Stephen Perry

Katy Perry achieved maturation with Prism, the 2013 album anchored on the self-empowerment anthem "Roar" and the club smash "Dark Horse." Considering how "Roar" scored the closing stages of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, it would've seemed like a logical move for Perry to build upon its adult alternative affirmation but she's instead chosen to use "Dark Horse" as a blueprint for Witness, the long-awaited 2017 successor to Prism. Perhaps Perry shifted her approach after "Rise," the "Roar"-alike written for the 2016 Olympics that she also performed at that year's Democratic National Convention, failed to crack the Top Ten, perhaps she always planned to construct this album with electronic beats and synths, but Witness is so slick with synths it seems slippery.

As an album title, Smile carries an air of determined pleasantry, and Katy Perry could use her share of good spirits in 2020. Witness, Smile's predecessor, found Perry pushing her artistic limits, an exercise that didn't find an audience, so she's chosen to retreat to safe territory for Smile. Mostly, this results in Perry devoting herself to dance-pop that's coolly glassy on the surface and vaguely positive underneath. It's dance music that's not intended for the club; rather, it's a soundtrack for everyday events, from work to exercise to relaxation. It's also music that tacitly acknowledges that Katy Perry is beginning her slow transition away from pop culture's center stage.

Steve Perry walked away from the music business at the twilight of the 1990s, following the modest success of 1994's For the Love of Strange Medicine and the underwhelming commercial performance of Journey's 1996 album, Trial by Fire. Perry spent the next decade and a half out of the spotlight, quietly re-emerging with an appearance at a 2014 Eels concert in St. Paul, Minnesota. Perry's affinity for Mark Everett's eccentric indie pop outfit came as a surprise, as nothing in either band's music suggested a mutual connection, but as the former Journey singer ramped up the publicity for 2018's Traces, his first solo album in 24 years, his fondness for Everett's songs became plain: the Eels leader explores the depth of grief on many of his songs, and that's an emotion Perry felt deeply at the dawn of the 2010s.