Katy Perry has been accused of plagiarising both the melody and the video for her new single, Roar. Pop fans have drawn similarities between Perry's recent releases and works by Sara Bareilles and Dillon Francis.
Bright and propulsive, Roar was released yesterday – the lead single for Perry's forthcoming album, Prism. But about four months ago, the American singer Sara Bareilles released her own bright and propulsive single, a track called Brave. That song, which reached No 61 in the US, has a lot in common with Roar: several enterprising listeners have mashed the songs together, highlighting the similarities. The matter is even more controversial because Perry herself tweeted about Brave, saying in May that she "hearts" Bareilles.
Meanwhile, as the Daily Swarm observed, moombahton DJ Dillon Francis has begun clamouring about the resemblance between Roar's lyric video and his own clip for the track Messages. Released through Diplo's Mad Decent label, Messages has a video built out of text bubbles, emoji and other trappings of modern instant messaging. The brand new video for Roar uses the same technique.
"@katyperry steals my 'Messages' music video idea … What the fuck?" Francis tweeted. "Legitimately this is so dope that @katyperry's director thought my video was good enough to rip off … Even if you don't like my music come to one of my shows and I bet you will be blown away by my fans and I."
Perry has yet to respond to either claim.
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