In Maura Johnston’s Rolling Stone review, Katy Perry’s 2024 album 143 sounds less like a new chapter than an attempt to recover the pop-cultural standing she held in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Johnston argues that the album revives familiar maximalist production and broad empowerment themes without making them feel fresh. That is a critic’s interpretation, not an established fact about Perry’s motives—and it contrasts with Perry’s own description of the record as an exploration of emotional wholeness.
What is Katy Perry’s 143?
143 is Perry’s sixth studio album, released by Capitol Records on September 20, 2024. Its standard edition contains 11 tracks, and Apple Music lists its running time as 33 minutes. The project was promoted as a dance-pop album.
The title refers to “I love you,” a numerical expression associated with pager-era messaging. Official Charts describes that meaning, and Perry’s Apple Music interview also connects the number to how people typed the phrase in the pager era.
Why did Johnston call it an attempt to rekindle Perry’s glory years?
Johnston’s argument is that the album reaches for the kind of cultural place Perry occupied during her late-2000s and early-2010s hit-making run, but relies on methods that now sound dated. She points to maximalist pop production, sweeping empowerment language, and Perry’s renewed collaboration with Dr. Luke. In Johnston’s view, those choices produce “a rote attempt to rekindle those glory years with slightly updated reference points.”
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That judgment is about the music and its cultural framing, not proof of Perry’s private intentions. Johnston also places the album in a changed chart and radio environment; that is context for her criticism, not evidence by itself that any particular creative decision caused a commercial result. No chart peak, first-week sales figure, or streaming total is needed to make her critical case.
How the criticism compares with another review
The Associated Press’s Mark Kennedy also reviewed the album negatively, saying its sound and lyrics lacked the personality of Perry’s earlier work. That gives the record prominent critical detractors, but it does not establish that every critic agreed.
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What did Katy Perry say she wanted to make?
Perry framed 143 differently in her Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe. She called it a celebration of wholeness, saying it was a space she had not written a record from before. She described earlier songwriting as coming from defensiveness, feeling inadequate, or trying to transform trauma, and challenged the idea that artists must remain in pain to create.
She also said, “I just wanted to explore other territories; I didn’t want to keep repeating myself.” Her account sets up the central disagreement: Perry presented the album as an emotionally new starting point, while Johnston heard familiar musical and lyrical approaches aimed at reclaiming an earlier position in pop.
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What is on the standard edition of 143?
Universal Music Canada’s Capitol Records release notice lists this 11-track standard sequence:
- “Woman’s World”
- “Gimme Gimme” (feat. 21 Savage)
- “Gorgeous” (feat. Kim Petras)
- “I’m His, He’s Mine” (feat. Doechii)
- “Crush”
- “Lifetimes”
- “All the Love”
- “Nirvana”
- “Artificial” (feat. JID)
- “Truth”
- “Wonder”
Formats announced for the release included CD, cassette, vinyl, and digital, according to Official Charts. Available formats and editions can vary by market. The standard track list is not universal: Universal Music Japan lists a Japan-specific CD edition with “Has a Heart” as a bonus track. That edition carries catalog number UICC-10057 and a September 25, 2024 release date; the bonus song should not be assumed to appear on other versions.
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So, is 143 a failed comeback?
“Failed attempt” is best understood as the conclusion of Johnston’s review, not an objective label that settles the album’s value or Perry’s intentions. Her case is that a return to maximalist production and broad empowerment messaging does not recapture the impact of Perry’s earlier era in the present-day pop landscape. Perry, by contrast, described the record as an effort to explore a different emotional territory. Readers can hear the album against both accounts: as a claimed move toward wholeness and as a set of choices that one prominent critic found backward-looking.
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