Today's Pick

Ke$ha has been threatening to rawk out for quite a while, so with the help of some elusive (to her) electric guitars and Stooges icon Iggy Pop, the pop singer finally gets to show off her snarl with the newly leaked "Warrior" track, "Dirty Love." And just before 2013 ended, might as well start off the new year with a nasty bang, the LA-born singer premiered the filtered grainy video for "Dirty Love" ("my favorite on the record," she's said) on YouTube. According to Ke$ha's track-by-track commentary, she loves this song "because we're just screaming about sex."
Pop's 1977 debut solo long player, "The Idiot," was cited by Ke$ha as one of "Warrior"'s main musical influences when she was constructing the album's sound, so it's not a major surprise that she ended up collaborating with the veteran rocker on this track. "Dirty Love" was inspired by Pop's music and draws from garage rock and punk rock and celebrates the lack of fancy things in favor of something more raw. It finds Ke$ha sporting a rockier tone to her vocals, influenced by her love of '70s music. Whilst the "TiK ToK" singer's previous records were dominated by synth sounds and the use of Auto-Tune and incorporate more guitar-based songs on "Warrior."
In a recent Billboard cover story, she said she was so adamant about proving herself that she first contemplated making "Warrior" a rock album. Speaking with UK radio station Capital FM, the singer described the experience of recording with Iggy as "insane." She continued: "It was amazing because, for me, saying something nice about someone, that's being polite. But to actually [work]... with someone that's putting both of your names and making a piece of art together, and you kind of have to respect one another for that. So I obviously respect the hell out of him, but for him to respect me enough to actually put his name on something and collaborate with me was incredibly flattering as an artist."
The song is a gnarly rocker with lots of distortion and Ke$ha's "out-there" visual is death by glitter, which is the the 26-year-old singer's directorial debut as she acting a fool, rocking garter belts, rainbow-colored hair and writhing around on the floor, plays a stripper, ripping her clothes off, shows off her hot booty to the masses. She also gets doused in champagne, which she spits at the camera, as well as dancing with a pair of transvestite dancers, as the mighty rock beat takes over her. Dirty, indeed. Yes, it's Ke$ha through and through. The clip closes with sound bytes from a news cast about smut peddlers!

Fresh off his successful night hosting the American Music Awards, Pitbull took to his Facebook page to premiere the new video for his RCA label mate Ke$ha collaboration "Timber." The Dr. Luke-produced catchy "folktronica" track (inspired undoubtely by Avicii's "Wake Me Up"), serves as the lead single from the Miami-born rapper's new EP "Global Warming: Meltdown." Pink suits! Country-line dancing! Pigs swimming in the ocean! Fitting the song's country-western vibe, the video finds Mr. Worldwide living it up in a classic Southern honky-tonk along with Ke$ha, a Nashville native.
Of the many charming things about Pitbull, perhaps the most charming is his ability to have a blast wherever he goes. A beach party? A weird roof? The set of Men in Black III? All are made just a little more fun with Pitbull's goofy grin. Pitbull revealed in an interview that the featured artist on "Timber" was originally supposed to be Rihanna. At the time, however, he stated that Rihanna was already asked to be the featured artist on the lead single off Shakira's upcoming album and didn't have time to record "Timber." Pitbull later asked Ke$ha to be the featured artist and she accepted.
What goes up must come down. It's the simple law of gravity. Pitbull and Ke$ha's harmonica-infused dance anthem "Timber" doesn't require too much introspection, but there is a clever use of metaphor and double meaning. The song furthers the idea that before you go down for the nigh to, you know, sleep, you must party hard. Here is why the use of the word "timber" works so flawlessly in this song. It's going down. The night will end with someone face down, either hungover or from dance floor exhaustion. The night is eventually going down - you can't stop gravity or the morning light, so live it up while you can.
The harmonica-tinged and square dance-inducing party jam gets a visual which is expectedly wild and straight out of the saloon, with the sultry Ke$ha walking in slow motion while a gaggle of back-up performers get their "Coyote Ugly" on. But it's not all cowboy hats and mechanical bulls: Pitbull pops up in the Bahamas for his verses, apparently gazing upon the livestock from afar and instead looking on with childlike wonder at a group of sharks in the crystal-clear blue water beneath his boat. This country-dance visual that plays off the song's fusion of big beats, quasi-yodeling and barnyard belting, but that's really the point of a night you won't remember.

