I spent a lot of my Winter Break blasting, "Don't stop, make it pop, D.J. blow my speakers up!" in my car. Ke$ha's feisty single, "Tik Tok," topped the charts for months and set a record for the most digital downloads ever in a week by a female artist. The 22-year old starlet's future looked bright.
Unfortunately, her debut album, Animal, does not really live up to the hype. "Tik Tok," may be a blast, but the rest of the songs are not nearly as memorable. A combination of dumb lyrics and a mediocre voice leads to an unpolished sound, and her embarrassing attempts at rapping and excessive use of Auto-Tune do her no favors.
It is difficult to tell when one song ends and another starts when they all sound the same. This fact becomes even more shocking, considering Ke$ha claimed in an interview with Seventeen Magazine that she had written more than 200 songs, and these 14 are "the best of the best."
The lyrical content rarely reaches anything beyond childish and simple. They are hilarious in "Tik Tok," and the catchy melody makes the song work. Unfortunately, however, the bad lyrics and awkward melodies do not mix, making listening to Animal a painful experience. When her lyrics are not inappropriate, they are just immature. For example, on "Party at a Rich Dude's House," she brags, "I threw up in the closet," referring to her claims to have vomited in Paris Hilton's closet once - clearly an experience so inspirational that she had to write a song.
Most singers the same age as Ke$ha sing about love and its problems, but Ke$ha just complains. To name a few examples, she whines: "Stephen, why won't you call me?", "You shouldn't kiss and tell," "You're such a backstabber!" and "You are a dinosaur" to old guys that hit on her. It should come as no surprise that during the course of 14 tracks, this attitude gets old quickly. Perhaps ironically, a song titled "Hungover" is the most serious one on the album.
A couple of the songs are catchy, but they fail to match the level of her breakout hit. Her new single, "Blah Blah Blah," featuring 3OH3!, is mediocre. During the pre-chorus, she sings, "Listen hot stuff, I'm in love with this song." I like it until the annoying chorus, "Stop talking that blah blah blah." Nevertheless, the Auto-Tune constantly grates on my ears, which detracts from anything that stands out for its good qualities.
If I had to pick a favorite apart from "Tik Tok," it would be the first song, "Your Love is My Drug." The rap-like verse is hard on the ears, but the chorus is well-done.
Overall, it seems as if Ke$ha is more concerned about being obnoxious and rebellious - "brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack" - than with the quality of her music. And being rebellious can only take you so far if you do not have a good sound.
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