Katy Perry is getting bold and experimental with her forthcoming fifth studio album. Returning to her pop roots on ‘Never Really Over’ and ‘Small Talk’, she dived further into the sonical palette and reinvented the direction she wanted to go in.
Her new single ‘Harley’s In Hawaii’ is a deeper dive into experimentation as she layers some thicker RNB elements and heads towards the sound that Ariana Grande has brought into the commercial limelight. But to put it bluntly, the sound just sounds a little lost on her. I wanted it to be executed in a bolder way but it just gets lost within everything else being released at the moment. Even after a couple of listens, the song still fails to get stuck in your head and as a commercial pop song that isn’t a good thing.
As a songwriter, this track is boring. It is a step backwards in the cool commentary she has recently had on relationships, love and heartbreak. The premise is cute, as it reflects on an experience she had riding on the backseat of a Harley Davidson in Hawaii with finance Orlando Bloom, but the storytelling is weak and you can’t really grasp that without doing some research.
I was one of the few people that genuinely loved her ‘Witness’ era (minus ‘Bon Appetit’ that we will just pretend doesn’t exist) and so far this new pop resurgence has been so playful and enjoyable. But ‘Harley’s In Hawaii’ just doesn’t do it.