Ke$ha returned to her over-the-top roots and sporting cornrow hair extensions, huge platform sneakers and huge gold rimmed glasses in the promo for her electronic rap song, "Crazy Kids," the third single from her sophomore studio album, "Warrior," features a guest verse by will.i.am, who co-penned the original solo version of the song. Neither crazy nor kids, the reigning Queen and King of Auto-Tune, Ke$ha and will.i.am have paired up for a scientifically formulated dance-pop song ready to pair with vodka bombs at your local sketchy club that smells funny.
Featuring whistling, "Crazy Kids," is of the techno-pop genre with traces of pop rap. And lyrically, the song was said to establish dualistic personalities for Ke$ha, and were inspired by a birthday party of Ke$ha's, which she described as, "one crazy night." This whistle-laden live-for-the moment tune finds the 26-year-old "Die Young" singer reverting back to the irreverent Pop-Rap style of her debut release, "Animal." The queen of the white-trash outcasts does not pull any punches as she spits nonchalant cuss-filled rhymes.
The glitter-loving pop star explained in her official track-by-track commentary: "'Crazy Kids' is an anthem for people like me, my animals and many people in the world who are crazy and not afraid to show it, and actually proud of it." And Ke$ha, always adept at live-for-tonight choruses, belts out a catchy one here for everyone who's dancin' on the dance floor or drinkin' by the bar. We've come to expect a certain kind of craziness from Ke$ha and the outspoken pop star hasn't let us down in her new video for "Crazy Kids," which displayed Ke$ha at her most take-it-or-leave it and the beats grimy.
The Darren Craig-directed video has Ke$ha rocking a new look in typical Ke$ha style, everything in the clip is over-the-top, from will.i.am appearing as a pinball-playing astronaut, to the inclusion of a mini horse, various shirtless, bearded old men, and throwing a hellacious house party that's sure to get the neighbors up in arms. Ke$ha clearly enjoys what she's doing - she looks like she's having an absolute blast throughout the video, whether she's mean-mugging for the camera or dropping it low in a series of scandalous dance sequences. Of course, she didn't hold back when it came to the crazy.

It seems perfectly logical that after her Illuminati-driven decidedly dark "Die Young" video, Ke$ha would want to take her follow-up clip in the polar opposite direction. This time, The 25-year-old electro-pop singer takes a wilder trip than usual, reps for the magical Furries and keeps her "Warrior" party going with the release of the LP's second party anthem single, "C'Mon," and the result in a total psychedelic trip with delightful hot mess.
"C'Mon" is a dance-pop and electropop song with bubblegum pop influences. In the chorus, Ke$ha sings, "Don't even try to deny/ We're both going home satisfied/ Let's go for it just for tonight/ C'mon, c'mon, c'mon." over a synthesized beat. While the track successfully pull off the glossy, feel-good pop thing. It's another fun party anthem with the catchiness, chorus and the usual Ke$ha "party anthem" vibe. The sweet song starts with a chorus of innocent angles, then blasts in with the bumping beat. The bridge cleverly sums up the free-spirited theme of the song.
Sticking to the usual Ke$ha party-trash genre, she takes a trip through time, gets extremely high, shows her animal lover inner side and lives in her own surreal hippie-esque world in the Darren Craig-directed giddy video, which takes things to another level and featuring characteristically wild behavior - this time with Furries! That's grown-up, human people dressed in creepy-cuddly anthropomorphic costumes. Ke$ha just wants to party!
Things get surreal after a pigtailed Ke$ha as a sexually harassed waitress who quits her job at an "Awful House" restaurant, and hops into a giant feline driving van that's just come out of some interdimensional portal. From there, we take a trip back to the 1960s, and Ke$ha called out her fans "Animals" to a wild party in a convenience store and a motorcycle ride through the city before returning to the "Awful House" for some sweet baseball bat-assisted vengeance on her jerk boss. It's classic Ke$ha purists rejoice. Once again, she delivers a video that's all fun, zero substance, and does it her way.

