Katy Perry

At fifteen, a friend played Perry Queen's "Killer Queen," and something reoriented. "Freddie Mercury was — and remains — my biggest influence," she told the Daily Star in 2008, crediting "the combination of his sarcastic approach to writing lyrics and his 'I don't give a fuck' attitude." The record that had been all Sunday-school scripture two years earlier now had a new hero: a queen who reigned, glammed-up and unapologetic, over a song about a woman with total control. When Perry wrote "I Kissed a Girl" in 2008, the same appetite for scandal-as-swagger was intact — a pastor's daughter borrowing a rock star's nerve.

listen: upstream & heresource: NME — Katy Perry hails Freddie Mercury and 'Killer Queen' as a major influence (2013 Cosmopolitan quote) ↗share

1974

Killer QueenQueen

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2008

I Kissed a GirlKaty Perry

listen forPlay "Killer Queen" against "I Kissed a Girl" and the kinship is in the strut, not the melody: Mercury delivers a portrait of a dangerous, controlling woman with camp, unbothered confidence — "the way Freddie Mercury delivered his lyrics just made me feel like a confident woman," Perry has said — and her own vocal, clipped and cocky over a stomping glam-pop beat, chases that same brazenness. Both songs turn a taboo subject into a wink rather than a confession.

By her late teens, Perry had swapped one confessional record for another. "I idolize Alanis Morissette," she told People in 2023. "Jagged Little Pill was the reason I do music." She's called it the most honest, soul-baring record she knew growing up, made by a powerful female voice at a moment when there weren't many. Perry later hired Glen Ballard — the producer behind Jagged Little Pill — partly for that connection, chasing the same unguarded songwriting on her own breakup material.

listen: upstream & heresource: Collider — Katy Perry Considers Freddie Mercury and Alanis Morissette Her Biggest Inspiration (2023 People quote compilation) ↗share

1995

You Oughta KnowAlanis Morissette

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2010

Circle the DrainKaty Perry

listen forPerry has drawn the line herself: "It's kind of like my 'You Oughta Know' moment," she told Billboard about "Circle the Drain" in 2010. Put the two songs side by side and the debt is in the vocal thrust — Morissette's is a seething, accusatory tour of an ex who wronged her, delivered with a barely-controlled snarl; Perry's aims the same directness at an ex's addiction, trading Morissette's alt-rock scrape for stomping pop drums but keeping the same nowhere-to-hide specificity in the lyric.

Perry's mother had one clear musical hero, and it became her daughter's first blueprint: "Amy Grant was our Madonna," Perry told Vogue, describing a household that knew pop culture mainly through what it picketed. At thirteen, chasing Grant's example, her mother drove her to Nashville to record a gospel album; the 2001 release, credited to Katy Hudson, stalled and the Christian-radio ambition faded. What survived the collapse was the discipline underneath it — the polished, technically exacting vocal delivery Grant had modeled inside a genre built to sound like mainstream pop without losing the pews.

listen: upstream & heresource: NME — Katy Perry used to protest outside Madonna and Marilyn Manson concerts (2017 Vogue quote ↗share

1982

El ShaddaiAmy Grant

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2001

Trust in MeKaty Perry

listen forSet Grant's 1982 "El Shaddai" beside Katy Hudson's 2001 "Trust in Me" and the shared training is audible before the lyrics resolve: both showcase a bright, disciplined soprano gliding over glossy, radio-ready Nashville production, holding each chorus note under tight control rather than belting it — the reserved vocal grammar of contemporary Christian music, built to sound like mainstream pop without alarming its church audience. It's the clearest surviving evidence of the artist Perry was trying to become before she became someone else entirely.