Katy Perry’s ‘Woman’s World’ Review: An Old-Fashioned Version

Photo: Katy Perry via YouTube

When a major pop star needs a hit, she usually knows who to turn to first. For Britney Spears and Ariana Grande, it’s Max Martin; for Justin Timberlake, it’s Timbaland; for Taylor Swift, it’s Jack Antonoff. For Katy Perry, unfortunately, it’s Dr. Luke. Since they teamed up in 2007, Lukasz Gottwald has co-produced eight of Perry’s nine No. 1 songs. No one has been more crucial to Perry’s pop success than Luke, and no artist has contributed more to Luke’s mainstream fame than Perry.

And this year, Perry needed a hit. She hadn’t cracked the top 10 since “Chained to the Rhythm,” the first track from her baffling 2017 album, Witness. Coincidentally, it was her first project without Luke, who had been accused of sexual assault by Kesha in 2014 and had kept a low profile in the industry since. Other past collaborators like P!nk and Kelly Clarkson have disowned him, but never Perry. 2024 was starting to look like a comeback year, with Perry leaving his role in American Idol and eyes redemption for his lukewarm performance in 2020 Smile. So, to hell with the accusations, she needed her big gun to produce a new single and regain some of their electric connection. Too bad this song, “Woman’s World,” feels like some kind of bland cover of the track.

It’s technically solid, even robust. The beat itself is a classic take on dance-pop, little more than gurgling bass and pounding drums—a track that can get into the club but will never be a party highlight. (Perry’s target audience is like Confessions(The title is a bit like Madonna of the day, but the sound is so diluted that fans immediately compared it to Lady Gaga’s 2020 single, “Stupid Love.”) Perry reminds us of her vocal talent without overdoing it. Sonically, the chorus even packs a punch, with one of those powerful lead melodies that Perry used to reliably deliver.

But an anthem also needs a message, and “Woman’s World” doesn’t have one to offer. The song is stuck in a vague feminist empowerment that may have worked in 2014 but won’t in 2024. The verses are a barrage of superlatives that don’t amount to much: “Sexy, confident / So smart / She’s heaven-sent / So sweet, so strong.” No, it’s not kitsch, it’s just obvious—even more so in the video, where Perry shows that yes, women can Pop fans will be able to hear more compelling interpretations of femininity from Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, and Ariana Grande this summer, so why settle for Perry reminding us that, baby, women aren’t going away? And that’s before we even consider Luke’s presence on “Woman’s World,” which negates the song’s entire message. It takes a certain level of cognitive dissonance to sing about strength and sisterhood over a beat co-produced by an alleged rapist. (When Luke and Kesha settled his defamation lawsuit in 2023, he continued to deny any wrongdoing. Perry’s lawyers once accused Kesha of telling “outrageous lies” about Luke in the case.) As a project, the song empowered more men than women: Perry’s writing team included four men in total, plus Chloe Angelides, a writer published by Luke’s Prescription Songs.

In many ways, “Woman’s World” resembles “Roar,” the last lead single Luke produced for Perry, back in 2013. She also had something to prove at the time, after the runaway success of Teenage dream in the early 2010s, and she proved it with another vague and confident anthem with another heavy and catchy chorus. And it worked, and “Roar” reached number one, establishing her fourth album Prism The success was there, and it now has over a billion streams on Spotify. Calling Luke out for the work on “Woman’s World” may not be defensible, but it’s at least understandable—he’s had plenty of hits since his return earlier this decade, including two No. 1s. But most of those new songs sounded lazy, lacking the energy and liveliness that characterized his early work with Perry. “Woman’s World,” a song that’s completely hollow beneath its just-solid-enough bones, is no different. Perry is trying to get back into a world that’s no longer there.