Katy Perry barely elicits any real emotion — let alone a grin — with her new album 'Smile'

Katy Perry promoted her new album "Smile" during a livestream on the SHEIN app on August 20, 2020.Getty Images/Getty Images for SHEIN

• Katy Perry released her sixth studio album, "Smile," on Friday.
• We listened straight through the 12-song tracklist and wrote down our first impressions of each one.
• Overall, we were underwhelmed by the formulaic production and the cheap lyrics, which mostly hinge on Perry celebrating her resilience and growth.
• The album's dominant motif gets very boring — and we don't fully understand why a rich and famous pop star would insist on painting herself as an underdog.
• The best tracks on the album are "Never Really Over" and "Only Love," but half of the songs on the album were ruled as skips.

Katy Perry released her sixth studio album, "Smile," on Friday.

The upbeat pop record has been marketed as Perry's comeback — or even "rebirth" — after the disappointing response to 2017's "Witness."

Insider's music team (reporter Callie Ahlgrim and celebrity and music editor Courteney Larocca) listened to the new album on our own, jotting down our initial thoughts track by track.

Overall, we were underwhelmed by the formulaic production and the cheap lyrics, which mostly hinge on Perry celebrating her resilience and growth.

Making "Never Really Over" the intro track was also a mistake, since it's one of Perry's best songs ever and makes the rest of the album disappointing in comparison.

Here is what we thought of each song on "Smile" upon first listen. (Skip to the end to see the only songs worth listening to and the album's final score.)