I don’t know who is making the end of summer more bitter, the “haters” of everything Katy Perry is playing in this era, which is already very sickening; or those who can’t stop seeing an orchestrated conspiracy in these criticisms, as if what the artist is offering us is pure gold. It isn’t.
The truth is often somewhere in the middle. A middle ground that is sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes boring, sometimes dull, that seems not to exist and yet it is there. The problem might actually be that Katy Perry has trouble finding it, reaching the perfect balance in some of her observed and overanalyzed movements. At the VMA’s she went overboard with too many ideas and numbers. And in this ‘I’m His, He’s Mine’, the third single from ‘143’, which comes out next week, she falls much further short.
The song has two successes: the sample of a hit like ‘Gypsy Woman’ by Crystal Waters, and the incorporation of the rapper Doechii. The campaign that began with a song called ‘Woman’s World’ continues now giving away more contradictions with a song of total dedication from woman to man and from man to woman, with phrases like “I am his queen, I am his freak, I am every woman he wants and needs.”
With the original’s sensuality intact and a lovely cadence, ‘I’m His, He’s Mine’ is entertaining and elegant, although it could use some outbursts. After a single with potential but that could have used more development like ‘Lifetimes’, this new single suffers from the same. It can also be flat and mistaken for background music.
On the contrary, its conciseness can benefit an album that is supposed to be short, direct and danceable. After all this backlash, it would be a surprise if a song like ‘I’m His, He’s Mine’ found a place on TikTok in a few months, the space that Spotify’s playlists are denying it. Now Katy Perry appears on New Music Friday below Miranda Lambert and FKA twigs.
Charging …