{"id":579,"date":"2014-10-10T00:29:33","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T07:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lauragrey.com\/?p=579"},"modified":"2017-07-15T14:32:04","modified_gmt":"2017-07-15T21:32:04","slug":"kesha-deconstructed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/?p=579","title":{"rendered":"Kesha Deconstructed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Hv7RdZSNPAc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Why am I featuring a video by Kesha (formerly styled Ke$ha), the pop star who famously <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/02\/13\/kesha-talks-grammy-snub-jack-daniels_n_822500.html\">brushes her teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniels<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>She cultivated a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/online\/oscars\/2011\/02\/keha-spends-more-on-glitter-every-month-than-most-people-spend-on-rent\">wasted party-girl persona<\/a> when she first made it big, so you could be forgiven for thinking that she&#8217;s just a trashy, yodeling Valley Girl, or a rapping, adenoidal lightweight, or that her songs are indeed catchy but too full of drunken, sneering bad-girl behavior to merit much attention.<\/p>\n<p>But don&#8217;t underestimate her talent or her power; Kesha has sold over 60 million albums around the world, and she began her music career as a back-up singer and pop song composer in her teens. She earned her first recording contract at 18 after growing up in a Nashville suburb learning about the business from her mother, a country music songwriter. Kesha cowrote every song on her first two albums and has written for other artists including Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears.<\/p>\n<p>For several years I thought of her music as a bit of dumb fun providing bouncy background beats on my car radio when I need a mindless dance club-style lift, and I still see much of her music that way. No harm in that. But then I heard the spare, dark and moody version of her nightclub anthem &#8220;Blow&#8221; from her &#8220;Deconstructed&#8221; EP and gained a whole new respect for her.<\/p>\n<p>Kesha\u00a0usually relies on dirty sass and frequent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/xx_factor\/2013\/01\/07\/vocal_fry_and_valley_girls_why_old_men_find_young_women_s_voices_so_annoying.html\">vocal fry<\/a> crackles along with a sort of grubby, drunken energy to make her songs stand out. In the deconstructed version of &#8220;Blow,&#8221; Kesha&#8217;s intense, breathy vocals are front and center and backed up by keyboard riffs brimming with tension and delicious dissonance. The song begins with a muffled, distorted piano and the layers of vibrating echo build menacingly behind her anxious, slightly frantic soft vocals. I think it&#8217;s a beautiful surprise from a totally unexpected source. Give it a listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why am I featuring a video by Kesha (formerly styled Ke$ha), the pop star who famously brushes her teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniels? She cultivated a wasted party-girl persona when she first made it big, so you could be forgiven for thinking that she&#8217;s just a trashy, yodeling Valley Girl, or a rapping, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/?p=579\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Kesha Deconstructed<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[334,333,332,318,335],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1365,"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions\/1365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauragrey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}