Katy Perry: Newly styled for the future

Everything is new for Katy Perry (32): new hairstyle, new album, new image. Four years after her last album, Katy Perry released "Witness", an album that stands out from her previous records. "It's definitely a new era for me. I call it the era of meaningful pop," she told "E! News" at the Grammy Awards in February 2017. Where before there were dancing emojis, rainbows and sharks, now it's sexy, artistic and substantial.

"It's an album of 360-degree liberation: mental liberation, sexual liberation, negative liberation and spiritual liberation," Perry revealed in advance. That's why the album was also more political. For example, Perry wrote the album's lead single "Chained To The Rhythm" immediately after the election of US President Donald Trump: "Comfortable that we live in a bubble. Comfortable that we don't see the problems," are two lines from the song. Katy Perry was involved in Hillary Clinton's election campaign and also performed at the Democratic General Assembly.

"My new album is an album of liberation. This is the era of meaningful pop."

In the early noughties, Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, Katy Perry's real name, made her first attempt to gain a foothold in the music business. As Katy Hudson, she released an album of Christian rock in 2001. However, Katy Perry's global career did not take off until 2008 with the song "I Kissed A Girl". Since then, her releases have been at the top of the charts. She is breaking records: a total of five songs from her second album "Teenage Dream" made it to the top of the Billboard charts. Apart from her, only Michael Jackson managed that with five songs from the album "Bad".

Even though Perry is taking a new direction with her fourth album, she doesn't have to worry about her success. In Max Martin, she has one of the best producers in the world on her team. Anything he touches is practically guaranteed a place in the charts. Some even call him the king of pop. He has made stars such as Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys famous and worked with global stars such as Bon Jovi, Céline Dion and Ace of Base (see box). A total of 22 of his works made it to the top of the US Billboard charts. And that in a period of over 20 years!

Your producer is the No. 1 hit producer

"He's already achieved so much, so he could just push through his idea of music," says Katy Perry in a contribution to the Polar Music Prize, which Martin Sandberg, as Max Martin is actually called, was awarded in 2016 for his musical achievements. "But he's not like that at all, he responds to the other ideas and wants to learn something. So it's more of a give and take." Nevertheless, he knows what he wants: "When it comes to the vocals, he's very tricky," says Katy. "I sometimes have to sing the passages more than I personally think is necessary. But he knows exactly what needs to be how and gives very detailed instructions."

Every song should be as catchy as possible

Martin himself lives in Sweden and works at Cheiron Studios in Stockholm. There are experts there for every section of a song - to make the result as catchy as possible. Martin contributed six songs to Katy Perry's latest album.

Before Katy Perry comes to Switzerland in June 2018, she starts her US tour on September 7, 2017. It's going to be artistic: initial venue plans reveal that the main stage will be in the shape of an eye and the side stage in the shape of a drop. Fans are also excited to see what Perry will present. After all, she has never made such a drastic change in style before.