Ke$ha: Animal

There is a lot of buzz about Ke$ha these days, and I believe youngsters may soon begin asking their parents if they should brush their teeth with Crest or “a bottle of Jack” because they’ve heard Tik Tok so many times, so reviewing Animal isn’t exactly cutting edge, although it might be for someone my age.

Ke$ha had one of those hard-luck childhoods where she and her single mom drifted about. She actually is from the Nashville area and still lives with her mom there when she’s not on tour; early influences growing up were largely country. Although she’s only 23, she’s been trying for a number of years to break onto the scene and added the ‘$’ to her name sarcastically during the early years (I know, I was also surprised to learn that her given name didn’t include the ‘$’, her actual birth name being just plain Kesha). To illustrate the hard times she went through early on, she sang backup on Paris Hilton’s album- yikes. I did not know (or remember anyway) that she also sang on Flo Rida’s hit song, Right Round. Fun fact: Ke$ha is nearly six feet tall- isn’t that interesting?

Okay, the music… My first impression after listening to Animal all the way through is that little Ke$ha needs an intervention and possible some self esteem classes to choose better boyfriends- oh my! D.A.R.E. officers could use this album to relate cautionary tales of the bad things that happen to you when you’re drunk because Ke$ha details many of them with an unapologetic attitude (although she claims the bad behavior is large in the past tense). I should have realized the direction things were going while perusing the song titles: Your Love is My Drug, Hungover, Party at a Rich Dude’s House (in which she describes throwing up in a closet, which she apparently really did at Paris’ house), etc.

Once the shock of the lyrics wore off I actually did enjoy the album. I definitely liked the more upbeat songs more than the slower ones, which seemed kind of depressing to me. If you’re not offended (or concerned) about the lyrics and just take them as a youngish party girl sharing some of her tales, you might like this album.

Aside from the radio hits, which now also include Blah Blah Blah and Your Love is My Drug, I would recommend Dinosaur, which is very fun and bound to hit the radio at some point, and Take It Off. Overall, I think I would save the album for a younger group and be satisfied with a few song rather than all.

Now that I’ve reached the end of this post I would like to mention how annoying it is to type Ke$ha’s name repeatedly!

P.S. If you enjoy reading these posts, please bookmark my page and consider recommending it to a friend. I’d also love to hear from people who have tried any of my recommendations or people who have music of their own to share. Thanks for reading!