We live in confusing times. Art that seeks the high ground seems to struggle to survive. Trash seems to flourish, whether in television, movies or popular music.
We’re supposed to deplore this, right?
But the thing about a pop artist like Ke$ha that is so genius – and I’m specifically thinking of her 2009 hit single “Tik Tok” – is that it’s absolute junk and she knows it and she doesn’t care.
In fact, I can easily make a list of all the reasons to hate “Tik Tok.”
- The use of trendy slang: “boys blowing up our phones,” “the dudes… hear we got swagga”
- “Everybody getting crunk / Boys tryin’ to touch my junk…” Surely this is a lyrical crime?
- A 22-year-old white girl calling the police “po-po.”
- Young men shall be “kicked to the curb” unless “they look like Mick Jagger.” Really? Isn’t this reference about 30 years too late?
- Auto-Tune. Are they covering up the fact she can’t sing or just pointlessly distorting her voice?
- The proud celebration of brushing her teeth with Jack Daniels whiskey.
- The general recklessness of the lyrics (Note Tyrone Slothrop’s observation that “Ke$ha is the poet of moral hazard“).
- The confused focus of the song; the first half is about partying, but the second half is a celebration specifically of the DJ.
Here’s the thing: I adore “Tik Tok” and this list also covers why.
One of the things I love about hip-hop is how it chews up popular culture and spits it back out (Ke$ha’s a little more like throwing candy bars, potato chips and soda into a blender). It’s worth noting that this song was written by Ke$ha, along with Benny Blanco (who has worked with Katy Perry, Britney Spears and 3OH!3) and Dr. Luke (“Since U Been Gone,” “I Kissed a Girl,” “Party in the U.S.A.”). You probably see the pattern here: bits of rock, hip-hop and pop targeted to young people. Completely disposable music that can also take off and become global hits.
This kind of pop music is junk food. It’s really bad for you and it tastes really good. I generally prefer that to earnestness, which is hard to pull off. For example, P!nk’s last single was called “F**kin’ Perfect,” and it’s a fervent plea for tolerance and being true to yourself. As Ke$ha demonstrates, what’s the point of spelling your name with a punctuation mark if you’re going to be all sincere ‘n’ stuff?
Miley Cyrus is an utterly manufactured pop star (who starred in a TV show about a manufactured pop star), but her song “Party in the U.S.A.” is irresistible. I tried to resist, I despise her performance, but I could not escape its clutches.
You hate yourself for gorging on kettle-cooked chips and cream soda, but what are you gonna do?
UPDATE: Take a look at the interview that NPR’s Scott Simon conducted with Ke$ha.
2nd UPDATE: I can’t leave out this imbecilic analysis of Ke$ha from the New York Times in 2009, who seems to think she’s a female Eminem.
["Tik Tok" is] one of the most successful white-girl rap songs of all time… [It's] the complete and painless assimilation of the white female rapper into pop music.
[Her songs] are the product of a world in which hip-hop is such lingua franca, so embedded in the pop slipstream that it’s possible to make songs that are primarily rapped but are not widely considered to be rap songs.
It’s all part of the continuing deracination of the act of rapping, which used to be inscribed as a specifically black act, but which has been appropriated so frequently and with such ease that it’s been, in some cases, re-racinated. The very existence of the casually rapping white girl reflects decreasingly stringent ideas about race and gender.
The white female rapper has been one of the last frontiers in hip-hop, but Ke$ha is reframing the conversation.
She’s not a freakin’ rapper! Sure, her music is influenced by hip-hop, but so is most of today’s R&B and pop.
The article then reels off 13 white rappers (I’m pretty sure missing some examples) and says this is so few that Ke$ha has no potential influences.
“I love the Beastie Boys — that’s probably why ‘TiK ToK’ happened,” Ke$ha said. “Rap in general has never been my steez, but I like it.”
I wanna throw up now…