Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Britney Spears: A Bad Two Months For Pop Stars

Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Britney Spears are all pop icons. However, their latest efforts have not been successful. After both Katy Perry’s anthem “Rise” and Britney Spears’ complete album Glory underperformed, there was hope for Lady Gaga and her new song “Perfect Illusion.”

There were a lot of good reviews in the media for “Perfect Illusion,” a song influenced by both Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. Alice Vincent of the Telegraph thought Gaga’s latest was very pleasing.

“It delights me to write that this is a return to Just Dance-era Gaga: a simple, infectiously catchy slice of floor-filling, stadium-cheering pop.”

The review adds that Gaga is really showing off her voice on the new song. However, widely respected writer Rich Juzwiak of Jezebel thinks Lady Gaga’s latest is very unpleasant.

“They say that hurt people hurt people, and so it follows that Lady Gaga’s tortured new single, ‘Perfect Illusion,’ is torturous. Compressed within an inch of its life a la the brick waveforms of Born This Way, this lead single from her as-yet-untitled fifth album is a wall of shrill sounds.”

The song has been polarizing among Gaga’s fan base, who usually eats up anything she does. Unfortunately, “Perfect Illusion” is polarizing among the general music listening public as well. The song hit No. 1 on iTunes after tremendous hype. However, as of Sunday morning, the song has dipped all the way to No. 48 on iTunes. The performance of “Perfect Illusion,” the first release of of Lady Gaga’s upcoming album Joanne, is far worse than “Applause” performed three years ago.

“Applause” was Lady Gaga’s first single from her ill-fated ARTPOP album. It was initially considered a flop within days of its release since it didn’t hit No. 1 on iTunes. However, the song did well enough to peak at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also stayed in the top 10 for several weeks. It’s quite possible that the upcoming video release of the “Perfect Illusion” single could revive the song.

If Lady Gaga is disappointed about the performance of her latest single, then all she has to do is look at Katy Perry, who was considered her No. 1 competition just three years ago. Katy’s Summer Olympics theme “Rise” was heavily hyped and was believed to be on its way to becoming one of the biggest songs of this past summer.

Rolling Stone, which also gave Lady Gaga’s song an excellent review, called Katy Perry’s new song “victorious” and noted that Perry said that she hopes the song could inspire us to heal, unite, and rise together. Unfortunately, it didn’t. As the Inquisitr mentioned, “Rise” debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and then fell. It lead to Perry announcing that the song was just a “buzz single.”

Just like Gaga and Perry, Britney Spears seemed to have everything going for her when debuting her new song “Make Me.” However, as Billboard mentioned, the song only debuted at No. 17, which was considered poor considering all the hype. After that, the song dropped off considerably, and even the release of the music video couldn’t help turn things around. To make things worse, Britney Spears’ album Glory has been a huge sales disappointment.

Lady Gaga is expected to release the video for “Perfect Illusion” on Tuesday, and that could help turn things around. If that doesn’t help, there are always other songs from Joanne that can chart higher. However, Lady Gaga, along with Britney Spears and Katy Perry, still proves that a lot of hype doesn’t necessarily transfer into a lot of sales.

[Featured Image by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images]