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koganbotLast 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].
Re: The further evolution of my taste
Date: 2010-03-08 05:58 pm (UTC)How is this new information?
(On "Stephen" she sounds cute. Cute!)
Chuck says on a previous thread: "Uh... Now 'Stephen' is sounding like Lily Allen in my head for some reason. That can't be right, can it? (Ann Powers called it 'space-country' in her L.A. Times review, which seems off to me but I like the idea. Also wondering which parts of Ke$ha's album reminded her of Big & Rich -- weird.)"
Ke$ha has more variety than I had previously realized, but she definitely does not remind me of a cowboy Stevie Wonder. (Nor does she remind me of Steve Miller.)
Re: The further evolution of my taste
Date: 2010-03-08 09:36 pm (UTC)Which is to say: What's not to like? Actually, now that the Lily comparison has been made, I realize what I like about "Stephen" is that it's almost as good as Lily at her best. "Who'd Have Known" is one of Lily's best songs -- it's about the warmth and uncertainty of the beginning of a relationship, and the world Lily creates in telling that story is so complete that you feel like you're beginning that relationship yourself, and like you could get up and walk around and live in the picture Lily is painting. "Stephen" does almost the same thing, except Ke$ha goes back a little earlier, to the beginning of a crush instead of the beginning of a relationship -- when inside your head is a chorus singing his (or her, but the name is Stephen this time, so his) name, wondering why he won't call you, and the world feels like there's sunshine scattering off every surface, blindingly bright one moment, and a flash of darkness the next. You think about how you saw him from across the room, and he saw you too -- just seeing him feels like a landmark moment -- and you think his name again, Stephen, Stephen, and how he makes you feel so different, so not like yourself, and why won't he call? Stephen. You're not even fantasizing about a relationship, or sex -- that will happen later, and the whole thing will become tinged with darkness -- but the uncomplicated excitement of wanting and getting, like a child thinking about a toy, or a puppy. Stephen. You try to make a joke out of it, want to tell him what a maneater you always are, call him "Steve," all these things to make yourself seem powerful and uncaring -- but you want to tell him the truth, too, that you're feeling pathetic, that you break so many hearts because you can't handle rejection.
It's less detailed than "Who'd Have Known", lyrically, but it should be. "Who'd Have Known" is full of places and people because it's (at least partially) about laying claim on the various parts of another person's life, but "Stephen" exists, like a crush itself, in the triangle between three points: the party where you saw him, the privacy of your bedroom, and the inside of your head -- this whole thing built out of nothing, really, other than your own giddy obsession. So you fill in the blanks with repetition, his name over and over again, and with feeling: light, airy instruments and a melody that stops and starts through the verses (a hint of a nervous stutter?), slides up and down (like your mood) through the chorus, slightly alien versions of your own voice joining in to repeat his name with you and again to betray how you really feel when you ask the important question: Do you not love me? (You had your kidding-around voice on before that chorus came up, but when those other voices fade away they leave yours all alone, unaffected.)
It's an almost perfectly formed little experience, which is why I love it, and why I'm disappointed in the songs that aren't it -- if Ke$ha is capable of this, then why is she wasting my time with generic bullshit all over the rest of the record? ("Your Love is My Drug" is like "Stephen"'s shitty, malformed twin.)