Alright, so as you might have noticed, I don’t always talk about the most popular stuff around here. Whoops. So I figured it’d be fun if once a week I wrote about a song happens to be big on Pop FM, and call it “Radio Rants”. Because hey, I own a blog and why the hell not?

Ok, this week’s Radio Rant is a reflection and declaration of love from one of modern pop’s most innocent voices.

Or...not.

After two slutty, inebriated rounds of trashy pop, Kesha tries her hand at a cute love song. But, to stay in character, she spends the whole song talking about love like…well, it’s all there in the title.

So let’s take a look at her, shall we? After opening with a synth line that might have more notes in it than “Tik Tok” and “Blah Blah Blah” did combined, Sha jumps right into taking a metaphor way too literally with “Maybe I need some rehab/Or maybe just needs some sleep/I got a sick obsession/I’m seeing it in my dreams”. Alright, I gotta get a couple basic principles about the song out here and now. Yes, every line is a very close derivative of the title. Yes, the rhymes are almost completely predictable. No, Kesha still hasn’t ditched that valley girl schtick with her voice. Which means yes, she’s still not-quite-rapping and sing-talking with Auto-Tune cranked up to 11.

Then we come to the chorus, the only part of the song that had any attention brought to it. Kind of. The chorus is usually the part of a song that gets people fired up, but this one is more “eh” than anything. We get a few too-enthusiastic bleats of “YOUR LOVE, YOUR LOVE, YOUR LOVE IS MY DRUG” over music that somehow sounds too busy and too empty. And then stops. It’s easy to see the attempt at a big, happy, singalong moment, but it just doesn’t take. Instead it sounds too forced and too loud and more fun to scream at people than sing.

Kesha plays the “sweet sounding bridge” card to a t in “Your Love Is My Drug”, and there’s a minor “holy shit” moment  where she actually sings a little for us. And even though it’s still as processed as a Big Mac, it’s a welcome change. Then she goes right back to being Kesha with more almost rapping, this time with little “huhs” that sound like a sound effect from the kid from Legend of Zelda. Cue another round of chorus, some awkward end of song banter, and the phrase “I like your beard”, which plays to Kesha’s secondary appeal of “One or two ‘What the fuck?’ lines per song”.

But it’s still actually kind of hard to hate on “Your Love Is My Drug”. It’d be a hell of a stretch to call it a good song, but then no part of it is volatile enough to call it a bad song. And even then, it comes across as being a cute try at a cute summer pop song (please note, a try); the sort of try that reminds me of a little kid trying to cook or fix something. Eh, what else is on?

I might break my own rule early and do another Radio Rant this week, just to show that I’m not a total FM cynic. Cheers!