Can We Just Make Ke$ha the Poet Laureate Already?

I have a much higher tolerance for pop music than the average person. Recently, I've been enamored with Ke$ha. Her new album Warrior kills it.

I think a lot of people dismissed Ke$ha pretty quickly after her single "Tik Tok" came out circa 2008. "What exactly does waking up feeling like P. Diddy mean?"
"Are there health benefits to brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniels?"

 I'll admit that when I first heard that song, I thought it was the worst thing to happen in pop music (this was before Bruno Mars. I lived in blissful ignorance of how terrible pop music can actually get). Without any context of who Ke$ha is as a person or who her fans are or what being a female pop musician was going to mean at the end of the first decade of the 2000s, Tik Tok is, quite frankly, really stupid. Was this girl a joke? Was she going to survive the partying lifestyle she sang about so cavalierly long enough to have a real music career?

The answer to the second question has been yes. Artistic license is a beautiful thing. And the answer to the first question is that if Ke$ha is a joke, she's a joke that she's definitely in on. Ke$ha probably doesn't live the skeezy, glittery, booze-fueled, sex-filled lifestyle that she sings about (although if she does, more power to her). Ke$ha is not another blonde plastic-type creation of the men of the music industry to sell records to teenage girls. Ke$ha had nearly perfect SAT scores and has an IQ of over 140. She's active as an LGBTQ and animal rights activist. It's been said by an Atlantic blogger that Ke$ha's autobiography is 2012's version of the Feminist Mystique.

Ke$ha knows how to weave dance anthems that tell stories of a woman who no matter how sleazy the location, is always in control of her situation. "C'mon" is a song about a woman initiating a one night stand, something that rarely happens in today's overtly sexual pop music. Men are mostly the ones calling the shots. "C'mon" is essentially a highly-danceable song about having communicative, consensual, excellent sex.

C'mon 'cause I know what I like

And you're looking just like my type

Let's go for it just for tonight

C'mon, c'mon, c'mon

Now don't even try to deny

We're both going home satisfied

In relationships, Ke$ha does not sit back and allow her heart to get broken like Taylor Swift. "Thinking of You," sounds like it could be a sappy breakup anthem. On the contrary, the song captures the bittersweetness of thinking about an ex, but also the empowerment that comes from moving on from heartbreak. In typical Ke$ha style, it features a ton of profanity and a killer dance beat.

Can I get you later?

Got to get to stage

In a brand new city

Getting laid

Don't we all just wish we could move on from our breakups by going on tour and having lots of sex?

Later in the album, in "Wonderland," we hear Ke$ha's voice free of vocal fry and much sweeter than in any of her hits. Girl can sing.  In this song, Ke$ha's tone is sentimental and pensive. This change from constant party talk is not brought on to reminisce about a boy who broke her heart, but rather to reminisce about her female friends.

Ain't it funny how the time flies? 

Fades into gold

 Now I wanna do a drive-by

 but I can't find the road 

Look guys, Ke$ha just wants to go back to a simpler time like the rest of us! She doesn't want to be an adult either. Which explains why her lyrics and imagery paint a such a compelling world of drag shows, gold trans ams, glitter covered floors, dancing, staying up all night and getting it on. We can't be creatures of the night all day every day and be functional, happy, healthy, human beings. Ke$ha is a feminist brain genius and understands this. She provides us with the sleaze and good times that our darkest sides crave. And if you don't have a dark side that makes you want to go to drag shows wearing nothing but glitter and a make out buddy, her music is still hilarious and good, sleazy, fun (or so I imagine). We need Ke$ha. We need her to remind us to take ourselves less seriously. We need a misfit who stays true to herself and isn't quirky for the sake of being quirky (*cough* Zooey Deschanel *cough*). We need her as an intelligent, strong woman in an industry that equates keying someone's car as revenge on a cheater with feminism. We need someone willing to sing ridiculous songs and "cut the bullshit out with a dagger." We need the vivid imagery of "that magic in your pants" to make us blush while we're riding in the car with our mothers.

So thank you Ke$ha. You R who you R and I am incredibly grateful for it. Take your smart, feminist, sparkly self and make some more hits.