Young and broke: this is the thread where we post links to smart commentary on Ke$ha
Last week Ke$ha ballooned into my consciousness when the chorus to "Blah Blah Blah" jumped me. The Jukebox reviewed "Blah Blah Blah" and produced terrific discussion and discord. I've gone back and found some interesting tumblr convo, and have decided to post a few links to what I like. I have no idea if I know aceterrier under another moniker, but his/her ideas are consistently ace; include mentions of the Rolling Stones.*
aceterrier 1 ("the ultimate anonymous voice of trashy hedonism and excess, the period on the sentence of our times")
aceterrier 2 ("The way the vocals stumble and slurr and bend off-pitch (or are bent off-pitch; Autotune fail = secret Autotune WIN), the robo-orgasmic crescendo heavenward at the end of the middle eight and the sudden moment of wasted clarity that follows - this is way better at expressing trashy debauchery than any attempt I've heard since, as I say, the seventies")
Dave Holmes ("I think she's popular because her lyrics reflect what sheltered 13-year-old girls think wild 21-year-old girls do")
Erika ("Ke$ha's persona consistently reads less 'super fun sexytime party girl' and more 'homeless teen, possibly a hooker' to me")
aceterrier 3 ("Surely the 'brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack' line isn't about using Jack instead of water, but using it instead of toothpaste")
The Singles Jukebox (whole scads of quotable stuff from Kat, Lex, Alex O., Chuck, etc., including this from Erika: "Listening to Ke$ha is like trying to have a conversation with a pile of cigarette butts"; also, this is where I first compared "Blah Blah Blah" to "Mony Mony" [UPDATE: The Singles Jukebox comment thread no longer has the first 50 of the 51 comments; fortunately, Edward O. has a file with all of them and he let me post them here]) [Last November's Jukebox discussion of "TiK ToK" is here.]
koganbot 1 (featuring me and the usual cast of characters: Sabina, Dave M., Erika, Lex, Alex O., Kat)
Anthony Easton's review of Animal for Left Hip ("'Blah Blah,' with its 3Oh!3 sample, its chainsaw and razor blade electronic noise, the layers and layers of her own voice yelling and singing into a kind of dissociative power are fundamentally fronting. They are a put on")
aceterrier 4 ("There's a racial element to it (specially in America) which is worth sussing out too: almost all [Lex's] examples of 'we've heard it before' are black, and whether it's right or not (it's not) mass audiences respond differently to and have different expectations of white party girls vs. black party girls n boys, except maybe now they don't?")[I MUST POST ON THIS SUBJECT MYSELF]
andrewtsks ("a celebration of the sort of vapid party-kid behavior that I see all around me in my circle of friends and which I think is totally self-destructive and killing my generation. I'd love to find a way to tie that into the fact that I also find her brattiness kind of viscerally appealing, but I fear that would involve a detailed discussion of my own envy of my substance-abusing friends")
Dave Moore ("it replicates not the abandon of intoxication but more accurately (cumulatively) the feeling between being drunk and hungover, the slowly emerging headache while the effects are still kind of in effect, genuine fun with an accompanying wince")
koganbot 2 (Chuck joins the party, with me, Dave, and Erika)
Please add more links in the comments if you find more commentary you like. Has ilX paid much attention, and if so, is any of it special? (EDIT: Here's Ann Powers' review in the L.A. Times.)
*EDIT: Aceterrier would appear to be Jonathan Bogart, who also appears here and here, the latter being a Popular-like walk through Billboard's number one Hot Latin Tracks from 1986 forward. And Ace Terrier, World's Greatest Plumber [Link is dead].
aceterrier 1 ("the ultimate anonymous voice of trashy hedonism and excess, the period on the sentence of our times")
aceterrier 2 ("The way the vocals stumble and slurr and bend off-pitch (or are bent off-pitch; Autotune fail = secret Autotune WIN), the robo-orgasmic crescendo heavenward at the end of the middle eight and the sudden moment of wasted clarity that follows - this is way better at expressing trashy debauchery than any attempt I've heard since, as I say, the seventies")
Dave Holmes ("I think she's popular because her lyrics reflect what sheltered 13-year-old girls think wild 21-year-old girls do")
Erika ("Ke$ha's persona consistently reads less 'super fun sexytime party girl' and more 'homeless teen, possibly a hooker' to me")
aceterrier 3 ("Surely the 'brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack' line isn't about using Jack instead of water, but using it instead of toothpaste")
The Singles Jukebox (whole scads of quotable stuff from Kat, Lex, Alex O., Chuck, etc., including this from Erika: "Listening to Ke$ha is like trying to have a conversation with a pile of cigarette butts"; also, this is where I first compared "Blah Blah Blah" to "Mony Mony" [UPDATE: The Singles Jukebox comment thread no longer has the first 50 of the 51 comments; fortunately, Edward O. has a file with all of them and he let me post them here]) [Last November's Jukebox discussion of "TiK ToK" is here.]
koganbot 1 (featuring me and the usual cast of characters: Sabina, Dave M., Erika, Lex, Alex O., Kat)
Anthony Easton's review of Animal for Left Hip ("'Blah Blah,' with its 3Oh!3 sample, its chainsaw and razor blade electronic noise, the layers and layers of her own voice yelling and singing into a kind of dissociative power are fundamentally fronting. They are a put on")
aceterrier 4 ("There's a racial element to it (specially in America) which is worth sussing out too: almost all [Lex's] examples of 'we've heard it before' are black, and whether it's right or not (it's not) mass audiences respond differently to and have different expectations of white party girls vs. black party girls n boys, except maybe now they don't?")[I MUST POST ON THIS SUBJECT MYSELF]
andrewtsks ("a celebration of the sort of vapid party-kid behavior that I see all around me in my circle of friends and which I think is totally self-destructive and killing my generation. I'd love to find a way to tie that into the fact that I also find her brattiness kind of viscerally appealing, but I fear that would involve a detailed discussion of my own envy of my substance-abusing friends")
Dave Moore ("it replicates not the abandon of intoxication but more accurately (cumulatively) the feeling between being drunk and hungover, the slowly emerging headache while the effects are still kind of in effect, genuine fun with an accompanying wince")
koganbot 2 (Chuck joins the party, with me, Dave, and Erika)
Please add more links in the comments if you find more commentary you like. Has ilX paid much attention, and if so, is any of it special? (EDIT: Here's Ann Powers' review in the L.A. Times.)
*EDIT: Aceterrier would appear to be Jonathan Bogart, who also appears here and here, the latter being a Popular-like walk through Billboard's number one Hot Latin Tracks from 1986 forward. And Ace Terrier, World's Greatest Plumber [Link is dead].