Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The last hope for a flop is the mixed blessing of a so-bad-it’s-good reassessment. Such is the straw clutched by Katy Perry as she watches her once supreme pop career spiral down the plughole with hapless comeback album 143. Could the reviled fiasco be reborn as a kitsch classic for its sheer badness?“Kitty, kitty, wanna come party tonight,” the singer announces with all the allure of a voice assistant in “Gimme Gimme”. The music is bleepy electronic pop with a half-alive reggae pulse redolent of Ace of Base. Rapper 21 Savage phones in his guest appearance (“I’m like Amazon ’cos I got what you need”). We listen in appalled fascination. This is indeed so bad it’s good.Elsewhere the dividing line is clearer. The ham-fisted girl-power anthem “Woman’s World” sounds so dated that it might as well arrive with a Vote Hillary sticker and Sheryl Sandberg’s memoir in hardback. A sour taste is added by the involvement of Lukasz Gottwald, aka Dr Luke, the producer who oversaw Perry’s biggest hits. Gottwald has never been charged for the sexual assault allegations levelled against him by the singer Kesha, which he denies, but using him to co-write and co-produce a female empowerment tub-thumper is spectacularly ill-judged.New dance-pop numbers are more chewing gum than bubblegum The frivolity and sense of absurdity that made Perry such an entertaining star back in her heyday — the kind of star, let us recall, who matched Michael Jackson in releasing an album containing five US number one singles, 2010’s Teenage Dream — are absent. “Crush” and “All the Love” are by-the-numbers dance-pop, more chewing gum than bubblegum. “Nirvana” strives to reach disco paradise with half-decent moves à la Lady Gaga, but it’s countered by the infernally annoying “Gorgeous”, a grimly knowing exercise in camp with guest singer Kim Petras.“One day when we’re older, will we still look up in wonder?” Perry intones in closing track “Wonder”, a hammeringly mawkish number about children. It grasps for an optimistic ending, but in vain. No one in the future will observe 143’s failure with wonder. It doesn’t have the personality or ambition to be an awesome folly.★☆☆☆☆‘143’ is released by Capitol
