Salon.com > Ke$ha

Five beloved pop songs with lyrics more derivative than “Friday”

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:22:00 +0000

While the rest of the world was busy debating how much worse 13-year-old Rebecca Black's song "Friday" was than the current situation in Japan or Libya, Cord Jefferson from new media magazine Good was putting things in perspective. "Calling 'Friday' disastrous is akin to The New York Review of Books tearing apart The Berenstain Bears," wrote Cord, "Sure, it doesn't meet your standards. It's not for you."

Then again, a lot of pop songs don't really have the most thought-provoking lyrics. Leaving aside the fact that Rebecca didn't write "Friday" (though maybe it would have been better if she had), most of our Top 40 songs are catchy because of – not despite – their repetitiveness. Cord gives the example of Katy Perry's songs, but honestly compared to some of the crap out there, "Teenage Dream" is friggin' "Finnegans Wake." Below, five pop hits with the most stupid lyrics imaginable, and why they are worse for our culture than "Friday."

1. Ke$ha: "Blah Blah Blah"

Fighting for Ke$ha’s right to suck

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:45:00 +0000

Just how terrible is Ke$ha? The 23-year-old, whose "Tik Tok" has attained anthem status among the drunk girls at your local TGI Friday's, hasn't exactly been a critical darling since she popped up on the music scene last year. Her catchy, tinny songs about drinking and partying, combined with an uncombed, makeup-smeared image, have made her this year's candidate for pop's slickest, most unconvincing bad girl.

But when she made her "Saturday Night Live" debut this weekend, it aroused an unprecedented level of gleeful vitriol. Entertainment Weekly called it a "train wreck." Blemish.com, less charitably, dubbed it "retarded." And it's true that one would certainly exhaust a whole lot of other adjectives before landing on "entertaining." For her first number, "Tik Tok," she clad herself in a stars and stripes cape that is, in truth, a tough look to pull off. But for an ostensibly badass artist who's had a worldwide No. 1 hit, she was as fluid and sexy as the "Trololo" guy. As Jezebel writer Hortense astutely notes, the turning point in the whole performance came roughly 40 seconds in, when she glanced off to the side, more like a nervous kid than the "Animal" of her debut album. But that was glorious compared to what happened next. For "Your Love Is My Drug," she borrowed from Sia's 2008 glow-in-the-dark look with a nod to Olympic aboriginal ice dancing to do a tribal routine that effectively put to rest any notions that the girl can sing or dance. Let's put it this way: Fergie isn't losing sleep.

A “Spectacular” ode to date rape

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:09:00 +0000

Former Disney Cheetah Girl Kiely Williams has a message to girls about getting drunk and hooking up. On her YouTube page, she explains that she's trying to raise awareness about a "serious women’s health and safety issue" with her new single, "Spectacular." So how does she do it?

In the song, she sings of her adventures on an evening out: "I must have been on drugs, I hope he used a rubber." And although she winds up "Ass up, clothes off, broke off, dozed off," "He could get it again if he wanted, cause the sex was spectacular."

Hmm, I must have missed the part where, as she says, "It is absurd to infer or suggest that I am condoning this behavior." Maybe that comes across more in her mildly NSFW video (below). Let's see.

(Four minutes later)

OK, maybe not.

Because from where I stand, it still looks like a song about getting raped -- and liking it. I do, however, now also get the distinct impression Williams fully endorses glittery ass-shaking.

Dirty lyrics from little mouths

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:03:00 +0000

Little girls – one minute they're begging you to replay that Wiggles song about fruit salad, and the next, they're singing about boys trying to touch their junk. The viral queen of the week is a bespectacled 12-year-old named Avery whose pint-size version of the Ke$ha mega-hit "TiK ToK" has been quietly accelerating on YouTube since she posted it in December. Then yesterday, on Ke$ha's 23rd birthday, the thing took off.

The homage video is a Web classic; someday, entire college courses will be devoted to all the versions of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)." (Post-feminism in the age of air-punching gyration: Discuss!) But for parents, there is something about the sight of a child cavorting around to a song that celebrates drunkenness, fighting and over-identifying with Diddy that gives one pause.