By Olivia Lang ’15 | Feature Editor

In “Warrior,” her newest album, Ke$ha stays true to her established music style, but shows little musical evolution in the right direction since her previous album, “Animal.”

Some may take the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to Ke$ha’s lack of change from one album to the next, but it has been two years since “Animal” debuted and in that time the industry has changed. With strong vocal music performed by the likes of  Ed Sheeran, fun., Phillip Phillips, and Taylor Swift taking center stage, Ke$ha’s practically electronically-engineered voice falls to the back burner.

However, the pre-released single, “Die Young,” begs to differ. Its positive reception shows that Ke$ha’s catchy choruses and heavy beats may still have a place in the teen music industry.

To contrast, the promotional single “C’mon” saw little success even though it, like “Die Young,” contained an appealing chorus and the overall “seize the day” theme.

Stand out song “Dirty Love,” which features Iggy Pop, is a raunchy, humorous pop rock song. This tune has everybody nodding their head and tapping their feet, but Ke$ha’s vocals are more screaming than singing, a practice that all elementary school music teachers had warned us of.

Two songs on the album differ entirely from Ke$ha’s reputation. The first, “Wonderland,” opens sounding slightly country and speaks of a wonderland without naming where, which seems to be a head nod to Ke$ha’s childhood in Nashville. Nonetheless, Ke$ha in this song sounds like a worse Colbie Calliat, even with the assistance of autotune.

The last song that differs from Ke$ha’s regular style is “Love Into The Light.” While this tune does have the heavy beat like most of her songs, its vocals and lyrics take on a serious tone because the song advocates against bullying.

“Maybe it’s about the time to let all of the love back in the light. Maybe it’s about the perfect place to let go and forget about the hate,” sings Ke$ha in the song.

Even with a good cause in mind, Ke$ha’s weak voice cannot compete with that of her competitors like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift.

Judging based on overall catchiness, both the title song “Warrior” and “Crazy Kids” are destined to become instant hits; whereas “Out Alive” will eventually become a hit, but it will take a bit longer. Despite the fact that these songs have little musical merit, their popularity will be heard on Top 40 radio stations and they will be blasted at parties.

Launched shortly after the album was Ke$ha’s acoustic extended play (EP), in which she ditched auto-tune, coined “Deconstructed.” This EP features five songs, four of which are her previous songs that have been unplugged. In converting the songs to acoustic, they were stripped of their catchiness and therefore lost what made them tolerable in the first place.

The final song of the EP, “Old Flames Can’t Hold A Candle To You,” is a ballad accompanied primarily by a slow piano and drum set. As painful as it is to say, the song was impressive, but it is doubtful that it will achieve much popularity because the general public does not turn to her when they are looking for a sappy love song.

Ke$ha’s recent influx of new songs disappoints the listeners either because she has strayed too far from her comfort zone or because the listeners are hearing too much of the same. While it is a tough balance to find, Ke$ha would achieve most success by adjusting her current style just enough so that she is not cast off as a Taylor Swift wannabe.