Katy Perry has easily taken over American Idol with her unprecedented judging style

TIME

Perry, says Daniel D'Addario, "takes up just about all of American Idol‘s psychic energy," with Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan essentially serving as her backups. "Perry’s routine," he says, "is without recent precedent in reality-judging history, a medium that tends toward either flavorless earnestness or complete self-absorption: She takes American Idol lightly enough to make it largely about herself, but seriously enough to go to the effort to come up with a topspin on every comment. Any competitor who wants to learn something about stardom in 2018—about how to move forward from disappointment and how to triumph in an entertainment economy where meme-ability is the coin of the realm—could do well to look at Perry. She’s teaching a lesson in precisely what it takes to keep the focus on you, and more than any contestant we’ve so far seen, she is playing to win."