Warrior

Warrior is a pure pop album with rock influences, despite Ke$ha's attempts to make it the inverse.

Ke$ha too reaches for a savage base pull, lifting from the low-end, high-reward arena rock spectrum, a place of soaring peaks and valleys that still float above heads even at their most subdued, music meant to be blasted from towering stacks of speakers, so the stage appears bookended by the Willis Tower and the John Hancock Center and that finds its artistic beauty in the sheer size and ferocity of its scope and emotional appeal.

It's a wall-to-wall party for the freaks, burnouts, outcasts, and misfits and if you don't get it that's your fault, not hers.

Warrior is never dull, always fun, and frequently a thrillingly unpredictable ride.

Anyone up for giving her a second chance--or recognizing she has actual singing, writing, and performing talent--just might be pleasantly surprised.

Ke$ha's filthy jokes may be what separates her from her peers who practice ghost abstinence.

Too many cooks in the kitchen notwithstanding, it amounts to 12 songs here with some 40 perfectly crafted hooks.

Not everything works, but for a major label pop album, the ratio of material that succeeds is notably high, as on her sophomore release, she's already willing to take some risks with her sound.

Warrior doesn't hit the giddy peaks of 2010's Animal, but it has a crackpot sense of rock history.

There's no revelation here, only strong fun.

Warrior is likable enough, but not only can't it match its predecessor, it's not nearly as exhilarating or disruptive as what fellow slizzered California trashdancer Dev or assorted K-poppers have done in the past two years with basically the same raw materials.

Taken as a whole, this is another surprisingly enjoyable album from a pop singer who has managed to broaden her approach without losing her USP.

The naff raps and Auto-Tuned gloop can't spoil the addictive rush of the air-punching, get-pissed-destroy-a-bus-shelter anthems that abound here. [Jan 2012, p.93]

Warrior, a moderate improvement of her disappointing debut Animal. [Jan 2013, p.106]

Most of Warrior sticks to Ke$ha's tried-and-true formula.

Although the new direction isn't revolutionary, it's natural enough and distracts from some of the filler.

Really, though, her graceless output remains unaffected.