I will admit that I haven’t really given Ke$ha’s Animal a fair listen. I’ve been known to pause for her songs on the radio, or request her singles when Dan’s DJing car rides with his iPod. They’re fun, poppy dance tunes–or are they?

My Brownie troop is made up of seven- and eight-year-old girls. I’d say a handful of them have fairly involved parents who actively monitor what’s going on in their daughters’ lives and the rest have parents who are trying their best but virtually clueless. One of the girls was singing “TiK ToK” at our meeting this past week, confusing some of the girls who don’t know what a Ke$ha is. Two tables of girls were arguing back and forth as to whether it’s “key-sha” or “keh-sha.” I was already at my wit’s end because they were sewing bean bags to earn a Try-It.

I bought myself a huge Shamrock Shake as a reward for surviving that night, but since then I’ve also been fuming over the very fact that I had to stop an eight-year-old from yelling/singing about brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack.

While I realize that such a conservative stance goes against my very nature and all I’ve aspired to be myself, I can’t help but be upset by Ke$ha’s lyrical content. In a time where we’re trying to push girls to respect themselves, songs like Ke$ha’s undermine efforts to promote healthy decisions and self-respect–even if her lyrics are meant to mock or be sarcastic.

In an interview with Digital Spy, Ke$ha states says about her latest single, “Blah Blah Blah”:

“It’s a cool song about a woman talking to a man the way men always speak to women. If you listen to any rap or pop station, the way men talk to women is just so cheeky and a little bit degrading. I’m not offended by it though – I just think it’s funny. This track is meant sarcastically. It’s me throwing it back.”

However, when trying to explain to my Mom why I was so upset about the Girl Scouts incident, I found myself unable to read the lyrics aloud to her. Now, considering I regularly use profanity around my mother AND discuss my personal life with her, I would say I’m not a complete puritan. And I’m really not sure if my inability to read “Just turn around, boy, let me hit that / Don’t be a little bitch with your chit chat / Just show me where your dick’s at” to my Mom would truly classify me as a prude. Maybe it does.

My friend and fellow blogger AJ Star, of Stalking with the Stars, recently posted “On Radio Edits” after watching Ke$ha’s American Idol performance where the lines that gave me so much trouble were changed to “Just turn around, boy, let me get that / Don’t be a little chick with your chit chat / Just show me who you are.” AJ’s premise is not about how the integrity of songs is compromised by “radio-friendly editing/censorship” but rather that it’s pointless to choose songs “as singles and then butched for radio play and live performances.” I agree with her point even though my blog comments contained a condensed and angsty version of my Girl Scout rant (i.e., I missed her point on there because I was still really pissed off). If Ke$ha truly wants “Blah Blah Blah” to “throw it back” to men who objectify women in their music, why choose a single–or, dare I say, pen a song–where the lyrics will have to be altered so much for mainstream play that it will completely undermine her point? After all, how is “don’t be a little chick” conveying a feminist message at all? He’s whining, so he’s a girl? What happened to Ke$ha’s girl power?

It’s not fair to pin extra responsibility on female artists, but such is the plight of women in general. Yes, it sucks that men constantly objectify women in pop/hip-hop songs. But how is writing a song mocking that an effective way to take a stance against such objectification?

Maybe it’s the responsibility of the parents to keep their eight-year-olds from singing about excessive partying, Jack Daniels and boys trying to touch their junk, but a pop artist makes a song with the intention of it reaching #1 on the charts and gaining huge exposure through mainstream radio play, so isn’t it partially up to them to have some couth? Some subtlety? Some understanding that their song has the potential to make an impression on young minds?

Then again, maybe it’s me. Perhaps I’m just getting old; maybe I’m turning into a prude. I managed to harness the girls’ energy into a rousing round of “Make New Friends” and then had them sing songs they learned in their elementary school music classes. Still, knowing some of them–and their parents–makes me worry about what they’re learning from mainstream popular culture that inundates their little lives. And I truly wish their parents would tell Ke$ha to get off their lawns, as I would be apt to do if she ever showed up at my house with a bottle of Jack.

Innerpartysystem is from the Reading, PA area. This probably makes no difference to 98% of you, but I grew up shopping in Reading malls and my Dad’s friend lives in what Wiki lists as their hometown. So it gives me some sense of hometown pride that such an awesome band is gaining national attention and at the same time referencing things that make sense to Pennsylvanians like myself (for example, the video mentions “The Road to Nowhere,” which has been part of our lexicon since I was little. The chick is right, you can’t make that shit up).

