Review of Katy Perry's Witness Album

Mon 19 Jun 2017, 20:14

Writing music reviews is probably a hole I shouldn't go down, but whatever.

This entire past weekend, and the Friday before the weekend started, I put Witness on repeat and somehow managed to play 228 songs from it in the last 7 days as of the time writing this. The album has 15 songs, so 228/15 = 15.2, means I listened through it roughly 15 times, so I feel like I have to express my opinions about this album.

Not being a professional music reviewer or anything, it does feel weird reviewing music, as I don't really think of Music as something that can be reviewed, as it's prone to be extremely subjective, but let's try.

In general I have to say that the theme of this album is: different. Most of the songs sound very unlike all other Katy Perry songs I had heard previously.

Thoughts on Each Song

In album order:

Witness

I don't really like this song. I think it's a bit too repeating and it's a bit too "calm" and "quiet" to be a Katy Perry song. The chorus is okay, but I don't like the "Can I get a witness? (Witness) Will you be my witness? (Witness)? ..." part.

Hey Hey Hey

Ah, a great song to follow up the pretty awful beginning. It will easily get stuck in your head. I have nothing to comment on really. It makes you feel badass.

Roulette

This song sounds alot like Lady Gaga to me, and if I hadn't heard the song before I would probably guess it was Lady Gaga. Apart from that, it's a good song too.

Swish Swish

This was the first song I heard from this album (apart from Chained to the Rhythm, but more on that later) as it was released as a single and it made headlines about dissing Taylor Swift, so naturally I had to listen to it and I was extremely surprised by how it sounded - it sounded nothing like any other Katy Perry song I had heard before.

But, I love it! It's very catchy and very chill to listen to. Has a nice beat too. Definitively a song I will listen to when driving sometime (hopefully.)

As for Nicki Minaj's part goes, it's tolerable, but it's a tad annoying also. I do like the "... making hits with Katy grrrr ..." part though. As for guest appearances go on this album, Minaj's is the best.

Also, this is the song I have repeat 1'd the most out of this album.

Deja Vu

This is like a better version of the first song, Witness, but it's not much more than that.

Power

Another very good song. I love the "I'm a goddess and you know it" part. The chorus is just amazing overall, and the general sound of the song is just awesome.

Mind Maze

Song sucks individually, but you can get through it if you know Chained to the Rhythm is coming soon. The song is good enough when listening through the whole album.

Miss You More

Same as Mind Maze. Chorus is more annoying though.

Chained to the Rhythm

This was the first song I heard from the album, without me knowing it, because I only heard a glimpse of it on the radio and I was like "wow, that sounded good." Then I heard it again on the radio sometime and that time I got to know it was Katy Perry and also some relative of Bob Marley, and I was like oh ok. It wasn't until more recently I knew it was part of the Witness album.

Anyway.

The beat and sound to this song is just amazing and calm, but at the same time upbeat.

The chorus is a bit too repeating and annoying.

But the heavy notes around 0:45 in the song (on Spotify), just when/after someone says "aha" sends me shivers - they're so damn good, and makes this one of my favorite songs of all time. And throughout the whole song you have that little keyboard or whatever in the background just playing some notes constantly, which just sounds damn amazing.

Katy's singing at the start and between the choruses are really good too.

But then Skip Marley starts and it kind of sucks. I can listen through his parts but his voice is very annoying and I feel like he is only in this song to send a political message ("it is my desire, break down the walls, connect, inspire...") Especially his "whoa whoa whoa" at the very beginning of his part is really bad.

But as I said, the part around 0:45 (and again later) with the heavy notes, makes up for all the flaws.

Tsunami

We need to calm down after hearing an amazing song, so here we have Tsunami and it kind of reminds me of Owl Eyes.

It's okay.

Bon Appétit

A decent song. Nothing to say about it really. The guest singer part sucks. Probably a cool song to dance to in a club or something.

Bigger Than Me

Another decent song. Again, nothing to say really. It works as filler.

Save As Draft

Another sad/depressed song, but the chorus is really good. Could be a Taylor Swift song.

Pendulum

Yay! Another amazing song. The chorus is really, really good and just kind of makes you happy. Just a happy song in general.

Into Me You See

Sadly this is the last song of the album, and it's not a good one to stop at, but if you're listening to this album on repeat, it's good filler.

Overall

Overall, I have to give this album a total score of 4.5/5 or something, like all the best albums in the world. There is no album that gets a 5/5 because every album has to have a song that just sucks.

As for top 5 tracks or something, I would probably go:

Chained to the Rhythm
Swish Swish
Hey Hey Hey
Pendulum
Power

Now go listen to the album. It's a good listen on repeat while coding or grading lumber.