Ke$ha on bringing 'irreverence' to pop

By Maura Johnston, Rolling Stone

Kesha performs onstage during the 40th American Music Awards held at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 18, 2012 in Los Angeles, California.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Ke$ha has a new album titled "Warrior"
• Singer says she loves pop music
• She has worked with several artists, including Iggy Pop

(RollingStone.com) -- Though Ke$ha's first album, Animal, was a glitter-coated gutter dance party, with the brash singer getting sleazy and leading throngs of revelers into the night, no guitars were invited. On her new full-length album, Warrior, rock music scores a place on the guest list: the LP's first single, "Die Young," has a strummed guitar front-and-center.

The resulting album splits the difference between Ke$ha's signature brand of hooky rap-pop ("Come On," "Crazy Kids") and razor-sharp rockers ("Only Wanna Dance With You," a collaboration with the Strokes' Julian Casablancas and Fabrizio Moretti), with a few strikingly intimate moments (the piano-tinged "Wonderland," which features the Black Keys' Patrick Carney). Rolling Stone spoke with Ke$ha while she was promoting Warrior in the U.K., and she opened up about bringing imperfections into pop music, working with Iggy Pop and who on her tour has been playing the essential role of "Mr. Penis."

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Rolling Stone: How did you decide to evolve from Animal to Cannibal to Warrior?

Ke$ha: On this record I wanted to maintain what I believe is who I am -- wild, filthy-mouthed, very honest -- but at the same time, address the changes in my life, and bring the music I listen to offstage together with the music I make. For me, that meant working with awesome collaborators. There was a strict no-guitar rule on Animal. I just had this vision of making everyone on the planet dance. I wanted to be the Dance Commander. On this record, I wanted to bring the music I listened to offstage -- [Iggy Pop's] The Idiot, The Slider, Electric Warrior [both by T. Rex] -- into my music, which is pop music.

Now, to some people, pop is a dirty word, or only a "guilty pleasure." But I f**king love pop music. I always have, and I will 'til the day I die, and I want to make pop records. But I love bringing [rock's] balls and irreverence to my music as much as I can. I once said that I wanted to make "c**k pop." And there are moments of that on the record, but there are also the quintessential Ke$ha moments like "Come On" -- rap-talking, s**t-talking -- and there are also moments that are unexpected, stripped-down and just me. As far as the people I collaborated with, I just wanted to take all my idols and make a record with them.