When Katy Perry released her new single Chained to the Rhythm last week, she declared that the track wasn’t merely a song – it was a movement. “We gonna call this era Purposeful pop,” she tweeted shortly after the song’s debut on streaming services early Friday.

Perry’s journey from the homophobia-tinged sobriquet U R So Gay to campaigning for Hillary Clinton has been in full view of the pop-consuming public for the past near-decade, and is now in full-on “wake up sheeple!!” mode with the cavernous Chained To The Rhythm. On the opening verse, she takes on selfie culture and the suburbs, echoing protest singers of yore while adding a 21st century spin: “Are we crazy?/ Living our lives through a lens/ Trapped in our white picket fence/ Like ornaments/ So comfortable, we’re living in a bubble, bubble/ So comfortable, we cannot see the trouble, trouble,” she hiccups over a beat that brings to mind co-writer Sia’s 2016 chart-topper Cheap Thrills and the remix of R&B singer-songwriter Mike Posner’s I Took A Pill In Ibiza.

During her performance of Chained at Sunday night’s Grammys, Perry made her message somewhat plain; she spent the first verse of the song seemingly imprisoned by a picket fence, then emerged to reveal an all-white outfit accessorized by an armband. “Persist”, the armband read in all caps, a nod to Elizabeth Warren being silenced on the Senate floor during last week’s contentious debate over Senator Jeff Sessions’ nomination for US attorney general. She sang of “wasted zombie[s]” dancing to a song that had overpowered them, while guest vocalist Skip Marley (grandson of Bob) took on “liars” and declared, “we about to riot”.

Perry’s gesture toward waking up the pop-listening populace is noble in a way; it’s also somewhat expected from her, given her tireless support of Clinton’s campaign last year. But it’s also maddeningly vague – what should listeners wake up to? Why should a person hitch their wagon to Perry’s rhythm in hopes of being roused from their slumber? And whether it can be counted as the initial step in a movement remains to be seen – particularly in a pop landscape that’s controlled by corporate interests such as the radio megaglomerate iHeart and the multinational hardware/software/music company Apple.

The past two weeks have played host to pop’s two highest-profile televised events: the Super Bowl halftime show, which this year boasted Lady Gaga as its headliner, and the Grammys, which showcased a flurry of performers, some of whom got political, most of whom didn’t. Gaga opened her 13-minute greatest-hits medley with a one-two punch of God Bless America and This Land Is Your Land, two patriotic tracks that have been perceived as being in dialogue with one another; she later performed the we-see-all-colors anthem Born This Way, which celebrates listeners of all gender identities and races. Gaga’s politics seemed lightly worn on the surface, although given that vice-president Mike Pence, an anti-LGBT agitator, was in the audience, the assertion that all sexual identities should be respected was a rebuke to power in a way.

Sunday night’s Grammys got periodically political; the largest story to emerge from the ceremony – Adele’s album of the year win for her blockbuster 25 over Beyoncé’s expansive Lemonade, and her subsequent outburst about Beyoncé’s overachievements not resulting in trophies – certainly had its roots in the racial tensions simmering in America for years. Hip-hop veterans A Tribe Called Quest ended their medley with calls to resist and accompanied by a host of people who, according to a rep for the collective, “are supposed to represent all the people that are other”. But while the late George Michael and Prince, both of whom received tributes from current artists on Sunday, would frequently get political with their lyrics – Michael’s Praying For Time is a searing ballad about inequality that still resonates 27 years later, while Prince’s catalog took on racism and nuclear war and a host of other topics – those songs were sidestepped.



In recent years, albums with political messages – from Solange’s steely eyed A Seat At The Table to ANHONI’s desperate Hopelessness to Kendrick Lamar’s incendiary To Pimp A Butterfly – have received critical accolades and online buzz without breaking through to the Hot 100 singles chart. And even politically minded tracks by some of pop’s hugest names – such as Lady Gaga’s Oscar-winning Til It Happens To You, which was on the soundtrack of the documentary on sexual assault The Hunting Ground, and Beyoncé’s pleading Freedom, which was one of the highlights of Lemonade – have run aground when it comes to getting radio airplay.

Whether Chained to the Rhythm, which has a platinum-plated pedigree between Perry and her co-writers Max Martin and Sia, as well as a more vaguely defined political message, will break through to the singles chart is another matter entirely, although it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that a version sans Marley’s verse was being peddled to risk-averse radio stations who may operate under an advertised or unspoken “all the hits, none of the rap” rule.

Beyoncé at the Grammys. Photograph: Larry Busacca/Getty Images for NARAS

A more cynical view of how it might land comes from Posner, who initially came into view in the late 2000s with R&B-tinged confessionals that straddled the chasm between soul and emo. His revived hitmaker status was unexpected, given that the track that brought him back to the pop charts was, in its original form, a stripped-down rumination on feeling insecure and washed-up.

Posner explained part of why Ibiza became massive in a piece on the eventual Song of the Year nominee last year: “A typical listener (myself included) does not hear the lyrics of a song on the first listen,” he wrote, repeating wisdom imparted on him by former Perry collaborator Dr Luke. “It’s only if they like the overall feeling of the song enough to warrant a second or third listen that they might start to pick up on lyrics.”

This concept parallels the chorus of Chained – “Turn it up, it’s your favorite song/ Dance, dance, dance to the distortion/ Come on, turn it up, keep it on repeat/ Stumbling around like a wasted zom-bie” – in a way as to make Perry’s agenda sound somewhat cynical, or at least maddeningly vague. Perhaps when Perry releases the second single from her upcoming album, her plan for #wokepop might become clearer.