Ke$ha has premiered an interrogation for "Warrior," a really fun and amazing project she's prepared for the promotion of her just-released sophomore studio album. The singer is held in a jail cell and moved to an interview room, and is interrogated by the Metropolitan Police over her new album "Warrior" in a new promotional clip, as she confirms that her mother is "an alien" and her father is Alice Cooper when asked by a British policeman. Ke$ha later adds that she can "speak dinosaur" and that she "eats glitter" on a daily basis.
Having successful debut album, the self-styled bad girl Ke$ha has decided not to fix what ain't broke. When you need someone to rhyme "saber-toothed tiger" with "warm Budweiser," you know who to call. Thematically, "Warrior," incorporated rock genres and inspired from the music of the 1970s, is intended to be more personal than her previous albums with an overall theme of "magic." As the singer elaborated the album's underlying theme stems around embracing a person's inner warrior.
"I got hypnotized, and I just really wanted this record to be really positive, really raw, really vulnerable and about the magic of life," Ke$ha said. Taken as a whole, this is another surprisingly enjoyable album from a pop singer who has managed to broaden her approach without losing her unique selling point. "Warrior" is the most fully-realized and cohesive pop album since Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream," or Lady Gaga's "The Fame Monster." The difference is that this musical journey feels more authentic. Unlike those fabulous divas, Ke$ha isn't playing a character or channeling an alter-ego. This is her demented diary set to music.
In her recent autobiography, the 25 year-old Nashville native writes about the intense pressure of following up her massively successful debut album. The glitter queen lifted her game and invented her own genre and makes the transformation from electro-pop diva to intergalactic wild child with jaw-dropping ease. "Warrior," is a non-stop aural assault of fresh ideas and new sounds that document the singer's journey from being L.A.'s self-confessed worst waitress to chart-conquering pop titan.

Ke$ha has just released the acid-trip video for the hard-thumping, infectiously catchy track, "Die Young," the lead single off of her upcoming sophomore album "Warrior," which is set to hit stores and iTunes on December 4. The 25-year-old singer went on a spiritual journey, came back, and worked really hard to explored her rock roots. With her new album, She intends to show her vulnerable side, and the new clip features our hero as a cult leader, partaking in ceremonies with orgy implications and flashing scores of Illuminati icons. Basically, Ke$ha's back!
It's been two years since we heard new music from the whiskey enthusiast, and it's been well worth the wait. "Die Young" was complimented for the genre mashup. Instrumentally, it has a melody and rhythm reminiscent of Flo Rida's "Good Feeling." Lyrically, it was compared to "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. Regarding the song's meaning, Ke$ha said: "It's kind of an anthem. It's a celebration song, which I'm obviously known for writing those, but this one, the concept of it was to live each and every single day like it's your last and to always remain having a youthful spirit no matter how old I get."
"Die Young" spreads acoustic guitar strums, over an uptempo dance beat, while Ke$ha belts her half-rapped, half-sung vocals on the verses. Despite the track's fun loving message, there's also an urgency at play that suggests the pair may actually do as the title suggests. Ke$ha, a electro-pop maven, hadn't really done guitars before really in songs. On her last record it was a strict no-guitar rule. If you're going to die young, your life will probably be a lot happier if you spend it listening to "Die Young."
"It's about me being a cult leader at the end of the world," Ke$ha hightails it down to Mexico in a hearse with her disciples for a sexy dance party in her apocalyptic themed video. With tons of blatant Illuminati symbols and some sort of illegal orgy going on. She dances with wolves, dons a fur vest and gets it on in an abandoned church and starts a cult for glitter enthusiasts, and the whole thing builds to a frothy frenzy until the cops show up to shut things down, but the "Warrior" stands defiantly at the door ready to take on the gun-toting policemen. The clip takes the singer's button-pushing ability to dizzying new heights.

