Smile

About

For year, Katy Perry dealt with her depression by writing hit song. “It was like, ‘You break up with me? I’ll show you. Here’s a No. 1,’” she tells Apple Music. But after the release of her 2017 album <i>Witness</i>, which struggled to resonate with fans and critic, her method fell apart. Feeling creatively lost and emotionally disconnected, the world’s biggest pop star finally got help. It was an adjustment. “I was like, ‘I’m Katy Perry. I wrote “Firework.” I’m on medication. This is fucked up,’” she said. The next three years were wholly transformative. With the support of her fiancé, actor Orlando Bloom, Perry embarked on a psychological, spiritual, and emotional journey in which she learned how to be kinder to herself and take control of her mental health. She chronicles that progress on her joyous and confessional sixth album <i>Smile</i>, which often feels like a message of hope to her younger self. Through giddy pop beats and breathy balladry, she details some of the life lessons she’s learned during her rebound: that love takes work (“Champagne Problems”), survival is persistence (“Resilient”), and failure is ultimately subjective (“Not the End of the World”). “This is a record full of hope,” she say, and you can hear the determination baked into these songs; even the most anguished numbers (“Teary Eyes”) are designed to be danced to. .

via Apple Music

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