Katy Perry has released the first promotional single Dark Horse from her upcoming album Prism. The second promotional single will be Walking On Air which will be released at the end of September.

Dark Horse is produced by Max Martin and Dr. Luke and features rapper Juicy J. Katy asked fans to vote between two songs called Walking On Air and Dark Horse to be released before her new album Prism drops. Unfortunately Dark Horse won. From the clip I could tell that Dark Horse was the weaker track. After Katy held her listening parties for Prism, the reviews also revealed Dark Horse to be the weaker track – and possibly the weakest track on the album. Walking On Air was hugely praised and was said to be second single material.

Dark Horse was released to iTunes today and the full version is disappointing. Until I heard Dark Horse, I had yet to dislike a Katy Perry song. I even like all her Columbia Records demos and collaborations with The Matrix. But with Dark Horse, it feels like it’s trying so hard to be as brilliant as E.T. from Katy’s previous album, but fails miserably. Juicy J adds nothing and his parts are a bit annoying, especially the vocoder. The verses feel so disjointed from the chorus. The chorus, which actually sounds like a pre-chorus, sounds like it’s building up to a massive chorus but then stops with a beat drop and fizzles out into the next verse. What’s most annoying is that the “chorus” is quite good and has so much potential.

Fortunately, Dark Horse is only a promotional single and not the second single which Katy has made very clear. And fortunately we’re getting Walking On Air in two weeks time.

Take a listen to Dark Horse below: