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Post by Admin on Aug 18, 2020 6:54:08 GMT
Katy Perry saved the best for last during her latest #SmileSunday livestream on Sunday (Aug. 18), giving fans a sneak peak of her baby girl's nursery right before signing off. "I'm going to show you my baby room, ready? Just a little. Just a little sneak peek," said the 35-year-old pop star, who is expecting her first child with fiancé Orlando Bloom. The mini-tour of the light pink nursery included a look at several adorable baby outfits hanging on the wall, a changing station with a large mirror, stylish lights and a circular crib with curtains behind it.
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Post by Admin on Aug 21, 2020 19:09:28 GMT
Before she was able to "Smile" again, Katy Perry went through bouts of depression and self-doubt. The pregnant singer, 35, reflected on having to take medication for the first time when she began not feeling like herself and realized music wasn't helping her heal as it once did. "The older you get, the more real life gets and the harder it gets to hold onto the pain that helped you create. No longer is that pain helping you create songs," Perry said during her interview with Apple Music's Zane Lowe ahead of the Aug. 28 release of her album Smile. http://instagram.com/p/CEHYoERHpwn "It's just tormenting your mind at that point, especially in your 30s, when just life, things start to ache. Your body starts to not function. Your metabolism goes south. All things start to change in your 30s, but there's so much clarity that comes from it as well. I was getting pretty high off my own supply for a long time, and then it just didn't work after Witness," she said of her fifth studio album, which was released in 2017. Recalling her songwriting and very personal lyrics, Perry said she reached a point of transition in her mental health after years of turning her pain into chart-topping hits. "I realized, 'Oh my God. I have given so much power out for validation and acceptance and love, and now it's not coming back to me.' I used to really be able to fix my depression or my bouts of depression by just going, 'I'm going to write a freaking song,' or, 'I'm going to do this. So blah, blah, blah. I'm going to whatever. I'll leave you in the dust. You break up with me, I'll show you. Here's a No. 1 one.' It didn't work anymore," the pop star said. http://instagram.com/p/CEHsqfDHqLN
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Post by Admin on Aug 25, 2020 19:21:48 GMT
ET's Rachel Smith spoke to the expectant mother about both her pregnancy and her new album, 'Smile,' out Friday.
The pregnant "Daisies" singer talks surviving her dark years, her 3 Fs to parenting and Orlando Bloom. Watch "Daily Pop" weekdays at 12:30pm ET|9:30am PT!
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Post by Admin on Aug 29, 2020 7:04:41 GMT
You’d think that an artist now six albums into her career, after hitting such a spectacularly disorienting wall, might take such a crash as an opportunity to actually take risks. For the past decade, Perry has cultivated a pop persona that has felt hollow to a point, an unabashed commitment to the sort of crowd-pleasing party music that would eventually elevate her to Super Bowl half-time status. Her music and presence have emphasized an earnest but largely anonymous playfulness above all, whether delivering cheeky innuendo on “California Girls” or the cheerleader girl power of “Roar.” But while Perry has positioned Smile in the press as a sort of response to the depression and feelings of inadequacies she felt post-Witness, it’s just as drearily empty and devoid of Perry’s personality.
The thread binding much of Smile together is that it’s an album of resilience, of smiling through the tears, of dancing the pain away. But none of those assurances are delivered with much force, marred by clichéd writing and sleepy production. “Just keep on dancing with those teary eyes,” Perry sings on the chorus of the muted EDM song “Teary Eyes,” her clipped voice almost robotic. “I am resilient, a full flower moment, won’t let the concrete hold me back,” she sings on “Resilient,” which backs Perry with the delicate sounds of plucked MIDI violin. The punchy, Ariana Grande-wannabe track “Not the End of the World,” which includes sinister, fantasy images of dragons and fortune-teller, sounds like it could have been a banger in the making, but Perry sounds ill-suited to its flow, talk-singing its awkward verses.
The best of these songs, “Never Really Over,” is over a year old. A bright, synth-pop album opener that sounds like a Haim hit as filtered through Zedd production, the song feels like a peek into what could have been a much better album. “Tucked,” a catchy, disco song hiding among the album’s jumbled intentions, should have absolutely been a single. But most of Smile feels at odds with what Perry’s peers are making in 2020, a step backward for an artist who, despite her candied approach to music, should at least have a point of view at this point.
It’s not like Katy Perry has had it easy. In the last decade, the playbook for chart-topping stardom has shifted, as artists like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Ariana Grande, to name a few, proved that listeners wanted personal perspectives and intimacy (fine-tuned through a professional writers room, of course) more than a throwaway club song that says absolutely nothing at all. All the while, Perry has faltered, attempting to replicate a flavor of popular music that simply doesn’t resonate anymore, at least beyond birth control commercial soundtracks.
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