I’ve been trying to think of how to describe this song, the first track of their full length self-titled release, all day. I feel like whereas Girl Talk provides a heterogeneous mixture of music I like, Innerpartysystem creates a homogeneous blend of bands I’ve listened to through the years. I hear hints of Nine Inch Nails, OMD, Depeche Mode, The Faint, Orgy and even Patrick Nissley’s vocals remind me slightly of Brendon Urie (Panic at the Disco) in that he annunciates pretty yet pensive lyrics. I’m not going to lie, sometimes his voice makes me melt a little. And even though I can compare IPS to all those bands, their sound is truly unique to me. They are not too electronic and not too alternative.

The song is danceable, and some take it as a party anthem, but it’s darker than that. The first verse claims, “nothing’s too excessive / when you’ve got nothing left,” and the rest of the song kind of illustrates an emptiness felt from losing control completely. Judging by their other songs and videos, the band isn’t exactly condoning the false happiness brought by hard-partying behavior (though in this song, the lyrics most people prefer to examine are “If we all should die tonight / We will have no regrets” even though that mantra changes to “If we all should die tonight / We got nothing left” by the end of the song). They don’t seem to be a fan of “plastic” people, so I guess this means that we won’t be seeing Rock of Love with Patrick Nissley in 20 years.

I have to admit that it was difficult for me to pick this song, but I thought I would because it was their second single. I’m partial to the songs “New Poetry” and “Obsession.” IPS has also remixed several popular songs including Katy Perry’s Hot’N'Cold (I’m sorry if I butchered the title, but they at least were able to improve the song. Thanks, IPS!), Ladyhawke’s “Paris is Burning” and Radiohead’s “Nude.” Yes, just in case IPS was worried I wouldn’t like them, they remixed my favorite band. And well. Swoon!

So, I’m pretty excited for tonight and I hope you all enjoy Innerpartysystem.

Embedding disabled, so please view “Die Tonight Live Forever” out on YouTube. Watch some of their other videos, too.

Here is a commercial for their “Don’t Stop” single:

Update: They were amazing live! The last show I enjoyed this much was The Dandy Warhols. I highly recommend seeing them if they are coming to a city near you.

It’s no secret that my 2008 sucked. Without this song, there is a good chance I would have driven my car into the Susquehanna River. Granted, my life didn’t really mirror the story in the song, but the chorus is something I’ve had to tell myself for the past couple of years, “I’m going to make it through this year if it kills me.”

John Darnielle has been compared to artists like Bob Dylan and Tom Waits because of his literary lyrics. This song is an example of just how powerful music can be. I mean, it got me through this year, didn’t it? There’s not a lot I can say about it; you definitely will have to listen to it to determine if it could be your anthem (Similar to Modest Mouse, I sometimes get in a mood where his vocals are not thrilling). If you’re starting off the year kind of “meh,” though, it might help you out.

For more on The Mountain Goats and John Darnielle, check out this interview with InDigest.

I wasn’t allowed to own Antichrist Superstar. In fact, I think I sneakily bought Mechanical Animals while at the mall with my friends. My parents tried their best to shelter me from the freaky man with the prosthetic boobs. They failed. When I was finally able to listen to Antichrist Superstar in its entirety (downloading albums with dial-up was hard!), I was amazed. I still think it’s a fantastic album. My favorite song was, and likely always will be, “Man that you Fear.” If my parents could look beyond the lyrical content, they would have found a beautiful song.

Upon reading the various interpretations of the song, I do kind of see the song as being about Manson’s (or, it could be argued, the narrator for Antichrist Superstar) reaching a godlike status. However, by itself, the song really played in to my too-much-eyeliner, baggy pants, “fuck it all” persona of teenagerdom. I mean, really, what better mantra could a teenager have than “I was born into this / everything turns to shit”? Oh, wait, I know! Teenage life can be summarized by the electronic voices that end the song:

When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

(P.S. Universal doesn’t want me to embed it, so you’ll have to go here to check it out.)

The other day this song popped into my head while I was in the shower bringing with it a distinctive memory. I recalled blaring this track on repeat while I was showering at my aunt’s house in Virginia circa 1996. It made me feel melancholy, which was totally appropriate as my ‘tween self was getting ready to go to the Spotsylvania Mall with my younger, brattier cousin. Whereas a few years ago we had been jumping on the bed to Kris Kross, I was now on my way to becoming a full-fledged alt rock connoisseur.

For me, I think it’s the keyboards + bass followed by grunge guitar combo that reeled me in. I was too young to truly enjoy Brian Vander Ark’s use of hair product. Enjoy!