The Soft Bruise at the Center of Prism
Whether Katy Perry ever actually kissed a girl and liked it is between her and whoever she kissed. What I know is that Perry in full heartbreak mode—stripped of the candy-colored set dressing and the latex outfits—is a more interesting thing than her pop maximalism usually lets on. "Unconditionally," the second single from her fourth album Prism, is the proof of that. It lands somewhere between a declaration and a plea, and the video, directed by Aya Tanimura, treats it with a restraint the song earns.
Prism arrived at a moment when Perry was everywhere and somehow still underestimated, filed under disposable pop by people who’d never stopped to listen to the architecture underneath the hooks. "Unconditionally" doesn’t ask you to reconsider her. It just sits there, doing its thing, and the ache in it is real enough to feel.