Photos: Katy Perry at Lakewood High School

Katy Perry is brilliant. And, no, that's not an assessment of her music -- although, to wit, the gal does have a knack for injecting just the right amount of passion and pathos into her pop songs that makes them resonate, as evidenced by the impassioned expressions on the faces...

By Dave Herrera

October 25, 2013

Audio By Carbonatix

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Katy Perry is brilliant. And, no, that's not an assessment of her music -- although, to wit, the gal does have a knack for injecting just the right amount of passion and pathos into her pop songs that makes them resonate, as evidenced by the impassioned expressions on the faces of the young ladies from Lakewood High School, who sang along with every word to her songs... that she performed at their school this morning... on live television. That's the brilliant part.

Talk about smart promotion -- this was the epitome of target marketing. Not only did Perry perform to a rapt and enthusiastic audience at the school -- which, of course, earned this performance with its now famous lip-dub video of "Roar" -- but performing in a cheerleader outfit, the pop star essentially, and, clearly, unsubtly, erased the line between performer and audience. Perry wasn't just singing to the kids at Lakewood High School, but by proxy, these kids represented all the (presumably envious) kids in America.

Not only does Perry, who just happened to be turning 29 today, but looks all of eighteen herself, look like she could be in the crowd, but she's clearly still young enough to tap into that teenage angst. Perry acknowledged as much in her interview with Good Morning America earlier today, saying she still feels thirteen, "which you can tell by my songs."

Sure, her lyrics often read like cliched platitudes ("I stood for nothing, so I fell for everything"), but they effectively capture where you're at at that age, and they clearly seem empowering. And that's the distinction that sets her apart from many of her contemporaries and why she's one of the best-selling pop stars of this era. (Oh, did we mention that her album just dropped last week? Exactly. Well played, Capitol Records. Well played. Clearly, it is no accident that Perry's album is poised to check in at number one on the charts next week.)

Anyhow, if you haven't already seen the pics from this morning (they're all over Twitter, naturally -- even Hickenlooper was on hand and "Ready to #Roar!"), here's some photos we got this morning from our friends from ABC's Good Morning America, which was in town and broadcast parts of the set live this morning.

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