With her debut single, ‘Tik Tok’, topping charts all over the world in late 2009, it looks like Ke$ha’s Animal is going to be one of the first hugely successful albums of the 10s. Unfortunately if it’s in any way representative of things to come, it looks like we’re in for one obnoxious decade (but in a kind of endearing way).
Sounding like your typical teenage American bubblegum-popstar who decided to try and cash in on the trend of female vocalists going batshit crazy, without ever losing touch with her roots, Ke$ha comes across as a weird Miley Cyrus/ Lady Gaga hybrid. Her songs feature grating, semi-rapped vocals over generic electropop accompaniment, with lyrics which revolve around her partying and how badly everybody wants her. There are some undeniably catchy moments, but these are drowned out in obnoxiousness, and the songs all sound so alike that once you finish listening to one it becomes impossible to distinguish it from all the others.
Though for all that there’s something endearing about the album. Maybe it’s because, in the interests of gender equality, it’s nice to hear men being objectified for a change, as in ‘Boots and Boys’ (“They bring me so much joy / I wear ‘em both so pretty as I walk in the city”). Maybe it’s because her website features a story about the time she apparently broke into Prince’s house to give him her demo for him to produce her. More likely though it’s down to the fact that the obnoxiousness is so unashamed and irreverent that the whole thing feels like a light-hearted joke on the listener: songs like ‘Stephen’ and ‘Dinosaur’ are so completely bizarre that it’s impossible not to laugh with them; while ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ is the album’s rough equivalent of an emotional ballad, with lyrics such as “Welcome to my funeral… / All alone it’s dark and cold / With every move I die” sung over a synthy accompaniment that sounds exactly like every other song, only with a slightly slower beat.
At the end of the album I’m certain I didn’t enjoy listening to it, but I’m left with a faint, inexplicable affection for the artist…
