Kesha - Topic

A collection of top songs featuring Ke$ha.

Taking a cue from Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster, Kesha's Cannibal is a mini-LP released on its own, and also tacked onto her debut, Animal, which has been squeezed dry of hits. Cannibal is expressly designed to rectify that situation, amplifying every element of Kesha's persona -- the singsong hooks, the relentless Dr. Luke loops, the squeaked sleazy rhymes, the defiantly transparent Auto-Tune slathered on every track. Despite a tacked-on unnecessary remix of “Animal,” there is no slowing of momentum on Cannibal, no time spent on meaningless self-reflection -- it’s just relentless, pulsating trash, its unapologetic vulgarity chipping away at your better impulses. Kesha is either smart or shameless enough -- ultimately the difference doesn’t really matter -- to realize her calling card is her unrepentant filthiness, so she taunts that she’ll “C U Next Tuesday,” teases that this place is about to “Blow,” raves that “the beat so fat gonna make me come” on the appropriately titled “Sleazy,” then far eclipses Katy Perry's malicious “Ur so Gay” on the nasty “Grow a Pear.” Sure, Max Martin's hooks and especially Dr. Luke's neon-colored throb push these tunes into your head -- they’re in top form, aided by the tight focus of an eight-track EP, Cannibal's brevity trumping the scattershot Animal -- but what makes them stick is Kesha. She’s all ravenous id, spitting at strangers and backstabbing friends, humiliating hotties, and laughing at the wreckage in her wake. She is who she is and she offers no apologies. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

It’s hard not to appreciate how Animal makes Ke$ha sound nothing like an industry vet who used to write for the Veronicas. Here she’s a gum-snapping, alcohol-abusing Facebook jockey straight out of the suburbs, who spits sophomoric but fun putdowns, come-ons, and sig files all over electro beats. The music is heavy on gimmicks -- Auto-Tune, vocoders, and silly samples are all in abundance -- while able folks like Dr. Luke, plus Mim and Liv Nervo, are in charge of the colorful electro-pop productions. With so many fun, “TiK ToK”-type tracks, Animal is recommended for both brats and the bratty at heart. ~ David Jeffries, Rovi

After releasing the nine-song odds-and-ends EP Cannibal in late 2010, bratty dance diva Kesha waited just five months to drop another stopgap effort, but I Am the Dance Commander + I Command You to Dance is a different animal altogether. Here, it’s all about the remixes, and with names like Fred Falke, Switch, and DJ Skeet Skeet behind the boards, the listener is in for a decidedly bumpy ride. “Blah Blah Blah” now bleeps like a funky computer during a power surge while “Animal” has morphed into a speaker-ripping monster with an extra fat bassline. OutKast member André 3000 adds a wild verse that goes from absent fathers to poppin’ bottles on “The Sleazy Remix,” but safer numbers like a club-friendly mix of “Your Love Is My Drug” and an especially electro take on “Blow” serve to anchor this generally frenzied collection. As far as anything new, the previously leaked “F**k Him He's a DJ” finds its official home here, strutting and sinning defiantly, reassuring Kesha fans that the kids are all spite. ~ David Jeffries, Rovi

There were two paths Ke$ha could've followed on her second album, Warrior. She could've tried a respectable street, sticking a pen in her heart so her feelings would pour onto the page, or she could have not changed a note, replicating the glitter-bomb of Animal. Cannily, she decided to split the difference between these two routes, remaining defiant in her tastelessness but flashing just enough depth to show she's not a passing fad. Of course, Ke$ha is savvy, knowing which trends to exploit and which to abandon, never compromising her position of the queen of the white-trash outcasts. Her gleeful embrace of low-rent taste separates her from her peers, every one of them containing some sort of aspiration of high-thread-count sophistication, something the ever-calculating pop star could possibly care less about. Throughout Warrior, Ke$ha raises a glass to the classless masses, the girls who only live for good times, never thinking about the consequences of their actions. She's smart enough to know there's a morning after, but unlike Lady Gaga, who happily embraced her status of queen of the Little Monsters, Ke$ha wants to get into the thick of it, writing rallying cries, not anthems. She may be writing songs for her burgeoning cult, but there is no separation from her audience, she is part of them, leading them into battle wearing ripped tights, heavy mascara, and piles of hair. Taste never enters into Ke$ha's equation: she's gleefully vulgar, embracing the magic in a dude's pants, copping a rapper's growl, tossing out profanity, encouraging the shock and awe of any listener with a lick of sense. Ke$ha may play dumb but she isn't stupid: she knows a good hook, whether it's in the rhythm, chorus, lyric, or melody, she knows how far to take it to the edge, knows how to be tacky without being gross. At her best, she is deliriously trashy: she ropes Iggy Pop in for a duet on the filthy "Dirty Love," "C'Mon" surges on the intoxication of a one-night stand, "Only Wanna Dance with You" is a riotous piss-take on the Strokes that pushes them toward the bubblegum where they belong, and on the deluxe edition, she writes the greatest Joan Jett song ever in "Gold Trans Am." Her stabs at sincerity, so casual they could almost be dismissed, benefit by her light touch, particularly the neo-country crawl "Wonderland." Moments like this reveal the precision in her pop machine, but Warrior works because Ke$ha never seems to be trying too hard yet she isn't coasting: she's created a statement of purpose where the highs aren't as high as those on Animal -- nothing digs in like "Tik Tok" or "Take It Off" -- but there are no lows. It's a wall-to-wall party for the freaks, burnouts, outcasts, and misfits and if you don't get it that's your fault, not hers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

Top cover songs related to Ke$ha.