After leaking over the weekend, Katy Perry has officially released “Roar,” the first single from her forthcoming album, Prism, due October 22.

Perry might have set her blue wig ablaze, but “Roar” shows she’s not retiring the empowerment theme that burned so brightly during the Teenage Dream days. (Try as they might, tigers can’t change their stripes.) Yet another winning collaboration from her Dr. Luke/Max Martin/Bonnie McKee brain trust, “Roar” rises above its easy rhymes with a ridiculously hooky chorus and some spaghetti-western guitar that cuts through in all the right places.

Perry has still got the lyric video game on lock too. Sure, the genius Facebook integration of “Wide Awake” will never be bested, but the emoji-happy treatment for “Roar” is an inspired try.

More than most others, Perry delivers pop without pretense, and I applaud that approach enthusiastically. I’ve got a feeling she’s gonna be roaring from the top of the chart with her latest single in no time.

Purchase Katy Perry – “Roar” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.