Katy Perry returns to bops and black hair in 'When I'm Gone' music video

Joey Nolfi
·3 min read
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Katy Perry is getting back to her roots as a black-haired bop-maker in her new "When I'm Gone" music video with dance music mastermind Alesso.

The futuristic clip sees Perry grooving through a rain-soaked industrial field with a series of backup dancers, while shots of the singer interacting with an adorable robot dog cut into the scene — all while the track's EDM-tinged beat blares overhead.

Upon the "When I'm Gone" music video's release on Monday, fans quickly heralded Perry's return to form following the underperformance of her 2020 album Smile, which became her first LP not to hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 in 13 years.

"Katy Perry having black hair again feels like a step back towards normalcy," one user wrote on Twitter, while another celebrated "seeing Katy Perry with black hair dancing & singing in the rain to a dance pop track" once again.

Perry has since rebounded the Smile era with the album's "Harleys in Hawaii" track going viral on TikTok, her continued starring role as a judge on American Idol, and a collaborative song released in 2021 for Pokémon's 25-year anniversary, while she also launched her popular Play Las Vegas residency at the city's Resorts World venue in December.

In anticipation of Play's debut, Perry previously walked EW through some of her most iconic looks — including some of which she wore for her 2015 Super Bowl halftime show performance.

"I had to slide down a fireman pole to get off of the massive lion [I opened the show on] to get down to that ground," she remembered of the set. "Nobody saw that. But as I was sliding in rehearsal, holding on to the pole, my whole outfit came undone because it was like latex meets metal — and friction! So I was like, 'Well, we're not going to have that on the Super Bowl.'"

Katy Perry
Katy Perry

Katy Perry/Youtube Katy Perry in the 'When I'm Gone' music video with Alesso.

In another recent interview with Apple Music's Zane Lowe, Perry revealed that "When I'm Gone" — which she affectionately refers to as "WIG" — is part of a growing roster of new material she's been working on for a while.

"I'm always writing. I've never stopped. I have a big chunk of songs and stuff, but I think that I can't make any more plans than putting out WIG and Play right now," she said. "I think that if people like the dance stuff, I'd be willing to serve up more of that, but I also really want to go into an evolved space musically and start a new era. That's going to be starkly different, but I think duality is important."

Watch Perry's "When I'm Gone" music video above.

Hear more on all of this week's must-see picks in EW's What to Watch podcast, hosted by Gerrad Hall.

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