Instead, Perry abandoned her emo image and pop-rock/pop-punk sound and sold out to Dr. Luke and Max Martin for hits. When singers get involved with Luke and Martin, they work with their teams of songwriters and ghostwriters. It's hard to know how much say Perry has had over the creation of her music. The song Teenage Dream was largely the work of songwriter Bonnie McKee who had hoped to release it herself. Perry's early unreleased music and first album are radically different from the kinds of music she went on to do when she hooked up with what author John Seabrook called the song machine and hit factory. Members of the pop-rock/pop-punk band Paramore discussed their decision to avoid using the song machine:

"I couldn’t imagine putting something on an album that says ‘life’s great, everything’s cool, party with me...I can’t imagine getting up there and playing a Max Martin song. At that point we might as well just stop."

It's possible that after selling out to hitmakers for #1 hits that Perry's heart is no longer in what she does. Her attempts at thoughtful introspection on Prism and on songs like Rise written in her late 20's were far inferior to some of the stuff she was doing in her early 20's. In 2010, Perry released a hugely successful album but it was also the point at which she stopped trying to be a real artist. It may have been a mistake to not pivot back to her roots on her third album, and prove herself. A dark or melancholic pop album had the potential to do well in 2013/2014 as Pure Heroine by Lorde proved.

Time will tell if Katy Perry can bounce back and have more big hits. Other artists who aren't respected like Pitbull and Flo Rida still seem to bounce back and get a hit from time to time. So maybe she will too. Some may point to Beyonce and Rihanna who have also had their struggles and bounced back. But they have the benefit of urban fanbases who tend to be more loyal to artists than fickle pop music fans. And they're respected. It's hard to tell right now whether Perry's days of major stardom are really over after just a few big albums or not. But it doesn't look good.