Though it never feels particularly fresh, Warrior doesn’t get dragged down by its source material, instead treating trash pop like high art.
When future historians look back at our decade, what music should they listen to? What is the best this generation has to offer? More importantly, what album or artist best represents what music sounds like in the second decade of the 21st century?
The musicologists of tomorrow could do a lot worse than Warrior, the latest from glittery riot-pop sensation Ke$ha. Not just the best dance-pop album of the year, Warrior may as well be the only pop album of 2012, as it totally, gloriously and utterly unironically embodies every trend in current music, repackaging it all with a professional yet surprisingly intimate sheen.
This trendiness makes for an album that is as fleetingly ephemeral as it is joyous. Even the best tracks on Warrior will sound dated by the time Christmas rolls around. That’s OK. If there’s one takeaway from Ke$ha’s slim but thrilling oeuvre, it’s that the moment is all that matters. Surrender to that mindset, and Warrior goes down like a water bottle full of whiskey in the passenger seat of a gold Trans Am.
The title track sets the mood early: Yelling at her “animals” like the Patton of getting white-girl-wasted, Ke$ha orders her listeners to “live like it’s our last night alive” and “cut the bulls— out with a dagger.” Then the bass drops, the song devolves into dubstep-y madness and the party begins in earnest.
From there the album turns into a checklist of every trope and trend in radio pop. The riff from “Levels” makes a few appearances, as do dubstep breakdowns, whistling and aggressive white girl rapping. There’s jangling, Strokes-aping guitar pop (“Only Wanna Dance With You,” which actually features Julian Casablancas on backup vocals). There’s even a catchy electro ditty about sex with a supernatural being (the aptly titled “Supernatural,” the perfect spiritual successor to Katy Perry’s “E.T.”). Everything you’ve heard on Top 40 radio in the last 10 years is here, Frankenstein-ed together into tracks that feel scientifically designed to make you move, drink and download iTunes singles.
But though it never feels particularly fresh, Warrior doesn’t get dragged down by its source material, instead treating trash pop like high art. The album charms in spite of itself, breaking down resistance through sheer energy and relentlessness; it turns artifice and appropriation into postmodern art forms of their own.
This is all thanks to the dynamic, homeless-looking enigma at the center of it all. As a performer, Ke$ha has the uncanny ability to make excess seem organic and bombast seem real. She is able to turn schlocky, commercial cheese into something resembling confessional honesty without ever losing momentum or energy in the process. By playing up the ridiculous side of her persona and indulging in the cliches of the genre, she is able to perfect and transcend them.
Take “Thinking of You,” a snotty, pop-punk-tinged kiss-off to a former boyfriend. It’s Taylor Swift with a bitchy sense of humor, self-conscious (“I know I said I wouldn’t talk about you publicly/ But that was before I caught you lying and cheating on me”) without losing any bite.
At other moments, Ke$ha is downright contemplative: “Wonderland” finds her waxing nostalgic over James Taylor-esque guitar riffs, while closer “Love Into the Light” twists Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” into an unflinching, bittersweet look at fame (“I’m sorry, but I am just not sorry/ ’Cause I swear and ’cause I drink”).
But then again, there’s also a duet about getting freaky with Iggy Pop. Historians of 2090, take note: You can probably skip that one. Otherwise, Warrior is the best that Top 40 pop has to offer, even if it will be irrelevant by the time this review goes to print.