Did Katy Perry Release the Worst Comeback Song of All Time?

There have been many one-of-a-kind historic events over the last two weeks or so, but arguably — arguably! — the most significant is the release of Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World,” her hilariously catastrophic attempt at a comeback single. Thanks to its brain-dead lyrics (“sexy, confident/ so intelligent”), AI-like chorus, and Perry’s startlingly tone-deaf choice to record a “feminist” song with the likes of Dr. Luke, the song prompted near-universal mockery, and instantly flopped.

“Woman’s World” raises many difficult-to-answer questions. Perry has said its video is meant to be satirical — but is the song itself somehow meant to be as well? And if so, what exactly is the joke? Did Perry and her producers and writers think the song was good? And if so, why? And how, precisely, did Perry think the world would react to a girl-power song produced by, again, Dr. Luke?

In the new episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, we look at exactly what makes “Woman’s World” so bad, and what it might mean for Katy Perry’s career, with Brittany Spanos and Andy Greene joining host Brian Hiatt. To hear the whole episode, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above.

It’s impossible to assess the song’s true degree of awfulness without looking back at some other ill-fated attempts at musical comebacks, from the time the Beach Boys made a disco song to Cher and David Bowie’s odd attempts to hide inside no-name bands (Black Rose and Tin Machine, respectively) to Guns N’ Roses’ Nine Inch Nails-aping “Oh My God” — the first release from the band during the period when Axl Rose was the sole original member. Not to mention M.C. Hammer’s “Pumps and a Bump” and Robin Thicke’s cringe anti-classic “Get Her Back,” from the pathetic concept album Paula, which Greene calls “one of the most misguided things to ever happen on planet Earth.”

(Also in this episode: a bonus discussion with author Steven Hyden on his new book, There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. and the End of the Heartland.

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