What We Can Learn from Ke$ha and The Saturdays In Their New Videos

Maybe you have a degree. Maybe you are still in school. Maybe you were home schooled or maybe you say things like "WELL I REALLY LEARNED AT THE SCHOOL OF LIFE TO BE HONEST" at house parties. Either way, you probably still love to learn. Who doesn't? And where better to learn about life than from pop videos? You're in luck because The Saturdays and Ke$ha are here to school you! Hurrah. Now, quiet down the back!

Ke$ha - C'mon

What is it: Single no. 2 from K$ not-selling-that-well-so-far 2nd album Warrior which is actually great despite the fact that this and single no. 1 Die Young don't do the album justice. Oh well.

What We Learn: 

- Ke$ha would clearly make a terrible waitress what with her insistence on ignoring customers and ruining their "cup of joe" and then quitting her job and calling her boss a "dick". It's a good thing she has that pop thing to fall back on.

- Leaving your job can be amazing however. As soon as she leaves a bunch of guys in animal onesises take her in a van, K$ hops in a jacuzzi (IN THE VAN) and flops around in a one piece. Then they have a dance party in a corner shop. Who knew unemployment could be so.. fruitful.

-Revenge is a dish served dance party. Hate your bold boss? Then run into his premises with your friends dressed as giant animals and dance around. Huzzah.

- K$ new blonde wig/weave/whatever it is ain't cute and we learn that we shouldn't get our hair done that way.

The Saturdays - What About Us

 What Is It: The new single from The Satz whose fourth album The Chase is out later in the year. This is also their first US single as they try to break into the American market (As we mentioned yesterday). It's all synths and dramatic rave-pop/dubstep builds and drops but it's still sort of mid-tempo. This has actually grown on me alot but I'm still not convinced that they'll score an American hit with it. Sadly.

What We Learn: 

- The Saturdays are having a GREAT TIME IN AMERICA OMG!1! There they are, walking down some boulevard, then hopping into some lovely vintage clothes emporium for chic buys. Playing pool with cute boys, lounging around pools and breaking into football fields to ... eh, dance around.

- The Saturdays need to work on their dance moves. WHAT are they doing during that dance break? Really. If you're going to break into a football field with some attractive blokes shouldn't you be doing some seriously intricate moves? They seem to find the most basic of routines very streneous. It's all a bit "five girls on the piss, have a twirl" but maybe this is to make them seem more relatable etc etc.

- You know you are in America when everything looks a bit sepia-ish. The lighting/colour palette is the music video equivalent of a Instagram filter. The whole thing looks a bit bleached out like they thought things would make things more "Californian". Weird.

To Sum Up:

Today we learnt that if you hire Ke$ha to work for you she won't be very good at her job and she may wear a bad wig. BUT you might get to see some guys in animal costumes which is quite cool. And that if you want to be in a girlband and "do America" you need to make sure everything is a bit sepia and that you can't do a basic dance routine. Hurrah!

Ke$ha's second album Warrior is out now including C'Mon. The Saturdays have released What About Us for American audiences now and release it as a single here on the 15th of March (Ireland) And the 17th (The UK)

Ke$ha Komes Back, But Is Pop Stuck In A Rut?

Ke$ha's new tune Die Young appeared online late yesterday before a lyric video (and what I'm sure was in no way a label placed tweet from Britney) surfaced today as K$ rolls out the album campaign for second album Warrior (not counting the reissued mini album buzz of the Cannibal release). Die Young set Twitter alight when it leaked although reaction was mixed with plenty suggesting the track was a disappointment.

After repeat listens it's obvious that Die Young is no stinker but it just feels a little too similar to every second pop smash of the last 12 months to get really swept up in it. It's got snatches of Flo-Rida, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, fun. and One Direction in it's DNA yet never quite jumps to undeniable smash status.

The hook-y chorus with it's chanting feel is fun and the verses have plenty of the spoken-word charm of the best Ke$ha moments but it feels like this either needed to go into harder dance-pop territory (i.e. a bigger drop) or strip away the generic Dr. Luke vibes for something a bit quirkier.

It says alot about how pop music has been in such rude health that a song with as much as catchy appeal as this might seem a bit disappointing but perhaps we've reached a tipping point. It certainly feels like the Dr. Luke & co school of shimmer-y guitar driven synth pop has reached it's apex as much as the rave-pop stylings of Guetta and Calvin Harris. Here's to the full-length album allowing Ke$ha a little space to serve up something different (she's already been talking up something more experimental in various interviews) while we all try and get the chorus to this one out of our heads: