MY #1 REGRET
Do you ever get asked the question, "If you could do one thing in your life all over again, what would it be?" or "Can you name your number one regret?"
Yes, I've had regrettable moments; I've made terrible mistakes; I've made serious errors in judgment. But they say you learn best through your mistakes, and that everything happens for a reason, so I never quite felt genuine in my answer.
But they also say that life is short - an aphorism that became uncomfortably front of mind when I made what currently stands as the truly most regrettable - and I mean TRULY - decision of my life.
I noticed that the Katy Perry music video for 'Swish Swish' had a run time over SIX MINUTES...
...AND PROCEEDED TO WATCH THE ENTIRE THING!!
I WANT THOSE SIX MINUTES OF MY LIFE BACK!!
I had never heard the song before, but seriously? It's Katy Perry, not Queen - there is no way a six-minute Katy Perry song would be chosen as a single, not to mention that no A-List pop star would even record a song lasting that long. There are only so many times a chorus can repeat over different generic EDM beats, and even major label production budgets have a limit when it comes to the number and duration of "ft." artists on a single track. (DJ Khalid continues to test me on this theory, however.)
I truly enjoyed Katy's past hits 'Teenage Dream' and I even liked the (randomly patriotic) music video for 'Part of Me', which included a non-singing intro that made the video longer than the actual song. Her best songs and videos, in my opinion, are the ones that manage to simultaneously evoke both that timeless 'eternal California summer' vibe and anthemic 'I'm young and free, and life is so full of possibility' swell of emotion and adrenaline, making for a listening experience equivalent to driving a convertible on the Pacific Coast Highway after snorting a couple lines of cocaine but also making sure to Instagram the view.
However, like amphetamine highs and summers across the rest of America, all good things come to an end. By way of my real-time news & information flow, which (and I know I'm not alone here) is mostly a combination of Daily Mail Snapchat, US Weekly newsstand covers, episodes of Carpool Karaoke, and the video thumbnails on my YouTube front page, I've learned that Katy Perry, in the time since her last album/since I cared about her, has caused me some worry/cringe, as she has done the following worrisome/extremely cringey things:
1. the haircut
In May 2017, Katy made the definitely-not-for-publicity decision to chop her hair and bleach the remainder (I call it 'the remainder' which yes, is more commonly associated with long division - but this hairstyle is certainly not a pixie cut. It has been a known fact - since Edie Sedgwick in the 1960s - that platinum blonde pixie cuts are chic and cute; KP's ...thing is neither). To no one's surprise (except perhaps KP's publicist) we were immediately off to the races with the Miley Cyrus-comparison memes. BuzzFeed, meanwhile, obviously found a way to deem the cut culturally appropriative (or at least introduce the idea of it as such), which was an unnecessary move - not just because it's BuzzFeed (which would somehow find a way to stir up feelings of offense toward a potato), but because as you'll see below, Katy Perry is completely willing and confident to display her whiteness on national television. Hell, I'd bet that even a good number of white people who can reasonably dance were offended by this over-the-top-cringey display.
2. the dancing
I don't even know or care what awards show this was - they all blend together for me at this point, since it's both more enjoyable and efficient to watch Game of Thrones instead and just wait for the awards show memes to roll in the next morning. And I have no clue who the two black dudes are (and I've given up asking why people still wear sunglasses indoors), since I don't listen to Top 40 anymore as the top 39 appear to be the garbage pail of a song 'Despacito' and number 40 is either Ed Sheeran or a mediocre tune by an ex-One Direction boy (except I'll spare Niall from mediocrity - I actually like 'Slow Hands' and bet that whiny pseudo-crooner Sam Smith wishes he had gotten his hands (no pun intended) on the song first. Also, I'm still a little annoyed by Rolling Stone's decision to put Harry Styles on the cover of the issue following Greg Allman's death. The power of a good press agent, I guess. In case you're curious, Niall is therefore worth three Harrys; Harry is worth two Zayns; Zayn is worth five of the other one, unless the 'other one' is dating someone famous).
Anyway, I've said nothing at all related to this .gif, which by now is burned into my eyeballs since it loops in the window the entire time I'm typing. But I don't think there's much more about this that can be put into words, anyway. You can probably find the entire performance somewhere - I'd find a link, but I'm afraid I might go into seizures if I have to watch any more of this tragic, utterly cringey display by KP.
3. The question
Where to even begin?
I had to make this gif myself because all the other ones floating out there on the internet failed to truly capture the full ~essence~ of this perplexing exchange between Kay Pay (name credit: poodiepie, 10/10 would recommend) and notable astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
This beautiful conversation was one in a series of live-streamed "interviews" - ostensibly to promote Kay Pay's upcoming album 'Witness' (I honestly don't know how this was ever considered a serious marketing project, but I've also just come to assume Kerry Perry's marketing team simply occupies a separate planet), but perhaps more importantly attempting to reinvent Kare Package, from the free-spirited California girl whose songs defined my carefree, happily drunk college years to...well, a pop star who chills with astrophysicists and who publicly rues the "traumatizing" "revelation...a reckoning" of Hillary Clinton's November 2016 election loss - in an interview conducted for the June 2017 New York Times Magazine (which, being the New York Times Magazine, probably salivated at a chance to rekindle the unnecessary and divisive blame game around events that took place 8 months prior).
Full interview (or all you need to see, really) below:
Anyway, decide for yourself whether Ketty Petty's marketing plan worked. To me, the whole livestream-interview-pseudo intellectualism hosted by Katy Perry can only be described as bizarre, though not in the quirky-eccentric-intellectual way in which it was most likely intended. Instead, it reeked of try-hard, put-on-act whose perplexing range may be better illustrated by the examples below:
The Simply Odd: a 'therapy session' with a psychologist named Siri Sat Nam Singh who hosts some show for VICE (so he must be legit) and as poodiepie pointed out, has a rather distracting habit of licking his lips with an icky reptile-like tongue)
The "How Much Do You Think They Were Paid to Agree to Be in This?" Kay Pay somehow got/was allowed an enormous marketing budget for the purpose of bringing on my favorite Brit and all-around beloved (er, with a few exceptions) television chef: Gordon Ramsay! (If you seriously thought I was going to say that fake ass clown Robert Irvine, go fuck yourself, you donkey.) . As soon as I saw that Gordon had KP making meatballs, I knew what the cheeky bastard was doing - meatballs are his go-to for the simpletons; the Hufflepuffs of the world; the Italian restaurants run by incompetent dopes using microwaves and frozen pasta and who can't be trusted to do more than roll little balls of meat. When Kay Pee's sad ...oblongs of underseasoned meat that will probably fall apart because she failed to use the egg yolk binder in time - it probably took poor Gordon all the restraint int he world to keep his famously critical commentary (to people who aren't Katy Perry) to a simple, "go to www.Witness-a-bland-meatball.com".
are playlists science?
The Inevitable Cringe Trap: see Neil deGrasse Tyson. The man might not know what cringiness means in the context of memes and viral internet happenings, but I hope it means something to him knowing that we were all cringing 1000% on his behalf throughout the interview. Too bad there isn't a meatball-equivalent in astrophysics to hand out to the wide-eyed simpletons.
So there you have it. What goes up must come down. Katy Perry/Kay Pay/KP/Kare Package is redefining herself into an identity which may be relevant, sure, but less and less relatable and to me, less likable. Conversely, Britney Spears is seriously raking it in (and I mean seriously - I just recently learned just how lucrative those residency deals are) at her Vegas residency, and if political-themed publicity, I mean, activism, and livestreaming ~deep thoughts~ equals relevancy, then Britney is the least relevant music artist I can think of.
Britney Spears has barely strayed from her singing style or genre since her career began 20 years ago. But I think Britney's stubborn consistency is what makes her relatable (as strange a point that may seem): many of us grew up with her music alongside us the entire time. Ultimately, a pop star like Britney will enjoy (and indeed, has enjoyed) a long career, with undoubtable success as a pop singer. She achieved it not because she's necessarily relevant, but because she remains relatable, likable, and a living symbol, to many of us, of nostalgia and our past youth.
Point being, 'relevancy' when it comes to public image is a moving target, and it's all too easy for young demographics to sniff out expensive marketing and good PR. And as Miley Cyrus demonstrated, how many times can one person realistically reinvent themselves in the public eye?
So today we're at Kay Pay making awful six-minute music videos (Swish Swish) singing about...I dunno, basketball? (I clearly can't see the deeper meaning I feel that I'm supposed to) and a 3:48 song with someone named Migos that is three minutes and forty-eight seconds of bad double entendres (Bon Appétit).
