Kesha for Warped Tour

My affliction of adolescent insufferableness brooked no pop music. No matter that the bands I worshipped had more in common with Top 40 radio than any art nominally perceived as more pure and principled. At those aching high-school public humiliation functions, I only danced under duress—unless it was to Kesha.

Looking back at the closeted kid I was, perhaps some other pop scion would eventually puncture my borrowed and imaginary elitism, but Kesha’s music cut through the quickest. (It would take a while for me to open up to Lady Gaga’s ostentatious maximalist camp.) I’m sure I never expressed my admiration honestly, preferring the security blanket of irony. Now I suspect it is impossible to enjoy Kesha ironically.

It’s not that she’s uniquely earnest in a sea of malleable pop girlies. It’s not that the protracted and public legal battle against her abuser and label have made listening to her a reverential or rebellious act. She has never shied away from humor’s inimitable power to disarm—refusing to fall victim to an outsized onus of self-inflicted sentimentality. On her latest record she sings, “Don’t fucking call me a fighter, don’t fucking call me a joke. You have no fucking idea. Trust me you’ll never know.” So much has been said about who or what Kesha is or is not.

Lost amidst that is a honest conversation of what Kesha does. She sings songs that make you want to dance despite it all. She hits the high notes. She performs with almost self-flagellating ferocity. Listen to track two of Rainbow, her 2017 comeback record, “Let ‘Em Talk”.

American chopper-style guitar, angel-making yowls from the first word, the smoothest, simplest four-chord chorus anyone could ask for. The song may not stray far from classic Kesha content—living truthfully, messily, unapologetically—nor is it even the first time she sings “Suck my dick!”, but it has a bite that feels so fabulously frantic. Her comical count off, “Un, deux, trois, four,” cannily recalls Bono’s “Uno, dos, tres, catorce”. Her sense of humor buoys her delivery without giving way to bitter sarcasm. She wields irony as a magic wand rather than a wagging finger. Where once there was a stridently self-destructive bent to her “fuck the haters” posturing, there is now a ravenous rebellion against the void. Eagles of Death Metal feature, and maybe their narrative enhances the song’s urgency. Only two years earlier, gunmen shot and killed 90 people at an EoDM concert in Paris. Though she’d been singing “We’re gunna die young” for years, death suddenly seemed a too familiar bedfellow. What does living like the end is near demand of us truly?

Jesse Hughes doing his dry-well-deep Clutch-clown voice is the perfect foil to Kesha’s caterwauls. It’s the kind of high-energy crossover event that reminds you Kesha looked rad as hell slamming a white custom Les Paul. In another life Kesha could’ve—should’ve—ruled Warped Tour.

(Here’s a Change.org petition to get Kesha on Warped Tour 2016 that I can’t believe still exists. The first comment is about Katy Perry being on Warped ‘08 which is my favorite fun fact that I plan on reciting as my final words.)

Miley Cyrus gets all the ooh and ah's over her rock n’ roll renditions, and there simply must be room in the conversation for Kesha’s equal ability. She let’s her voice squeak and screech in ways Robert Plant would surely envy. Warrior had shades of this, but “rock” in 2012 was at an odd crossroads, and to the mainstream still seemed a dying vestige of a decadent empire. Rainbow found Kesha leaning further into country twang stylings that recall her towering contribution to “Timber” a song you probably forgot is technically by Pitbull. On her latest tour she donned the requisite ten-gallon for the 90th most popular song of the 2010s, and didn’t bother piping in Mr. Worldwide’s vocals from a backing track, preferring to do her own version of the verses with ebullient alacrity.

It’s an enduring cross-genre tradition to address an anthem to those who aren’t interested in hearing it. Sometimes great art is inspired by love, and sometimes it’s spite; ask Dante Alighieri. Perhaps the impulse to pen a song denying myriad unnamed haters their power incidentally offers them some tacit foothold in the conversation, and perhaps loudly proclaiming “I don’t care” belies that you do, in fact, care quite a bit. But wouldn’t it be dishonest to act as though we’ve never been hurt?

So what does Kesha do? She grows on you. May you have the good fortune to grow too.

There was a moment at the Kesha concert when her dancers took the stage with Pride flags that, for a moment in the dim light, I thought were Palestinian flags. It took my breath away, just imagining what I wanted to see.

The genocide in Gaza continues. Please do what you can to try and make a difference. I spent the last weeks close-reading and responding to my state rep’s mealy-mouthed press release. Thousands of constituents got her to call for a ceasefire. We’re not without power.

A few different flavors of “fuck the haters” in no particular order:

My cousin Kyle, who delivered me Ned Albright’s Gator Rock, released some demos on Bandcamp that make me grin like a goober. Check them out.

My friend Cody also has a new song streaming. The album art is honey from my dad’s beehives lol. Song slaps.

Stay hydrated for her.