In case you missed the big release over the weekend, our favorite hot me$$, Ke$ha, released a new music video for her next single, "Blow." The 24-year-old brash and driven pop singer takes aim at the TV drama's former star James Van Der Beek in the bizarre, unicorn-filled video for her new electro bumping club track. Vocally the song uses snippets of Ke$ha's yodeling, combined with heavy use of auto-tune. Lyrically it finds the singer and her friends getting ready to party in a crash pad that has "dirt and glitter" covering the floor. "Blow" could continue Ke$ha's string of success over the past year.
"Blow" is the second single off of Ke$ha's debut "Cannibal" EP following the Hot 100-topping "We R Who We R," which had a music video with just as much pizzazz but a lot less Van Der Beek. The song is dominantly an electropop and dance-pop song that uses a synth infused beat as a backing, while the lyrics, described as a party-anthem, portray a simple message of having a desire to have a good time at a club. Once the song starts, we are taken into full-blown socialite party, Ke$ha's vocal work throughout the song was also met with mixed reaction, some critics felt that she was both sassy and brash, while other critics felt that her personality was missing from the song.
The glitter princess party up with unicorns in Chris Marrs Piliero-directed video, which co-stars actor James Van Der Beek plays her nemesis with unicorn-licking-fun. "I think the more you try to come up with a logical explanation for it, the more frustrated you’re gonna get. Just kick back and enjoy. The credit for anything you like about the video has to go to the director, Chris Marrs [Piliero]. He came up with the concept, wrote the dialogue, shot it..." Van Der Beek stated about the music video.
After opening with the disclaimer, "No mythological creatures were harmed in the making of this video," Ke$ha is shown swilling wine at a dinner party and telling a pair of partygoers with unicorn heads about how she became "elected to the parliament of Uzbekistan." As the pulsating song kicks in, Ke$ha and Van Der Beek eye each other from opposite ends of the dance floor before sharing a feisty exchange about Muenster cheese in the middle. The pair then whip out laser guns and a few unicorns get caught in the crossfire. At the end of the video, it's revealed that Ke$ha killed Van Der Beek and that she has mounted his head on her wall with the plaque reading, "James Van Der Dead."

American pop singer Ke$ha throws sexy, dark dance party so hard in just-released clip for "We R Who We R," her first offering and a solid kick off to her new debut EP, "Cannibal," which is upbeat, yet typical and an electronic dance pop party extravaganza, released last month. The track debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, three weeks before the EP's release.
Ke$ha was inspired to write the song in the wake of news that bullying had led to multiple suicides of gay youth. Ke$ha explained that she wanted the song to become a pride anthem: "I wanted to inspire people to be themselves. It's a celebration of any sort of quirks or eccentricities." She elaborated, "I was really affected by the suicides that have been happening, having been subject to very public hatred myself. I have absolutely no idea how these kids felt. What I'm going through is nothing compared to what they had to go through. Just know things do get better and you need to celebrate who you are. Every weird thing about you is beautiful and makes life interesting. Hopefully the song really captures that emotion of celebrating who you are." With its bouncy Dr. Luke beats and her usual bubblegum melodies, it could actually be her poppermost effort to date.
The chart-topping "We R Who We R" is dominantly a uptempo dance-pop song with a trashy edge providing great Friday night party music, that utilizes a synth-heavy backing. Vocally, the song follows in the footsteps of Ke$ha's previous singles, in which Ke$ha uses her "signature" talk-singing vocal style throughout the song. The 23-year-old pop phenom continues to toe the line between offensive and clever, she struck gold again with "We R Who We R." The catchy beat and a party sense applies to most of the general public with "You know we're superstars, we are who we are!" and it will make anyone dance. This really can mean whatever you want it to be.
Glitter, studded eyebrows, and 'sexified' autotune are all present in Ke$ha's new video since she wants everyone to know "We R Who We R." The Good-time girl says that "This video is a little bit sexy time." Directed by Hype Williams in downtown Los Angeles this fall, The hot and dangerous video is presented as an underground party, and centers on Ke$ha having a night out with her crew roll through a tunnel as a fire burns in the background and then she stage dives off a roof. Luckily, the crowd below catches her. The video closes with a smiling Ke$ha dancing her heart out, proclaiming proudly that "We R Who We R." Ke$ha definitely knows how to entertain us and put on a show! She's clearly a performer! When they arrive, Revolucion tequila is on full display at a post-apocalyptic rave. Apparently, Ke$ha has now hit the product-placement stage of her career.

