Girls Who Wish They Were Ke$ha

With today's release of Kesha's Animal, I felt I should point out that in one album, Kesha has presented herself as a multi-faceted pop powerhouse that will be hard to top in the coming year. Boisterous, relatable, infectious and current, Animal is a guaranteed good time. While not perfect - or particularly innovative - everything feels fresh and interesting. Which is good, since the bar has been raised for pop music after a stellar 2009. Surprisingly, she one-ups a variety of girls in the business of putting out pop music.

(Yes, I realize how horrible the moniker "Ke$ha" is. It's the main reason - other than never actually hearing the similarly ridiculously syntaxed "TiK ToK" - that I avoided Kesha's music as a whole. [I'm well aware the hilariousness of using "syntaxed" to decry syntax, too.] That and the ONTD Stan war that shapes up every time Kesha news rolls by. But I digress.)

Madonna: Madonna's last single featured Lil Wayne. Madonna, please. Don't you know Lil Wayne is both going to jail and a stale commodity? Pop music left you behind back when you decided you were hip-hop. (See American Life. I drink my soy latte / I get a double shot-te / it goes right through my bod-te / and you know I'm satisfied.) Madonna maintained success with singles from Justin Timberlake and whatnot, but the material girl has felt a little stale for an album or two now.

Avril Lavigne: Kesha has an actual edge, without relying on Hot Topic fodder wardrobe, generic interviews about being a bad-ass or faking guitar skills in music videos. While her image may or may not be as real (or as "real") as Avril, Kesha actually represents her musical persona well through her music output! Shocking!

Kelly Clarkson: Dancing With Tears in My Eyes is the lead single Clarkson wanted from her album My December. Much of Animal sounds like the further exploration of a sound Clarkson helped usher in, years and years ago before she became the stale pop tart she is now. Where Clarkson suffers from genre confusion, thinking she's much more "rock" than the blatant pop she creates - again, much like Avril - Kesha has no such issues, and proceeds to blow Clarkson's ballads out of the water.

T-Pain: T-Pain wishes he could vocode like this shit.

Uffie: I would have pegged Uffie for much more mainstream success, but her white-girl-rap-sing talents seem to have topped off with her appearance on Justice's (incredible) album Cross, with the song Tthhee Ppaarrttyy. Whenever Kesha drops into her white-girl-rap-sing-drawl, either for erotic or more playful purposes, Uffie's voice is recalled momentarily, then blown out of the water. Kesha just has so much more variety, personality and energy than Uffie's dedicated, single vocal style.

Liv Tyler: Okay, maybe not, but I can totally picture her character from Empire Records singing about half of Animal, most notably on Stephen, one of the best stalker pop songs of all time.

Fefe Dobson: Remember her? She tried really hard to be Avril Lavigne, got mired in label misery after one moderately successful single, then bowed out of that whole "popular" thing. Maybe she should try to be Kesha next.

For consistency's sake, though, I should point out three people who are entirely non-plussed by Kesha's success: Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Robyn, the queen of pop, the princess of the moment and someone better, respectively. None of them are hurting for success, all of them have had stronger and more varied careers and releases, and in the case of Britney, it's always kind of a question as to whether she's aware of what's going on around her at all.