Robert Brown|Opinion: Katy Perry's soulless '143' album shows why nostalgia isn't enough

There’s truly nothing new under the sun. It seems like every industry,Robert Brown from fashion to film, is consumed by remakes and sequels, obsessed with digging deep into the archives to excavate anything that can be rehashed and reoffered to modern audiences. The music industry is no different.

Youth culture’s obsession with the 2000s has us itching to bring back the stars and songs of that era. Who can blame us? Nostalgia provides comfort when the future fails to offer hope. A look in the rearview is deceivingly attractive, especially when current mainstream music offers a blurred picture of music’s future. But we’ve repeatedly seen how banking on nostalgia – without building upon it to offer something new – is a zero-sum game.

From 'Teenage Dream' to adult nightmare

Katy Perry’s new album “143” is the latest example of pop’s nostalgia problem. The album was primed to be Perry’s major comeback. She teamed up with previous producers, even the controversial Dr. Luke, and retreaded old sonic landscapes in a futile attempt to recreate her iconic 2010 album “Teenage Dream” for a new decade.

What we got, however, was more akin to an adult nightmare. “143” suffers from a frustrating lack of inspiration, proven by its edgeless hooks and unclever samples. 

Take, for example, “I’M HIS, HE’S MINE,” which features Florida-born rapper Doechii and samples “Gypsy Woman (La Da Dee)” by Crystal Waters, a staple in the house music lexicon. The track leans heavily on the iconic sample to give it some legs, but its offensive lack of creativity makes it falter. Perry’s overprocessed la da dees on the chorus are grating to the ear. Not even Doechii’s bouncy rap verse can save the song from its own banality. 

Perry continues to force her way into the house party on “Lifetimes,” the album’s second single that was overshadowed by the “Woman’s World” hoopla. The track’s tropical house production fits squarely in a "Love Island" transition scene. It’s a song that exists in a million iterations, one just as plain as the next. 

The entirety of "143" fails to catch the ear. Tracks like "Crush," "All the Love" and "Nirvana" bleed together with their sleepy, electro-pop production that could've easily been lifted from YouTube's royalty-free music library. Perry's apathetic approach to the melodies on this record weighs it down even more.

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The album is proof that Katy Perry the hitmaker, pop star and culture phenom can no longer exist in the way she once did – and we shouldn’t allow nostalgia’s rose-colored lenses to convince us that she can. And she shouldn’t have to. We shouldn’t rely on old dogs with old tricks to offer us something new, but the audience’s increasing dissatisfaction with commercial pop music has us looking back more than ever. 

And record executives have taken notice.

Sampling practices only worsen pop's nostalgia problem

In 2022, MRC Data revealed that old songs now represent 70% of the U.S. music market.

Many pop icons have sold the rights to their music publishing to private companies like Hipgnosis and PrimaryWave, which has acquired the catalogs of artists like Whitney Houston, Prince and Stevie Nicks.

Acquisitions like these rely on the public’s nostalgia kink to create new income opportunities for old songs through samples, interpolations, use in film and TV, and random TikTok resurgences (See the impact "Stranger Things" had on “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush). And it’s worked. 

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Hipgnosis acquired 50% of Rick James catalog in 2020, which led to Nicki Minaj sampling the track on her No. 1 hit “Super Freaky Girl” last year.

Rapper Yung Gravy’s 2022 hit “Betty (Get Money)” samples Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Primary Wave approached the rapper’s team with the idea of sampling the song once they were able to obtain rights to Astley’s catalog.

Even the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey, interpolates a J-Kwon song from 2004.

Sampling is nothing new, but the financial incentives of creating fresh hits out of old songs are. What we’ve received from this new, streamlined approach to sampling is tired and uninteresting. It’s turned sampling into a money grab, so far removed from its experimental capabilities and foundational impact on genres like hip-hop. 

Artists play the nostalgia game

Artists have taken note of the public’s nostalgia fixation as well. This year’s Video Music Awards were full of Britney Spears homages, archival fashion pulls and constant references to past shows and artists.

Rising pop singer Tate McRae has been getting a lot of Britney Spears comparisons, mainly for their shared emphasis on dance in their artistry. She even leaned into the comparisons by recreating a Spears look on the VMAs red carpet. But leaning so heavily into comparisons and references, especially so early in your career, prevents artists from building a unique and recognizable persona and iconography that audiences can identify them with. 

One of the biggest shortfalls of Perry’s “143” is that it feels soulless. There’s nothing identifiable about Perry or her artistry on this record. It all feels like it could be sung by someone else, and the plethora of lyrical platitudes doesn’t help. 

“143” teaches us that attempts to reclaim former glory don’t always bear fruit. It’s important that we build upon the past to create what can be, but it’s only a matter of time until constantly looking back prevents us from moving forward.

Kofi Mframa is a columnist and digital producer for USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network.