Ke$ha Works Both Sides Of The Pop Aisle
This morning brought the release of "Sleazy 2.0 (Get Sleazier)," the all-star remix of Ke$ha's Dr. Luke/Bangladesh banger about men who are a bit too impressed with their wealth "Sleazy"; the new version contains the quietly gut-punching verse that Andre 3000 added to the original remix, as well as contributions from Wiz Khalifa (decent), T.I. (Coming To America-referencing!), and Lil Wayne (2010-retro thanks to the name-drops of Black Swan and Kings Of Leon?). While the braggadocio on the new verses clashes somewhat with the don't-need-your-money declarations of the original track (Three Stacks, perhaps unsurprisingly, got what Ke$ha was going for with his contribution), all three of the new verses sound pretty fantastic over the booming beat. Then again, it's so undeniable that me reading the phone book in a fake British accent over it might sound not-half-bad as well. Clip below. 
Ke$ha feat. Wiz Khalifa, Andre 3000, T.I., and Lil Wayne, "Sleazy 2.0"
(NB: Segueing this track into and out of Azealia Banks' "212" is highly recommended. I did it multiple times this morning.)
As if to prove that she's well-rounded, though, another Ke$ha track surfaced earlier this week—a version of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice (It's Alright)" that drops the sass and snap for a delivery that makes her sound sort of like an American Idol contestant singing for her life:
Ke$ha, "Don't Think Twice (It's Alright)"
"I didn't want this to sound like a pop version of a Bob Dylan song... That's the last thing I wanted this to sound like," Ke$ha told Rolling Stone. She also added that her first take of the song resulted in her weeping in front of her laptop, and capped off her description of the song with this: "I'm so lucky and blessed, but there are moments that are just so incredibly lonely that it's indescribable. And I've never written a song that's admitted that. Singing Bob Dylan's words and feeling my own emotion through it—it was a very intense moment for me."
I got a bit worried by the anti-pop and "realness" rhetoric going on in Ke$ha's statements here—after all, what's more real than telling a guy where he can stick his wads of cash?—although part of me thinks that she's tailoring her message to the outlet she's speaking to very carefully. Well, hopes, really. Because if Ke$ha abandons the glitter and dancing with Mister Penis for the purposes of giving herself an Adele makeover and getting in with the rock snob crowd that only tolerates women when they're making themselves subservient to the canon, we've all lost.
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