Is it a hit? Or is it not? Katy Perry seems to be back on the radar with ‘Rise’, her new single from her as-of-yet unannounced album. This is the first single to be released after her 2013 album Prism, and so far it seems to elicit mixed responses.
Undoubtedly Prism was not as big a hit as her previous album, Teenage Dreams. Nevertheless it produced two singles which went on to become number one: ‘Roar’ and ‘Dark Horse’. There was nothing to suggest that her new song would be unwelcomed.
However, ‘Rise’ seems to have deflated quickly. While it was initially at the number one position on iTunes, it dropped after a few days. At the same time, the song reached No. 43, dropping from the 11th position, on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Yet, Perry’s performance at the Democratic National Convention, where Hilary Clinton accepted her nomination for President of the United States on the 28th of July, sent the song to the ruling position on the real-time ‘Billboard + Twitter Trending 140’ chart, remaining there for more than 6 hours following her literally dazzling performance.
‘Rise’ is slated for release on 4th August, and a 27-second teaser of the official video was posted on the 1st of August, a week after the release of an Olympic-themed video for the same song, which has received around 27 million views as of yet.
The official video of ‘Rise’ has supposedly been the most laborious for Perry yet, and there are reasons to believe this is so.
In the video, after having failed with some parachuting attempt (hilariously explained by MTV), she does adrenaline-fuelled things like crawling across a sandy backdrop, submerging herself in water and the like, all the while the pink parachute keeping on trying to hinder her movements.
In the end, she dangles from a cliff with the chorus in the background: ‘I will rise’.
Perry had attached ‘Rise’ to Hilary Clinton, the Democratic candidate whom she has been supporting since before the preliminaries, for a long time now. She is a huge fan of the woman who could be the first female president of the US and has been actively urging her fans to vote for the Democrat.
And now the Rio Summer Olympics has been added to that, for which the song is also an anthem.
However, ‘I will rise’ has featured prominently in Perry’s social media accounts for quite some time for reasons other than professional ones. It began with an interview with the Rolling Stone nearly two years back.
The after-effects were still being felt when Britney Spears was asked whom she would prefer to take a 24-hour flight with (the choice of parties being Katy Perry and Taylor Swift). Spears was asked this question by KIIS radio host Jackie O, and the interview was published on TMZ on 1st August.
Spears, who is not a party to this, tried to be her diplomatic best by saying that both were cool, and since she had already met Katy Perry at the Smurfs movie premiere, she would choose Swift in order to meet her (strangely, she HAD already met swift on two occasions).
The ugliness between Swift and Perry had threatened to spill over earlier this year when it was revealed that Swift had secretly written the track ‘This is What You Came for’ for Calvin Harris. This was soon before Swift left Harris for Tom Hiddleston in June, and it prompted Harris to tweet in his defense.
In that defense, Harris had referred to Swift’s alleged tendency to bully Katy Perry. After all, Katy was the one alluded to in Swift’s hit ‘Bad Blood’, where it is hinted that Perry wanted to sabotage Swift’s tour. Perry had responded by retweeting an old message with a Hilary Clinton- Gif.