New Album Review: Ke$ha – Warrior

Freddie Matthews writes from London: What I like about Ke$ha is that she, over everything else apparently, is ‘all’ about the music.

Kesha Rose Sebert is better known to the music industry as Ke$ha; born in Nashville, Tennessee, but now based in Los Angeles, California. Warrior is Ke$ha’s 2^nd studio album. Her first, Animal, was released in 2010 and came with the 12 million plus selling single, Tik Tok, as well as the singles Blah Blah Blah, Your Love Is My Drug and Take It Off. Animal was an extreme set of works from Ke$ha. It was 7 years in the making and drew from over 200 songs she’d written in that time.

Musically the debut album was dance and electro-pop with a whole load of auto-tune effect on the vocals, a process many would criticise and no wonder. Ke$ha eventually nailed that 200 down to just 14 and, at the last count, has sold over 3 million copies of Animal.

Warrior is subsequently Ke$ha’s difficult 2^nd album. It’s a fact that any artist with a successful debut album struggles when it comes to album number 2. It’s an album about her supposed self-destruction. She wants us to know just how messed up she is. (You’d be pretty messed up if you’d also sold over 30 million singles, wouldn’t you? Well, for all of a few days at least!) Track 5, Crazy Kids doesn’t do Ke$ha any favours, including the lyric, “We are the crazy people.” You know whenever a friend says that someone else is crazy, most of us think that they would like to think that but in actual fact it’s a load of total bollocks. Well, when I hear Ke$ha sing a lyric like that, it has me thinking exactly the same. It’s too ‘try hard’ and that spoils this album for me. It’s like kids at a school disco telling their friends that they’re drunk, when they’ve only had a couple of light beers. It’s all VERY childish. Ke$ha you’re 25, grow the f**k up would you.

Warrior also deals with issues such as self-empowerment, love and sex. Die Young, the album’s lead single, was released to positive reviews despite the continued use of auto-tune carried over from album number one. It’s all so boring.

Songs from Warrior to watch out for: Dirty Love featuring Iggy Pop is kind of pop-rock with a strange twist (I’m thinking Jimmy Savile) as he’s old enough to be her granddad yet she’s asking him for some dirty love. It’s just wrong. Thinking Of You has radio & TV written all over it but will need some serious editing as Ke$ha has a pouty mouth to die for and likes the effect of swearing as a lyric; but take it from me, this WILL be a future single regardless. Crazy Kids sounds quite Maroon 5 (until the dub section of the song anyway), which is a very catchy and distinctive sound presently. Wonderland goes all soppy and ballad on us. It’s like bad girl turned good and she can be a lovely after all; but after what’s gone before it’s hard to believe the sentiment.

Warrior is all a little too much Lady Gaga meets Nicki Minaj for me or is that because Ke$ha is trying to carve her identity into this already crowded market place?

Initially, the album’s success hasn’t been as strong as Animal’s was 2 years ago but Ke$ha’s Warrior will be around for some time to come and as the singles get bigger so will the album sales.

Drop the auto-tune and constant use of expletives and Ke$ha’s on to something but maybe that will just come with maturity.

Warrior is no Animal.

4/10

–End–

1 Comment

1. Gabby says:

   January 5, 2013 at 4:25 am

   haha… no.
   I’m sorry, but I disagree. Ke$ha’s album is not “boring” and her lyrics are not “try hard”. She’s poking fun at herself. “We are the crazy people” is not meant to be taken seriously. It was meant to make you laugh, which it achieved for me. Wonderland was a good song. don’t read too deeply into it.
   I’m sorry, but I feel like you don’t know anything about her but her reputation, so you’re summing up didn’t really seem fair.