Album Review: Ke$ha ‘Warrior’

Ke$ha is an interesting animal. She exists somewhere on the periphery of both terrible and great music, having already proven she is very capable of serving up either when she feels like it. For the most part, she seems to approach music in much the same way as she does life: by getting drunk and grinding her pelvis all over it.

On “Die Young”, it seems like she wants to hit the same self-destructive nerve inside of teenagers and college students that has made “YOLO” become a phrase that people actually use on a daily basis. Yet the way she sings “we’re gonna die young” it actually sounds like she believes and means it, making the song anything but inspirational at that point. She is more successful in cultivating a rousing anthem for those who refuse to grow old on “Crazy Kids”, where she keeps referring to herself as a kid as she goes on about how wacky she and her ilk of aging prostitutes are. She is almost certainly right. At times, she doesn’t seem far off from the wild-children of the 60s who now wheel their super-sized frames through Walmart with an oxygen tank, free no less in spirit.

And to be fair, there is at least a little more to the record than that. “Wherever You Are” is a highly relatable dance track which, to my ear, might be the biggest success of this record in the end. It seems to be a song about falling in brief love and not knowing how to find or reach the person later. As much as this is something I could easily make fun of for a few paragraphs because it’s Ke$ha, I’m sure that a lot of people experience this sort of thing on a semi-regular basis. The song succeeds because it doesn’t really attempt to be a slow song, which is usually a poor decision for Ke$ha. Of those bad ideas, “Wonderland” might at least be the best of the worst. It’s a more genuine song than more easily disposed tracks where she seems to reach too far to pull on your heart strings.

Since Ke$ha sounds pretty incredible as a rock singer, the highlight of the album is far and away her collaboration with Iggy Pop, titled “Dirty Love”. Her voice and the ways in which she comes across are completely different, in a very good way, which I noted in my review of The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends. Iggy Pop is just about the perfect partner for Ke$ha here, and this ends up being a shockingly strong track, full of energy and style, and a clear standout from the rest of the record. Alas, it’s the shortest song at just 2:44.

“Supernatural” is the album’s money shot in another respect. This is basically a song about a really great orgasm, which I am totally in support of, and the dubstep rampage near the end– though brief– almost elicits one. It’s very satisfying, and the only time dubstep on the record feels as if it’s more than tossed in to very limited effect. I would think Ke$ha would be a phenomenal match for a much stronger dubstep presence. “All That Matters (The Beautiful Life)” is essentially a song designed to remind you to take your ecstasy today.

On the other hand, “Only Wanna Dance With You” is pretty much an example of a completely redundant track and lets itself down because, in spite of the title, it’s one of the least likely songs to do well in a dance club. There are a few too many of these lingering about. It has a danceable beat, but also a more dated sound which is trying to be perhaps a bit of a throwback… but doesn’t throw the ball far enough and lands somewhere in, say, 2004.

The final track is “Love Into the Light”. She manages to blend herself into the music best here after an interesting start strongly reminiscent of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”. The drumming also feels very 80s inspired, but nothing else about the song attempts that motif. It winds up feeling just different enough from the rest of Warrior to make it a strong closer. It pains me because Ke$ha’s constant message, that being different for no particular reason is the meaning of life, is a little simplistic. Regardless, it’s a decent trick for closing a mediocre record.

Release Date: December 4, 2012
Image Courtesy of RCA