Shoulda been huge: Kesha’s flop second album ‘Warrior’

I have a lot of love for Kesha. I wrote a piece in defence of the singer a few months ago, and I’m always thrilled when Timber comes on the radio at Attitude HQ at 10am on a weekday morning. I’ve never understood the hatred some music fans aim at her, and I feel as though – as popstar-turned-acrobat Pink once put it – she’s just ‘Missundaztood’.

Kesha’s second album, 2012’s Warrior, should have been her Teenage Dream, her True Blue. It’s packed with potential hit after potential hit, and yet it was basically a flop. The album is an aggressive, unapologetic and strangely moving ride from start to finish – but only lead single Die Young became a massive smash like Kesha’s previous singles.

With Warrior, Kesha’s vision was to create a new sub-genre of music she called “Cock Pop” – basically, a less male-driven take on that nobbish old American rock genre ‘Cock Rock’. The album’s break-up anthem, Thinking of You, sums up her vision perfectly: “I know I said I wouldn’t talk about you publicly, but that was before I caught you, lying and cheating on me, slut!” she sings over blistering guitar riffs and driving beats. It’s an honest, balls-to-the-wall anthem about moving on with your life – and it rocks.

Meanwhile, the album’s Iggy Pop duet, Dirty Love, shows that Kesha can hold her own alongside a punk legend: this song is a full-on old-school rock ‘n’ roll sex jam  – not bad from a singer most people only associate with Auto-Tuned club bangers.

The album’s second single C’mon is a slice of wistful pop magic, sunk by a mediocre video and poor promo campaign, and third single Crazy Kids – on which Kesha rhymed “coochie” with “hoochie” in classic Kesha fashion – should have been more than just a middling hit, even if Will.i.am’s tacked on rap added precisely nothing to the track.

What this album really shows, though, is that there’s more to Kesha than just shots and slut-drops. Her talent as a songwriter is woefully overlooked; and she has a knack for writing a song that could make even Anna Wintour shed a single icy tear. Check out Last Goodbye, a guitar-driven, melancholic ode to her first love, or the touching love song Wherever You Are.

I’ll be honest though, multi-talented as she is, I’ll be with Kesha till the bitter end because of her bangers. Take It Off, We R Who We R and Tik Tok are all gaybar favourites – and there are songs here that deserve to join them on heavy rotation at Heaven and Nightingales. The brilliantly OTT Out Alive has the most slut-drop potential, while Supernatural may be the only dance-pop song ever written about having sex with a ghost. You wouldn’t get that from Taylor Swift, would you?

Last but not least, I present the album’s unexpected highlight – Gold Trans Am, which was bizarrely relegated to ‘bonus track’ status. This Joan Jett-influenced ode to, well, her vagina starts with Kesha slurring the line “this song makes me wanna have sex in my car,” before the electric guitar kicks in and she screams “shut up and get inside!” If that description hasn’t made you run off to Spotify or iTunes right now, then clearly you’re just a little uptight downtown….

Listen to Warrior on Spotify here. 

Must listen: Thinking of You, Wherever You Are, Out Alive, Last Goodbye, Gold Trans Am

More Shoulda Been Huge:

> Shoulda been huge: Madonna’s ‘Girl Gone Wild’
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> Shoulda been huge: Spice Girls’ third album ‘Forever’
> Shoulda been huge: Jordin Sparks’ Battlefield