Katy Perry Cover
Hey guys, do you ever feel like a plastic bag? Has anyone you love ever felt like a plastic bag? Can you even fathom, as a sentient being, what feeling like a plastic bag might be like? Or, perhaps a better question: Can you imagine opening a song meant to be an earnest empowerment anthem with a question like that? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, then you might actually be Katy Perry.
Let’s get one thing straight right off that bat: Katy Perry is a firework—a wildly successful pop star with a huge string of inescapable, catchy hit singles that speak to her ability to write music and select songs that connect with millions of fans. She’s also, like so many other singers today, sitting at the top of an incredibly lucrative empire of branded consumer goods, and often takes an ownership stake in other products she shills, which nets her even more cash. Which means she’s a savvy businesswoman, too. She's also a philanthropist and a die-hard Hillary supporter.
And yet…she can be pretty embarrassing, too.
Maybe you don’t think it’s that bad that she launched her career with back-to-back songs that were homophobic and then queer-baiting (you should). Maybe you don’t mind that she has never met a cringey costume she doesn’t like, and spent an entire album cycle wearing so many fruit-inspired looks on the red carpet and music videos that she is known in China as “Fruit Sister.” Maybe you don’t care that she has a song called “Peacock” with a hook that consists entirely of her requesting to have a look at some guy’s “peacock, cock, cock” over and over. Maybe none of those humiliating facts alone change your opinion about Perry, but taken as a whole, it’s hard to deny that while she may be one of the most successful pop stars of all time, she’s also one of the most mortifying.
In her latest of faux-pas, KP recently told a Danish reporter in Yeezys and a scrunchie that she relates to the shrugging emoji. “I’m a person that is constantly learning and changing and evolving and applying everything in real time that I learn,” she said, as the Danish reporter nodded knowingly. “But I live under a microscope, and everybody’s like, ‘Wait, wait, wait!’ And I’m like, ‘But, I’m learning, can’t I apply what I learn?”
Yes, Katy Perry, you can! In the spirit of evolution and self-improvement, let’s add some of these embarrassing moments to your list of mistakes best left in the past. And after we’re done, maybe you can return the favor?
She covered “Big Pimpin’” in concert.
On her 2011 California Dreams tour, while standing next to a guitar player wearing bedazzled fedora—catch your breath for a moment—Perry performed her own sing-songy cover of Jay Z’s 1999 hit. Then she launched into a section in which she pantomimed playing the song’s famous beat on a sparkly recorder. When video surfaced purporting to catch her not actually playing, she claimed it was a scripted joke. Either way: That's a lot.
She also covered Jay and Kanye for the BBC.
You don't have to rap.
She has worn grills at least twice.
The world first got a glimpse of Perry taking grills out for a spin when she arrived at the 2013 MTV VMA’s in a pair that spelled out the name of her single “Roar.” Later, in a teaser promo for her video for “Dark Horse,” she wore them again as part of the costume for her alter ego Katy-patra (heavy sigh).
Let’s talk about all of that cultural appropriation, actually.
Where to begin? For a self-proclaimed activist and purveyor of “purposeful pop,” Perry certainly has a checkered history when it comes to cultural awareness. She dressed up like a geisha at the 2013 AMA’s. She wore cornrows and gelled down baby hair and also sang about getting her nails done “all Japanese-y” in her “This Is How We Do” video. She joined the legions of white people dressed as Native Americans at Coachella. She is, generally speaking, a mess in this regard.
Her “SNL” dance moves were unsettling at best.
There aren’t enough gifs or memes to make heads or tails of what exactly was happening as she performed “Bon Appétit” on Saturday Night Live.
Her repeated public requests for an apology from Taylor Swift have been ignored.
KP, try to be cool!
She didn't know what “nimble” means.
In her Vogue cover story, editor Hamish Bowles notes that Perry inquired about the meaning of both “nimble” and “monosyllabic.”
She uses slang like she's a corny math teacher.
On Ellen to promote her single “Bon Appétit,” Perry described being in her 30’s as “so bomb dot com.” She told Jimmy Fallon her SNL performance was going to be “litty.” In her song “Swish Swish,” she sings that “karma’s not a liar/she keeps receipts,” which is neither how the concept of karma nor the concept of keeping receipts work. Did Katy Perry learn slang from a middle-aged suburban parent, or do middle-aged suburban parents learn slang from Katy Perry? It is literally impossible to tell!