From 'Teenage Dream' to millennial nightmare – where did it go wrong for Katy Perry?

Brutal reviews for new album represent a serious setback in the pop star's attempted return

Katy Perry performing at the Rock In Rio Festival in Rio de Janeiro earlier this month
Katy Perry performing at the Rock In Rio Festival in Rio de Janeiro earlier this month
(Image credit: Wagner Meier / Getty Images)

When Katy Perry released her comeback single in July the reviews were brutal.

"Woman's World" provoked "some of the most savage reviews I can remember in years", said Carl Wilson in Slate. But with her new album, "143", now hitting the shelves, has there been a softening of the critical verdict? Spoiler: there has not.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.