“Warrior”

Seriously… who wouldn’t wanna make out with her?

As my friends on Facebook know, I have a decent celebrity lust for Ke$ha, I would love to meet her and I am not really one that gets celebrity crushes. I guess some of my blog followers may not know that, I’m not exactly sure what the FB-to-WP cross-over is to be honest (if we aren’t FB friends we should be… I am pretty loose with my FB friend accepts and I love “meeting” new people). Anyway, her new album came out this week and I really enjoyed it. After reading a review of the album in The Atlantic (see: Ke$ha Is the Last Great Rock Star) I was pretty excited for it. So, here are my thoughts on the album.

I really like the whole thing, there is a certain righteous rebellious streak that  runs throughout the songs. She rejects social norms and the tradition of our parents generation. Instead of embracing a cynical skepticism she calls for an acceptance of how things are and a desire to make the most of it.

I think that people who were raised in the 80’s and 90’s are rightfully fed up with the “holier than thou” mentality that is always shoved in our faces. We are told that we are selfish by a generation that has spent our money before we had it, that has rejected any type of real reform in exchange for cute words like “hope” and “change”. And then we are told that we don’t care enough.

The generation before us protested Vietnam but seem okay with two political parties that start wars across the globe and kill scores of innocents with drones from the sky. They smoked pot and embraced a hippie culture but have no problem imprisoning thousands for drug possession and continuing a failed prohibition policy. Our parents continue to try and control our bodies and decisions with antiquated views of morality that they ignored, and then call us lazy when we live in a destroyed economy that they created.

So yes, Ke$ha basically says “fuck it”, this is who we are and we are going to have a good time. She encourages everyone to be proud of who they are, live a life of love, and to stop pretending. The rallying cry of “fight for the fuck ups, stand up for true love” spits in the face of the facade of the previous generation who preaches love from either the pulpit or the hippie commune but usually practices selfishness, destructive politics, and war.

At least that’s my rant about the whole thing… Her album is art open to interpretation by anyone and if Ke$ha read this she may disagree with everything. Regardless, I like the album and my coworkers are kind of stuck with it drifting softly out of my office door for the next little while.

Some other songs that I either found really catchy or had a good message: “Die Young”, “Dirty Love”, and “Gold Trans Am”… but just listen to the whole thing on Spotify or something.