Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The New Ke$ha Album Will Be The Old Ke$ha Album With New Ke$ha Songs

Okay, okay—this Billboard cover story on Dr. Luke is two weeks old, but I just got around to reading it on Sunday.

Here's all the info on Ke$ha's Animal re-release, which is being served up in time for the holidays (so Grandma can throw glitter down her red-and-green vinyl thong on Christmas Day, one would assume):

"Lukasz Gottwald—the writer/producer better-known to the explosive-chorus-loving world as Dr. Luke—has booked all three rooms at Conway for the entire month of September. He’s told his manager to cancel all meetings, and you might have to excuse him if your call goes to voice mail. The deadline task at hand: Coming up with enough new songs for his protégée, Ke$ha, to get a deluxe repackaging of her debut album out in time for the holiday buying season.

"Nothing is remotely done yet, and Ke$ha is only available for a three-week stretch, so he and fellow producers Benny Blanco and Ammo are hard at work coming up with rough tracks for the singer to put her stamp on. How many songs are they planning on adding to the Animal reissue?
 "'I’d like as many as eight, if possible,' Gottwald says. 'But I’ll be happy if I got four or five great ones. And a lot depends on the next two weeks. She has a single right now, ‘Take It Off,’ which is doing pretty well.'
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"In the coming months, Gottwald will co-executive produce Britney Spears’ 2011 project, alongside [Max] Martin. For his own label, Kemosabe, whose sole release so far is Ke$ha’s Animal, he’ll be working with his latest signings, female singers Sabi and Sophia Black. Meanwhile, taking off his executive hat, he’s still involved in plenty of production one-offs, like an upcoming single for British powerhouse vocalist Jessie J (who co-wrote 'Party in the U.S.A.' for herself before sacrificing it to [Miley] Cyrus).
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"He fires up a track they’ve already worked on with Ke$ha. As usual for her, it’s an all-synth sound... There’s an unfinished chorus on this new track, in which Gottwald is singing through such distorted Auto-Tune, it’s impossible to tell what he’s saying-which is deliberate, so he won’t unduly influence Ke$ha when she comes up with her own lyrics.
"Meanwhile, she's already laid down spoken-word sections on the verses. Gottwald is laughingly unsure whether to call it "rap" or just "her white-girl thing." It's very much in line with her chosen persona-and very much irresistible-but apparently, she's not as sure about it as her producer is. The words: 'I'm in love all right/With my crazy beautiful life/With the parties, the disasters/With my friends all pretty and plastered/I've been through my sketchy phases/Been a shitty waitress/But I'm not now, guess it worked out/Got here by running my mouth.'

"'She can second-guess that,' Gottwald says, pausing the Pro Tools, 'but I like that. I think it's real. Maybe the chorus will tie it together. Who knows? And if it's not good enough, it won't go on the record.'"

Sounds dreamy. Ke$ha recently became only the 11th solo female in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to land four Top 10 singles off their debut album. The first was Cyndi Lauper in 1984. Madonna and Britney—not on there.

Here's the full list:

1. Cyndi Lauper, She's So Unusual (1984)
2. Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston (1985-1986)
3. Debbie Gibson, Out Of The Blue (1987-1988)
4. Taylor Dayne, Tell It To My Heart (1988)
5. Paula Abdul, Forever Your Girl (1989-1990)
6. Mariah Carey, Mariah Carey (1990-1991)
7. Christina Aguilera, Christina Aguilera (1999-2000)
8. Beyonce, Dangerously In Love (2003-2004)
9. Fergie, The Dutchess (2006-2007)
10. Lady Gaga, The Fame (2009)
11. Ke$ha, Animal (2009-2010)