Our favorite hot mess Ke$ha keeps her outrageous factor going and is finally gotten off her arse and released a video for new single "Take It Off," the fourth single off her debut album, "Animal." The track seems to embody relentless, carefree hedonism at its best, and Ke$ha definitely has her own kind of flare, sound, look, and overall uniqueness that sets her apart from other artist.
"Take It Off" was initially written about when Ke$ha was attending a drag show, and how she became really turned on by transvestite men taking their clothing off. The song is an upbeat dancepop song that uses heavy amounts of auto tune and utilizes an electro infused beat. With a crazy chalk-filled dance party in a drained swimming pool, the Paul Hunter-directed clip is truly a dirty free-for-all. Ke$ha explained the video is "about me and all my hot vampire babe friends breaking into a hotel on another planet, roll around in glitter, and at the end we all turn into this beautiful stardust. Once you take it all off, all your inhibitions, your clothes, we're all made up of the same thing." She added that the video "isn't just about taking off your clothes and rolling in glitter. It's also about taking off your inhibitions and being raw and real."
The 23-year-old brash singer-songwriter is more than just a ton of fun or a one-trick party girl. Raised in Nashville by her semi-famous but often struggling songwriter mother, Ke$ha grew up alternating between living on food stamps and hanging out in recording studios. She fell in love with country music and was determined from an early age to be a rock star. By her senior year of high school, she had been accepted to study psychology at Columbia, but instead dropped out to move to L.A. and pursue music. Her gamble paid off. Her breakthrough came in early 2009 after appearing on Flo Rida's No.1 single "Right Round." "When I first heard my voice on 'Right Round' on the radio, I started screaming and crying," Ke$ha says.
Musically, her successful chart-topping debut "Animal" is of the dance-pop genre, while incorporating elements of electro and electropop in its production and beats, which was seven years in the making and resulted in Ke$ha's accumulating over two hundred songs by the time of its release, with fourteen making the final cut, is shaping up to be an edgy collection of hard-hitting electro-pop songs, made all the more irresistible by their high-octane punk energy and Ke$ha's irreverent lyrics and attitude. "I want my music to be fun, unapologetic, rowdy, quirky, humorous, and interesting," she says, "but with substance behind it. I'm an emotional person underneath all my fronting. I want people to listen to it and feel like they can relate." Not surprisingly, the songs showcase Ke$ha's flair for storytelling, though her choice of subject matter isn't exactly conventional.

It's a British up-and-comer Taio Cruz's naughty tune, who teams up with the always misunderstood, Ke$ha, premiered a music video to support his next single "Dirty Picture," which first appeared on his second album "Rokstarr." It's being released in the UK as a single this month, and a new mix of "Dirty Picture" prominently features pop's latest wildcat, Ke$ha on Myspace UK a few days ago! The party animal Ke$ha balances on the the rim of a public bathroom toilet seat in British newcomer Cruz's new "Dirty Picture" video.
"Dirty Picture," a catchy song nonetheless, was produced by Cruz and written by himself and Ke$ha, as the third single comes from Cruz's upcoming second album "Rokstarr," will be released on April 25 digitally and on April 26 physically, and will no doubt be used as the follow up to his US No.1 "Break Your Heart." Although it has been suggested that Cruz originally wanted Lady GaGa on his song "Dirty Picture," Ke$ha makes a suitably filthy replacement. "I went to a meeting with Dr. Luke and he was telling me about this new girl he was working with. She hadn't done 'Tik Tok' or anything like that at that point. But I just thought she sounded really cool. A very unique-sounding voice," Cruz confessed to MTV.
The music video, pretty standard-fare. was shot partly in East London sometime in February. The pair filmed the remaining club scenes in Los Angeles the week beginning in March. "There are some very sexy party scenes though, full of the coolest looking people, and Ke$ha's performance is amazing," Cruz said as quoted by the Daily Star. "There's a scene in a public bathroom and we had to throw in a sports car. I'm driving through the desert for no reason." The clip will be released on April 26 in the UK!