Hot Disc: Ke$ha, Animal

Photography by Jason Nocito
Photography by Jason Nocito

Right about now, if you beat Lady Gaga in the download charts you’re doing something right. Enter Ke$ha. She spells her name with a cash symbol, sounds like she’s got somewhere better to be, and her slow-banger “TiK ToK” is beating out “Bad Romance” on iTunes. We had to check out her debut full length album, Animal.

An irreverent bacchanal swagger about waking up surrounded by naked babes hanging over from the night before, brushing your teeth with Jack Daniels and then going out and doing it all over, “TiK ToK” screams L.A. hipster I-don’t-care pretense but wanders into the “I’ll-rent-the-convertible-for-the-video” seriousness. But seriously, it’s the song you hear when the girls get together pre–long night out.

Discovered by the good Dr. Luke (Lukasz Gottwald)—see Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears—the L.A.-born and Nashville-raised Ke$ha co-writes all her songs. “I’ll go out, have an insane night, stumble home, and scribble down a few words,” she says. This is where we get numbers like “Party At A Rich Dude’s House,” which blasts its way through “wine stains on the sofa,” throwing up in the closet and not caring because “we’re young and we’re broke […] and the sun is coming up, and, oh my God, I think I’m still drunk.”

Songs you’ll be hearing a lot of in the next coming while are “Kiss N Tell,” about cheating and then telling someone about it–a bad idea–and “Your Love Is My Drug,” an exigent electro-pop ballad with crunked-out beats and staccato raps like “My steeze is gonna be affected if I keep it up like a lovesick crackhead.” Check it.

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