I was only a kid when this song came out and didn’t fully get it, but with every passing year I feel the depth, pain, and rage of this song more and more
The subtext is absolutely incredible, the commentary is fucking searing, and the deep trauma of the message is felt through every element of the melody, production, and lyrics
The subversion of political ignorance as escapism is genius, Skip Marley’s bridge is a scorching roast of the empire, and the “it goes on and on and on…” at the end always makes me burn on the inside and often tear up 💔
With the way this world has been headed in the last few years, this song has only swelled in significance, and it is for that exact prophetic and revolutionary reason that Katy created this song, putting her whole career on the line and escaping within an inch of her life
The video is absolutely loaded with metaphorical messages calling out the threat of nuclear war, the way the US military-industrial terrorist complex drops bombs across the Middle East, the capitalist hamster-wheel enslavement of the human mind, and the complete scam that the American Dream is revealing itself to be
The Grammys performance also ends with her and Skip standing in front of a projection of the Constitution, and now we stand at the precipice of losing our free speech rights as fascism looms large - it is no surprise at all that this was her last hit, especially because it was revealed last year by a journalist that the media mafia and Hollywood inorganically tore down her career by manufacturing a hate train and cutting her airplay (this is why the Bon Appétit video shows her being sexualized by the media and presented as a feast, before getting revenge on them)
Chained to the Rhythm is a prayer 🙏
Bigger Than Me and Mind Maze speak about the same political urgency, Hey Hey Hey and Power are extremely relevant feminist messages, Bon Appétit and Tsunami give a voice to the female sexual perspective, Pendulum is a message of hope, and the entire album is worth a revisit and reappraisal right now - Witness is outrageously underrated and her best album
The track Method to My Madness, which got cut from the album, also shows exactly what she was trying to do with all the subtext (there is a leak on YouTube and the lyrics are available to read online) before she got sabotaged
Katy has witnessed many hidden aspects of the empire due to her vantage point within Hollywood, and she wanted people to wake up and see all of these dark things she has been a witness to, but the world missed the subtext, didn’t catch the warning, and did the album dirty
It’s time to stop dancing to the distortion 📰
It's a good song. Too bad it didnt land super well.
I was a bit older when it came out and I understood most of the messages right away. However, I didnt realize the "dance to the distortion" was referring to fake news.
It only “didn’t land well” because of the media-manufactured narrative around this song and the album as a whole - the meaning of the commentary was underplayed, ignored or misrepresented in the press
With that song, Katy fulfilled one of the tasks an artist should: awaken people's consciences and make them reflect on the world and current situations, with the aim of elevating thought and improving culture. Unfortunately, as usual, it went horribly, and she was boycotted and not taken seriously because she was considered a simple "pop artist" singing carefree, festive, and empowering songs. This was essentially not what the public expected of her. It seems that artists like that aren't allowed to step outside the so-called superficial world to delve into deeper topics and express their opinions, because the media would immediately shower them with criticism, influencing the public who would turn their backs on them, impacting record sales. Coincidentally, Taylor Swift, for example, is careful not to make statements on hot-button issues like Gaza, as well as songs denouncing, for example, American politics. Yet she would have the means to do so, considering the influence of her boundless army of fans. Katy, on the other hand, sacrificed her career for this bold move she made and has had no peace since, beyond her personal misjudgments regarding her musical choices.
Drives me insane. Not to hate on Taylor or anything, but can you imagine if Katy did, or didn’t do, what Taylor did when Trump used her music in his propaganda videos? Imagine if Katy just stayed silent and allowed him to use one of her songs in his ICE videos? The outrage and “cancellations” would be out of this world. Meanwhile when Taylor does it, no one says a peep and people just continue to buy and stream her 50 album variants.
I know, unfortunately. Many people are filled with prejudice against Katy (I'm referring especially to the media because the public is consequently affected by this climate), and I think she's one of the most disrespected singers in the entire industry. The same things are forgiven for others, but when she does them, she gets beaten up. Even other artists seem to have abandoned her; I don't see anyone else interacting with her social media with a like, a heart, or a comment. I've gotten used to it and resigned myself to it, and I really don't think things will change for the better in the future. And I think Katy herself is aware of this, so I just hope she focuses on releasing good music again. For the rest, let's just let history take its course.
I can confirm that peers like Taylor, Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, and Rihanna are all playing chess and are in full alignment with Katy. 👁️ Just wait, the Renaissance is coming - God willing.
I've noticed that Billie Eilish, on the other hand, has been making numerous statements in recent months on various important issues: the massacres in Gaza, donations billionaires should make to address the increasingly widening divide, Trump's policies, etc. I commend her for this.
Returning to the example I gave of Taylor Swift, it seems to me, even from her latest interview on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, that she wants to maintain the enormous success and media impact (she essentially declared, "I don't want to leave") she's managed to achieve, and to do so, she monitors every single aspect of her career very carefully. And delving into a highly minefield like politics or global issues could, on the one hand, have very positive effects, as it would rally behind her all her fans, who number tens of millions worldwide, and lead to an important collective discussion on how to proceed to change things in the world. On the other hand, however, the more conservative parties, such as some media outlets, could view her with suspicion, discrediting her as much as possible, as was done with Katy in Witness, where with the Superbowl Halftime show she was practically unstoppable and suddenly suffered a significant decline in the charts and a boycott, and also with Madonna's American Life (I was a newborn at the time, but I learned the video was about Bush's military policy in the Middle East).
I believe that the way things are evolving, artists, especially the mainstream ones (who have the most impact), will increasingly raise their voices, or at least I hope so. In any case, Katy deserves an apology for the treatment she received during that period.
The three films that Beyoncé made over the pandemic will change the world forever.
It’s such a powerful song but for some fucking random reason every media outlet decided to manufacture fake outrage against this song. The production, lyrics, and video are all 3 some of her best in her career, but like I said, media collectively decided that Katy’s career should be over then and there and manufactured all kinds of outrage, dumbass criticisms and started making fun of every move she made.
They all pretend to want pop stars to step out of their comfort zone and make a daring song instead of singing about sex and their exes, and when (at the time) one of the global pop superstars did, they all threw shit at her for it.
It’s still so weird how everyone just collectively agreed that this song was supposed to be bad political commentary, when at the time you’d have the most idiot pop stars doing all kinds of performative political stunts. Everyone was on the Trump hate train, but when Katy did it, suddenly it was supposed to be cringe and she should “stick to making dumb pop songs”.
Absolutely!
It is not a random reason that the news unilaterally acted in this way. Remember this quote from Jim Morrison: “Whoever controls the media controls the mind”.
Beyoncé flashed this quote onscreen before performing America Has a Problem on the Renaissance Tour - these pop stars are all at the mercy of the empire and the media controls what they can and can’t say. Katy tried to wake people up, and this is how Hollywood handled it.
Oh to be young
Cool