By DONNA BALANCIA
Katy Perry takes to the hills of Malibu with unbridled hippie pop passion with her first new solo music since 2017, a single “Never Really Over.”
In the retro orange-and-sky blue colored musical video, Perry laments stylishly with a pack of pals dancing in the fields. The song seems to hold out hope that she will get back together with the person who broke up with her, but the staccato electro-tinted song seems like it’s been done before. It’s over. And over. And over again.
The list of Perry’s co-writers seems to be as long as the repetitive song itself. There must be a joke about how many songwriters it takes to write a modern pop song somewhere in there. “Never Really Over” was written by Perry with Zedd, Dan Haywood, Leah Haywood, Dagny, Gino Barletta, Michelle Buzz, Jason Gill and Hayley Warner. The track was produced by Zedd and Dreamlab.
Maybe as Perry’s season as judge on “American Idol” is now over she can jump on board the John Legend songwriting show on network TV. On “American Idol” she was a believer in the talent of Pomona-bred talent Alejandro Aranda, who took second place to surprise winner Laine Hardy.
Perry says: “All of our relationships — from first love, through failed love, to great love — all become a part of you, so that none are ever really over, and once you accept both the dark and the light, you may find that the darkness brought you to the light.” OK.
The video was shot near Perry’s Malibu home with Philippa Price (St. Vincent, BANKS). To think that from songs like this, Perry has accumulated enough wealth to be living among the elite while 99 percent of today’s working musicians are living on the streets, in their cars and in the recording studios.
One good thing about “superstar” musicians like this is when they work, people get jobs.
Perry made her Capitol Records debut with One of the Boys in 2008, after signing to the label in 2007. She rose to stardom with the next album, Teenage Dream in 2010, and became the first female artist to chart five No. 1 singles from one album.
PRISM, (2013) has sold more than 12.5 million adjusted albums worldwide. With the singles “Roar,” “Firework,” and “Dark Horse” each surpassing the 10 million threshold including song sales and streams, Perry became the first artist to earn three RIAA Digital Single Diamond Awards.
Witness was Perry’s third album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It set the record for the biggest week for an album by a female artist in 2017.
Perry is the most-followed person globally on Twitter and was the first to reach 100 million followers. Perry was the first female artist to have four videos surpass a billion views each. Her videos for “Firework” and “Last Friday Night” have over one billion views, while “Roar” and “Dark Horse” have surpassed the two billion mark.
Watch ‘Never Really Over’ here: