A new single from Katy Perry was supposed to signal her return to prominence in the music industry. Instead, “Watch It Burn” is quickly becoming another entry in a growing list of commercial disappointments for the singer.
The track dropped Friday and was pitched as a callback to Perry’s earlier musical style, the kind that once made her a fixture atop the charts. Streaming numbers tell a different story.
Neither Spotify’s global top 200 nor its U.S. equivalent included the song in the days following its release.
Internationally, the song’s strongest showing has come in Brazil, where it climbed only as high as No. 127.
The muted reception stands in contrast to the rollout Perry gave the single.
A costly music video accompanied its release, and the singer debuted the track live at two European festivals — Rock in Rio Lisboa on June 20 and O Son do Camiño in Spain two days earlier, on June 18.
Online reaction has centered on Perry’s apparent fall from the top tier of pop music. One fan noted how recently Perry was still considered one of the genre’s biggest stars, expressing disbelief at how quickly things have shifted.
A separate comment was more blunt, with a fan writing simply that it’s “over” for the singer. Not every reaction was negative — one listener argued the new song ranks among Perry’s better releases in years.
Even by the standards of Perry’s recent output, this latest miss stands out. Her prior single, “Bandaids,” reached No. 101 globally on Spotify before fading — a stronger showing than “Watch It Burn” has managed so far.
Speaking on the Unfamous podcast, Perry gave insight into the emotional backdrop of the new single, tying it to a difficult stretch in her personal life. She described a long-standing reluctance to express frustration.
“I have not given myself permission to be angry my whole life over things I should be f***ing angry about,” she said on the podcast.
She elaborated on that theme, describing years of suppressed emotion finally surfacing. “What I’ve done is I pushed it down, but I should be fing angry. I’m allowed to be angry for a fing moment,” Perry said.
Chart dominance once came easily to Perry, whose catalog produced hit after hit in her commercial peak. That momentum has been absent for years now. Both of her most recent studio albums — “Smile” in 2020 and “143” in 2024 — failed to make significant commercial impact.
Singles haven’t fared better than the albums. “Lifetimes,” like “Bandaids,” never reached the Billboard Hot 100 at all.
The last Perry song to actually chart was 2024’s “Woman’s World,” and even that track only reached No. 63 on the Hot 100 before drawing sharp criticism from critics and fans alike.
There’s an ironic twist to Perry’s current predicament: her older material is thriving. TikTok has driven fresh attention to songs from earlier in her career, independent of anything she’s currently promoting.
“The One That Got Away,” originally released in 2011, has now topped 1.6 billion Spotify streams. “Last Friday Night,” another single from her Teenage Dream album, has likewise climbed back up Spotify’s charts recently.
Universal Music, Perry’s label, has been contacted by the Daily Mail for a response regarding the single’s performance, according to the outlet’s reporting.
Perry’s difficult stretch extended beyond the charts this past weekend. A scheduled performance at Belgium’s Werchter Boutique festival was scrapped on Saturday, with the cancellation coming just hours before she was due on stage.
The singer broke the news to fans herself via Instagram, citing circumstances entirely outside her control. She had been positioned to close out the festival following Pitbull’s set when severe weather forced organizers to intervene.
“Sadly my set @WerchterBoutique tonight can’t happen due to a government mandated cancellation because of the incoming inclement weather and crowd safety concerns,” she wrote.
Perry described learning about the cancellation while already backstage preparing for the performance.
“I am just as unhappy as you are,” she wrote, adding that the situation “is beyond my control” and stressing that attendee safety came first. She also wrote, “I am sorry I can’t change the weather, and even sorrier that all of us can’t be together tonight.”
Adding a personal touch to her disappointment, Perry noted she had planned to wear the same outfit she wore during her last Werchter appearance back in 2009. “I was even gonna wear the same outfit from that 2009 show again.
I love you all, and please get home safe,” she wrote, along with a sad face emoji. Festival organizers confirmed the cancellation stemmed from forecasts of severe thunderstorms, with officials prioritizing a safe, orderly exit for the crowd.
