Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Oct 17, 2013She sounds like a woman, and an artist, who’s finally found herself.
-
Oct 24, 2013Prism shows a more mature side to the singer, an ability to really connect with her experiences whilst still producing absolute pop smashes. It’s a combination that suits her very, very well.
-
Oct 22, 2013With a string of hit singles under her belt, Perry has aspired to create a multi-faceted full-length and has consummately succeeded.
-
Oct 16, 2013Katy Perry aims to please. But now she grasps that she's making the mainstream, not just swimming in it.
-
Oct 21, 2013It is Perry 101: heart-on-sleeve ballads, bouncy party anthems, and brawny odes to respecting yourself.
-
Oct 22, 2013Prism has neither fat nor pretense. In its own masterful way, in fact, Perry's new work contains as much of-the-moment sonic surprise as any other modern pop album this year.
-
Nov 14, 2013It doesn’t require the patience or emotional/intellectual involvement that albums I typically listen to require. The cool thing, though, is that it does have quite a bit of redeeming value.
-
Oct 21, 2013While neither Perry nor Prism push any boundaries for pop music, they certainly raise bars.
-
Oct 24, 2013Perry’s ballads are so unadventurous and heavy-handed (chiming U2 guitars and slow-building, reverbed drums), they start to feel like caricature anyway. Her approach works better on the feel-good half of the album made up of top-notch roller-disco anthems.
-
Oct 21, 2013Prism [is] a tighter, cleaner record than its predecessors--there are no extremes here, nothing that pushes the boundaries of either good taste or tackiness.
-
Oct 21, 2013There is no doubt that Prism will do exactly what it’s been created to do (sell millions, provide the backdrop for a lucrative tour and make a lot of money for a lot of people) but it’s safe and cold where it should have been daring and involving.
-
Oct 21, 2013Many of these more, ahem, contemplative songs may be thin on Perry's former playfulness and long on the stuff of Eckhart Tolle, but a kind of girly simpatico sustains them and transfers easily to the stronger tracks, where Perry's back in the game.
-
Oct 18, 2013Although it is largely the entirely predictable modern dance-pop creation you might expect from production-line hit maestros Max Martin and Dr Luke, Katy Perry deserves some credit for injecting a modicum of originality into Prism.
-
Oct 17, 2013She largely sticks to her tried-and-true pop template, each song tailor-made for mass consumption with mixed results.
-
Oct 17, 2013The single Roar is ruthlessly efficient in its bid to get the drunk and recently dumped member of the girls' night out party up on the table, using her WKD bottle as a microphone, and the rest of the album follows suit: if the ballads are standard issue, the faintly trap-inspired Dark Horse sounds like a hit single, as does Birthday and, for better or worse, the new jack swing parody This Is How We Do.
-
Oct 16, 2013Perry has always done a great job of letting us know she's in on the joke of pop stardom. Sadly, she doesn't always bring that same sense of humor and self-awareness to the joke of pop-star introspection. The album's raft of ripe-lotus ballads is larded with Alanis-ian poesy she can't pull off.
-
Oct 22, 2013As a whole, Prism is forgettable. It’s neither good nor bad, and it’s not inspirational enough to set anyone on fire who’s not already an 11-year-old girl, closeted teen boy, or existing Perry fanatic.
-
Oct 22, 2013This is a pivot, this record, and a shrewd one, but "shrewd" and "boring" are not mutually exclusive.
-
Oct 21, 2013Though not exactly spiritual, Prism does come off as a more serious--if no less formulaic--album than its predecessor. But being taken seriously may be Perry’s greatest challenge yet.
-
Oct 28, 2013An album with too many cooks in the kitchen and not enough good songs to recommend.
-
Oct 21, 2013Prism does have two bright moments of success when everything comes together and we get a glimpse of the better-written album that could have been. First is opener “Roar.”... Meanwhile, on the mostly lackluster Side B, there’s another empowerment anthem, “Love Me,” that’s the polar opposite of “Roar” in nearly every other way.
-
Dec 6, 2013Everything that is missing from [Lady Gaga's Artpop] is here, but everything that is good about it is spectacularly absent from Prism.
-
Q MagazineNov 22, 2013Prism feels transitional, the work of an artist clever enough to be restless, yet unable to split from a winning formula. [Dec 2013, p.110]
-
Oct 29, 2013There is little in the way of actual technique or subtlety, and as an album, Prism falls short of its predecessors in the innovation and charisma department.
-
Oct 21, 2013With Prism, those expecting a sequel to Teenage Dream are getting exactly that: the same tropes, themes, and even some of the occasional production tricks all carry over, Perry revealing nothing new about herself, but still mining the same songwriting vein she’s been at without any signs of slowing down. For her fans, it’s exciting. For anyone else, it’s a disappointment.
-
Oct 21, 2013Self-help and sauce remain the remit, which might have been less tiring if “Roar”, “Walking on Air” and “This Moment” offered forms fresher than, respectively, the robo-stutter of Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, weary Italo-house pianos and strenuous stadium bluster to enliven their empowerment-speak.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 1,494 out of 2180
-
Mixed: 243 out of 2180
-
Negative: 443 out of 2180
-
Oct 22, 2013
-
Oct 22, 2013
-
Oct 22, 2013