41. Witness to Wokeness: Katy Perry and the Pretense of Purposeful Pop

The B-Sides

With her 2017 album Witness, Katy Perry invented the genre of “purposeful pop” more as a tool for relevance in her album promotion than an actual political analysis, which hurt both the political agenda she was pushing and the album itself. We think you’ll enjoy this episode whether or not you know the album (and spoiler: even some of the most ardent pop listeners don’t know this album!).

This episode continues the conversation we began in episode 40. You don’t need to listen to episode 40 first, but feel free to!

This episode contains four parts:

• Part 1: Witness Overview
• Part 2: 2017 Music and Politics Context - 21:17
• Part 3: “Purposeful Pop” throughout history - 30:26
• Part 4: The result - 54:05
• And introducing a new segment: What are you listening to? - 1:01:45

Here was the syllabus for this episode. Feel free to follow along:

• Read this piece in Vox
• Read this piece in the NY Times
• Listen to these songs from Witness: Hey Hey Hey, Miss You More, Save as Draft, Bigger than Me. TBH listen to as much as you can stomach.
• DON'T list to: Pendulum
• Watch: a few mins of Katy Perry's SNL performances of Bon Appetit and Swish Swish

Note: If you’d like to get future episode syllabi in advance, join our discord: https://discord.gg/DCy4cTnue9

Other works cited:

• https://www.bet.com/article/qgclb9/katy-perry-blackness-is-not-a-musical-genre
• https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/katy-perry-witness/
• https://www.theroot.com/katy-the-queen-of-cultural-appropriation-perry-is-at-1790885633

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