the song entirely to drop an anvil on her own hyper-sexualized “empowered” image…before starting back up with a slightly different flavor of hyper-sexualized image.) Then she gets some kick pants, walks around, shoves a gasoline pump in her butt, and steals some poor woman’s ring light and phone. It’s… provocative?
Look, it’s always a little strange when a song that doesn’t appear to be overtly satirical—and at least from a straight lyrical analysis, “Woman’s World” feels like a pretty straight putt, blasting platitudes over some pretty basic synth riffs—with something that’s trying to be at least a little more complex. (It tends to carry a whiff of having one’s cake and then shoving it in your robot boots, too, especially if you view it in light of the controversy Perry is already facing over the album, after it was revealed that she worked with Dr. Luke on it.) The whole thing is certainly energetic, though, suggesting the American Idol star is ready to throw herself hard at making the album (her first since 2020' Smile, which failed to hit number one) as much of A Thing as she can. 143 is currently heading for a September 20 release.