So I just took some time to read through some of the comments and I'm honestly astonished at the lack of knowledge surrounding Katy.
Just because Katy doesn't explain her work doesn't mean artistic value isn't there. Just because she leaves it up to the audience to understand doesn't mean she lacks artistic merit.
Roar is directly inspired by an old film and comic book called Sheena. Katy Perry re-creates scenes from the movie and the single cover art is similar. Katy did with Roar what Madonna did with Material girl. They both re-created old scenes from movies and put their new meaning to it. Madonna fell in love with the poor guy whereas in gentleman prefer blonds Marilyn was the gold digger. In Roar Katy rules the jungle with her new found confidence whereas in Sheena she ruled the jungle with an Iron fist.
This is the very meaning of art. Taking an existing concept and altering the meaning. So many gaga fans dissing katy for doing exactly what gaga's era is all about but without giving you a watered down explanation and letting those with pop culture history figure it out on their own.
Even Dark Horse - It's historically correct. "Make me your Aphrodite Make me your one and only"
There were greek settlements in Egypt. In fact because of trading, there was a greek "harbour" and settlement on the Nile called Naucratis (Naucratis's sister town (next door) was the harbour) So this greek city Naucratis in Egypt on the harbour (where Katy is sailing) was also home to the one of the largest Aphrodite shrines.
Ya'll need to stop shading Katy and acting like all she does is pump out generic songs - She has way more artistic merit than a lot of your faves.
Since when does plain POP music needs to be artistic?! Y'all need to chill, Katy is the definition of Bubblygum-Pop and shes awesome at what shes doing. She will never win anything with what shes doing or will be extremely praised for her talent, but shes making music for the radios and the GP with a lot of success. I think people need to learn and accept it (also her fans). Shes awesome at doing pop music, but she will never set any kind of standard in todays music, simply because shes as manufactured as one could possibly be, and that is OK. I think she can live very very very well with the millions of dollars she has on her bank account, so some of yall better learn to do the same.