Oh my God, guys, she’s finally back! Can you believe that it’s only been two years since her last record? It feels like it’s been like SO long. But the time has come and Ke$ha, one of the most innovative artists of our time, is back and better than ever! I just can’t express how talented and important Ke$ha is or how much thought was put into this record. I mean, to call her anything short of the voice of a generation would just be…
Nope, I can’t do it, not even for the sake of satire. This album has defeated me, dear readers. Whatever hope for the musical taste of the general public Cee Lo’s recent christmas album had instilled in me has officially been taken out back and drowned in a pool of Ke$ha’s glittery Jack Daniels. As bad as Ke$ha’s debut album “Animal” may have been, “Warrior” is worse. Far, far worse.
Now, originally, I could have been considered something of a Ke$ha apologist. I mean, sure, her music was stupid and vapid and brainless but it seemed almost as if it was so dumb that it was just parodying other dumb music. She seemed to, in some sense, be pop-against-pop, an idea which I found both amusing and intriguing. Also, “Tik Tok” is undeniably fun and enjoyable no matter how much of a music elitist I may be. So how did it come to this? How did her music sink so low as to no longer even be viable as a guilty pleasure?
Starting things out on a sour note, the album begins with the title track “Warrior,” which fades in following a buzz of feedback. If this, combined with the poorly hidden autotune and nauseating synth tones which pervade the rest of the song, fail to give you a headache, you have a stronger head than me. For someone who claims to love partying so much, Ke$ha’s music would be one of the most effective means of torturing a person with a hangover.
After that comes the currently inescapable and equally nauseating “Die Young.” I can’t deny that it’s catchy; it’ll probably be stuck in my head for the next three years but, my God, does this song suck. I don’t know what it is but whatever made her previous work lovably bad is completely gone, replaced with ample quantities of regular badness.
Part of it could be that this track (and to some extent the album as a whole) just seem much more like stock pop music. Katy Perry could have released “Die Young” on a poor unsuspecting public just as easily. The references to glitter, dirt and partying now just seem like studio contrivances and any sense of uniqueness Ke$ha might have had is being milked dry.
Unsurprisingly, the lyrics are also abysmally written. I know none of us expect pop lyrics to be Oscar Wilde-quality but why on earth do they have to be this mind-numbingly bad? (example: “Feeling like a saber-tooth tiger/sipping on a warm Budweiser”) Who told Ke$ha it was a good idea to try releasing a cheesy “Our differences make us special / let’s all just live in harmony” type song based on the rest of her career?
On a side note, someone please get this woman a rhyming dictionary. It’s not that hard, Ke$ha, but I regret to inform you that “night” does not in fact rhyme with “side” and “eyes” does not in fact rhyme with “life.” Also, this is your second album, and as B.O.B. learned from the backlash after “Airplanes,” you can’t release a “I wish I could go back to when I wasn’t all rich and famous” song like “Wonderland” on your second album.
While simply releasing a terrible follow-up album would have been bad enough, Ke$ha also has the gall to bring legitimately talented artists down with her. I kinda liked The Strokes and was not actively opposed to the Black Keys, but after they put their marks on “Only Wanna Dance With You” and “Wonderland” respectively, I’m pretty sure I’m morally obligated to despise them now.
As if that weren’t bad enough, she even does a song with punk rock legend Iggy Pop in the form of “Dirty Love.” Aren’t you the dude who used to slice his chest with broken bottles on stage and hang out with Alice Cooper? What happened to you, man? Why are you doing songs with Ke$ha?!
The bottom line is that any sense of so-bad-it’s-good that I got from the songs on her first album is completely missing from the music on this record. It’s repetitive, generic, contrived and bloody hell, is it bad. Perhaps one day if she does something surprising like a full-on rock album (as she seems to keep hinting), we might get something interesting from her again, but with this record, she hasn’t so much misstepped as she has fallen off of a cliff.
One Out of Five Stars
Nope, I can’t do it, not even for the sake of satire. This album has defeated me, dear readers. Whatever hope for the musical taste of the general public Cee Lo’s recent christmas album had instilled in me has officially been taken out back and drowned in a pool of Ke$ha’s glittery Jack Daniels. As bad as Ke$ha’s debut album “Animal” may have been, “Warrior” is worse. Far, far worse.
Now, originally, I could have been considered something of a Ke$ha apologist. I mean, sure, her music was stupid and vapid and brainless but it seemed almost as if it was so dumb that it was just parodying other dumb music. She seemed to, in some sense, be pop-against-pop, an idea which I found both amusing and intriguing. Also, “Tik Tok” is undeniably fun and enjoyable no matter how much of a music elitist I may be. So how did it come to this? How did her music sink so low as to no longer even be viable as a guilty pleasure?
Starting things out on a sour note, the album begins with the title track “Warrior,” which fades in following a buzz of feedback. If this, combined with the poorly hidden autotune and nauseating synth tones which pervade the rest of the song, fail to give you a headache, you have a stronger head than me. For someone who claims to love partying so much, Ke$ha’s music would be one of the most effective means of torturing a person with a hangover.
After that comes the currently inescapable and equally nauseating “Die Young.” I can’t deny that it’s catchy; it’ll probably be stuck in my head for the next three years but, my God, does this song suck. I don’t know what it is but whatever made her previous work lovably bad is completely gone, replaced with ample quantities of regular badness.
Part of it could be that this track (and to some extent the album as a whole) just seem much more like stock pop music. Katy Perry could have released “Die Young” on a poor unsuspecting public just as easily. The references to glitter, dirt and partying now just seem like studio contrivances and any sense of uniqueness Ke$ha might have had is being milked dry.
Unsurprisingly, the lyrics are also abysmally written. I know none of us expect pop lyrics to be Oscar Wilde-quality but why on earth do they have to be this mind-numbingly bad? (example: “Feeling like a saber-tooth tiger/sipping on a warm Budweiser”) Who told Ke$ha it was a good idea to try releasing a cheesy “Our differences make us special / let’s all just live in harmony” type song based on the rest of her career?
On a side note, someone please get this woman a rhyming dictionary. It’s not that hard, Ke$ha, but I regret to inform you that “night” does not in fact rhyme with “side” and “eyes” does not in fact rhyme with “life.” Also, this is your second album, and as B.O.B. learned from the backlash after “Airplanes,” you can’t release a “I wish I could go back to when I wasn’t all rich and famous” song like “Wonderland” on your second album.
While simply releasing a terrible follow-up album would have been bad enough, Ke$ha also has the gall to bring legitimately talented artists down with her. I kinda liked The Strokes and was not actively opposed to the Black Keys, but after they put their marks on “Only Wanna Dance With You” and “Wonderland” respectively, I’m pretty sure I’m morally obligated to despise them now.
As if that weren’t bad enough, she even does a song with punk rock legend Iggy Pop in the form of “Dirty Love.” Aren’t you the dude who used to slice his chest with broken bottles on stage and hang out with Alice Cooper? What happened to you, man? Why are you doing songs with Ke$ha?!
The bottom line is that any sense of so-bad-it’s-good that I got from the songs on her first album is completely missing from the music on this record. It’s repetitive, generic, contrived and bloody hell, is it bad. Perhaps one day if she does something surprising like a full-on rock album (as she seems to keep hinting), we might get something interesting from her again, but with this record, she hasn’t so much misstepped as she has fallen off of a cliff.
One Out of Five Stars
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