it's that the shell is see-through but the persona of the song doesn't realize this

I still think this is a point in Ke$ha's favor, somehow. I feel like there's something brutal about her (maybe her, maybe her "persona's") cluelessness, something genuinely shocking, but not at all for the reasons she wants to shock. And I think there's something to be said for the way in which Ke$ha somehow gets to a spectacle that's oddly uncontrolled, the antithesis of (I'd maybe say mannered?) Gaga spectacle, though I think they're doing different things and seem to like both of them now. But when I listen to Ke$ha my brow actually furrows, and I think about what the display sort of means, which is something I've never really been able to do with Gaga in a more visceral way, only abstractly, via costumes and videos and quotes etc. Her music doesn't make my jaw drop at all, which isn't to say it's bad, but that it's mising a certain kick in the gut that Ke$ha has, whether she means to or not (and if she means to, I don't think it kicks me in the gut in the way I think she means for it to).