"Animal" by Ke$ha
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With the dance-friendly releases by Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas and Cascada, among others, making a mark on 2009 charts, we’re starting to see a bigger mass acceptance of the dance-pop genre. Amid this new crop of artists is Ke$ha, a recent iTunes Song of the Week selection that then managed to hit the #1 position on the Billboard charts even with the song “Tik Tok.”

Now, the album has followed, and “Animal” follows in the same vein as “Tik Tok.” The same strengths and weaknesses can be found throughout the album.

Ke$ha may be a new artist, but her rapping/singing combination gets old somewhat quickly. Her voice also isn’t as potent as artists like Gaga, Fergie or Cascada’s Natalie Horler, sounding thinner and of less substance. I found the voice grating to the ear at times.

The production also is a bit wanting in a way; the production is sparse, a popular trend of the 2000s thus far, but the beats feel a bit cheap, in the same way Madonna’s “Hard Candy” sounded cheap. While there are a lot of artists are making a living calling back to other eras (like Annie, which I praised here in this column a few issues back), it doesn’t feel as lovingly done. The beats don’t hold up to the lusher, more modern sound of Lady Gaga. Meanwhile, she sounds similar at times to Avril Lavigne, but at this point in her career isn’t as potent or strong.

Yet, despite those weaknesses, the songs themselves are generally quite catchy, a bit raunchy and edgy at times like Lady Gaga, and win over the listener. First single “Tik Tok” is a deserved hit, as even in its awkward moments it builds nicely to a great chorus. Album opener “Your Love is a Drug” is another winner in the same vein as “Tik Tok,” while “Kiss ‘n Tell” taunts the focus of the song, saying you shouldn’t have gone and fooled around with that person, and the beat is fast and loose, a fun song that has a beat that fits the lyrics.

“Party at a Rich Kid’s House” steals more from the Cascada playbook than the Gaga, and with the guitars mixed nicely with the backbeat and Ke$ha’s talk-sing style, it turns out to be one of the strongest tracks on the album, where everything meshes very nicely. The closer, “Animal,” has a production that’s softer and subtler than anything else on the album, and she sticks to singing, leading to one of the more airy tracks on the album, but is also a close second to “Party” as the strongest track on the album. She also sings a lot better on that track than any of the others. Slightly faster in tempo but similarly structured, “Dancing with Tears in my Eyes” wins for similarities.

Her voice’s weaknesses show on some of the others songs, like “Stephen,” where her attempts to croon com closer to a spoken singing style. Other artists have applied this method in the past (think “All I Wanna Do” by Sheryl Crow), but her voice just doesn’t fit the style as well. “Hungover” is a more classic ballad, but the production mixed with how her voice is processed sounds like a Demi Lavato/Miley Cyrus treatment that washes the voice out enough that it could really be anyone. In fact, the processing of her voice throughout the album makes her somewhat faceless.

At times, it feels like someone with a strong production picked a random singer to try to cash in on a craze, but Ke$ha’s got a unique enough personality in the music that it generally works. The weaknesses didn’t deter me from tapping my foot or humming along. The beats feel a bit cheesy at times, the lyrics awkwardly offputting in places, but the whole package is still quite catchy. While there’s definitely growth to be found, Ke$ha hasn’t done that bad for her first try.