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Single of the week: Katy Perry’s ‘Chained 2 the Rhythm’

Natalia Bus discusses the latest Katy Perry release

If there’s one thing you can’t fault Katy Perry for, it’s the dedication of her marketing team. Days before her single release, she had them running around, chaining disco balls to anything they could find. The marketing stunt mobilised fans around the world, snapping photos of themselves literally “chained to the rhythm”.

Equally, however, the majority of the less keen population too felt a dose of muchless-fun oppression, as disco balls appeared virtually everywhere. Perry made sure we were all chained to her new single.

And what a single it is. Exposing the mundane and repetitive nature of modern life, Perry has managed to create a track which, fittingly, is both mundane and repetitive. “Are we tone deaf?” rings out the second verse, a fair question considering that Perry nearly broke Spotify on the first day of release, tallying a huge three million streams of the song.

For a track so steeped in irony it’s almost drowning, I cannot help but wonder whether the whole thing is meant as a clever piece of social commentary by the pop princess at her own expense.

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