This reviewer did not think that making a brief fleeting comeback himself would mean having to review his first album in three years and it had to be this one. This reviewer probably is also wondering if that is what Katy Perry's fans were thinking of for her comeback album after two previously panned efforts and a tumultous turn as a judge on American Idol for the past six years. Maybe Katy is also thinking about that herself? We might be wrong here given the entirety of the breezy 143, her first album in just over four years (feels like forty years).

Normally, we would go through a relative track by track, hitting high points, low points and anything in between, the unfortunate part for pretty much all of 143, it is between 33 and 36 minutes, depending on what version you buy/stream/download of generally autotuned, sometimes overindulgent and dare this reviewer say, badly produced music; add in the shallow songwriting and you might have what this reviewer dares to say for the first tine ever on this platform: a hot mess.

Speaking of hot mess, the fallen from grace for so many reasons Dr. Luke is the producer behind ten of the eleven tracks in the standard album edition, which in itself given what he has gone through the last decade is astonishing except that he was behind Katy's last great album Prism in 2013. And the fall from grace from him really shows in those ten tracks as the production comes off as half-baked at best and really lazy at its worst. The beats definitely have a potential earworm quality to it but the equally lazy and bad songwriting distracts from it; in 2024, even bad pop/rock has at least one if not two redeeming qualities in it and with the exception of last track "Wonder" maybe, none of those ten Luke has a primary producing credit have any redeeming qualities at all. It is a real shame though, only because if anyone was a master in creating that key hook or chorus line in a pop single in the day, choosing a Katy Perry single over others would not generate a whole lot of argument there. Unfortunately for her, her attempts at recreating that glory is mediocre at best and falls flat at its worst.

This previous point makes you wonder who got Kim Petras (who likely deserves better), Doechii, JID and especially 21 Savage to all do FT cameos on 4 different tracks. "GIMME GIMME" and the cameo 21 Savage makes might be the worst (can we call it savage??) thing he's ever rhymed and he deserves so much better than get reduced to that. Kim Petras herself might be the only thing that saved "GORGEOUS" but like 21 Savage, she deserved better. As for Doechii and JID, ditto that too.

As for the final track "WONDER," Katy's 4 year old daughter with the actor Orlando Bloom, Daisy could have been the biggest star in the track if not for the overdone Autotune as her opening lyrics is the best in the entire album and you have to go through the first ten tracks to finally get there: “One day, when we’re older/ Will we still look up in wonder?” We can tell that this is supposed to be a back and forth conversation with daughter and mother but the second Perry takes over, the message begins to get lost and the opening lyrics that show promise becomes yet another vehicle for Perry until the end when Daisy sings again. Unfortunately at that point, "WONDER" has lost all its initial promise and the listener is left wondering what ARE they really wondering about?

143 might end up being the worst, if not one of the worst albums of the year. As comeback albums go, this is probably not the way a comeback album should be. Yes, this reviewer admits there were some glimmers of what she could do like in "LIFETIME," the closest she gets to reaching to her peak 2010-2013 but that was just a moment unfortunately or in "WONDER" if she could have held on to what Daisy started in the opening lyric. If you are a die hard fan and had been waiting, this might be just enough, but one cannot help but wonder (no pun intended) if she has a second wind coming where she can get anywhere close to her glory days of Teenage Dream and Prism mixed in with what she has learned from her Idol judging days. 143 is not it.

Alan Ho is the co-founder, CEO and Chief Publisher/Webmaster of Musiqtone.com.  In between the cybersec life and adulting at times, he managed to find time to make this review. Maybe more? We'll see. In the meantime, you can tweet him at @atrain2324, he tweets, therefore he tweets.

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