Today is the 8th birthday of Witness, Katy Perry's fourth and most underrated studio album. To celebrate, let's take a retrospective look at it...through past ONTD posts.
To stay true to the spirit of Witness and this era of Katy Perry, I spent a lot of effort on this post for a little while and then got progressively more half-assed about it.
Background: Katy's album Prism had been a smash hit, producing the diamond-certified songs "Roar" and "Dark Horse."
After a successful global tour, there was a lot of pressure to deliver another hit. However, Katy seemed to be chafing under her sexy, flirty, bombshell image. After the release of her smash album Teenage Dream, she posted a dramatic video of herself entitled "Burning Baby Blue." In it, she set fire to the bright blue wig that she had made famous during her Teenage Dream tour. It symbolized the end of one era and the beginning of a newer, perhaps edgier one.
There were rumors that Prism was supposed to have more of an edgy pop-rock sound, which Katy had started her music career with. However, her label supposedly pushed her toward a more mainstream pop sound once again. Now that Katy had more industry clout and money with a second bestselling album, she apparently had the power to take more control over the upcoming record.
While making Witness, Katy had allegedly trashed several songs she had been working on, since they were made in collaboration with Dr. Luke-- a producer accused of sexual assault by Kesha.
Clips of a few tracks from Katy's then-untitled project leak. They were "Deja Vu," and "Witness." Both clips received a lot of hype from stan Twitter. It made pop stans excited for what seemed like a lucrative, beloved new era. (Lol...)
February 8: Katy places disco balls in major cities around the world; if you found a disco ball, you could hear a sneak peak of her new song "Chained to the Rhythm."
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/105007449.html
February 9, 2017: Katy debuts "Chained to the Rhythm." The single gets a mostly positive reception from fans, but its political undertones are much different from previous Katy music.
But in February of 2017, Katy would also put her foot in her mouth two times; two times that would follow her for the rest of her upcoming album cycle.
February 10, 2017: First, on Twitter, she proclaimed this her era of "purposeful pop."
We gonna call this era Purposeful Pop. đ https://t.co/fCllqtlRTm
â KATY PERRY (@katyperry) February 10, 2017While on the Grammys red carpet, a reporter asked Katy how she was doing and she joked about shaving her head in a jab at Britney Spears' meltdown.
February 21: The "Chained to the Rhythm" music video drops. It didn't meet the popularity of previous videos, but it still performed solidly. I'm shocked that it has 770 million views??!?! The single would peak at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
February 28, 2017: Katy ends her tumultuous relationship with Orlando Bloom, just a few months after paddle boarding with him naked.
March 3: And then, it happened: The haircut. Katy decided to chop off the long, lustrous hair that she was known for to get an already-outdated, bleach blonde pixie cut. The style had already been done to death by Miley Cyrus, Jennifer Lawrence, and Emma Watson, to name a few. Fans did not react well.
March 15, 2017: Katy posted a few tracks from her then-untitled upcoming album. It was "Deja Vu," which received a lot of hype from stan Twitter. (And, oh, look, I made the ONTD post about it!) It made pop stans excited for what seemed like a lucrative, beloved new era.
April 15: Katy reveals "Bon Appetit," ft. Migos.
April 29: Katy promotes the song by showing us how to make "the world's best cherry pie."
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/105982858.html
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/105969650
May 2, 2017: Katy Perry hosts the Met Gala. She receives criticism for wearing the anti-semitic designer John Galliano.
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/106026048.html
May 15: IT'S HAPPENING! Katy announces Witness and its accompanying world tour.
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/106206896.html
May 16, 2017: It is announced that Katy will receive a record $25 million to be a judge on ABC's reboot of American Idol.
May 18: In a very weird form of promotion, Katy goes undercover at an art exhibit by putting her head on a platter.
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/106260115.html
May 19, 2017: The actual, real album cover for Witness is revealed. It is...wow, it is still very, very ugly.
May 20, 2017: Then came Katy's SNL performances. Dear god, the SNL performances. WHEW CHILLAY, the SNL performance. It was on the season finale with host Dwayne Johnson.
May 23, 2017: Katy Perry responds publicly to the huge feud that Taylor Swift started against her. This was truly a moment in gossip history. Katy went on Carpool Karaoke, which was then hugely popular and James Corden was still beloved, where she discussed it. She confirmed that the entire thing was, in fact, just about backup dancers' contracts.
May 25: It is blatantly obvious to the public that Katy and her team are making disastrous decisions this era. The Cut even wrote an in-depth article examining it:
Why does Katy Perry keep making bad decisions? @ira reports https://t.co/5eg2GFR57x
â Vulture (@vulture) May 25, 2017The ONTD post about it is super petty, too: https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/106355266.html
May 28:
Rumors abounded that Katy and her team were scrapping the promo for "Bon Appetit" and frantically pivoting to "Swish Swish," given the former song's commercial floppage. "Bon Appetit" sold a dismal 16,000 units its first week.
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/106380031.html
June 8, 2017: At long last, Katy drops Witness. And on the same exact night, purely coincidentally, Taylor discounts her entire discography on iTunes and put her entire discography on Spotify.
The album debuts at #1, but drops to #13 in just its second week. It gets solid to mediocre reviews. (Except from a few people with exceptionally good taste, who actually like it.)
June 10:
As part of her Woke Era, Katy acknowledges and apologizes for her past cultural appropriation and problematicness.
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/106534054.html
June 8-12, 2017: In a truly bizarre form of marketing, Katy decides to do a 96-hour livestream of herself in a house. It is called Witness World Wide. In it, Katy has mental breakdowns, hangs out with fellow celebrities, discusses her insecurities, and opened herself up completely to the public.
August 24, 2017: Katy releases a self-described "hot mess" of a video for "Swish Swish," ft. Nicki Minaj.
September 20, 2017: Katy kicks off the Witness world tour; tickets go for $9 on Groupon. It would end up being only the 77th-performing tour of 2017.
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/107714815.html
November 18, 2017: Oh, also, Katy wins her lawsuit involving nuns.
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/108517871.html
December, idk: Katy releases a final, irrelevant video for her song "Hey Hey Hey"
Eight years later, what do you think of ha Witness era?
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