A God-awful Small Affair

As far as the popular backlash against current musical dirge goes, Ke$ha is probably the most prominent female recipient. Which is a little more than unfair when presented with Katy Perry, Rita Ora, Cheryl Cole, Marina and the Diamonds, Rihanna, Pixie Lott, Britney Spears and Cher Lloyd - all far inferior and more tasteless products. Of course it's easily understandable - Ke$ha is the glitteriest, the trashiest and the most drunk of them all - but credit where credit's due, her songwriting (and she does do it, which we can't say of at least 4 of the above) and ear for an untameable dance track is currently unmatched. On such a big stage, anyway. So although she has a hilarious  Tumblr dedicated to producing gifs of her music videos dubbed with quotes by Slovenian psychoanalytical critic Slavoj Žižek , and although there was that bump in the road over the whole ridiculous "kids were shot therefore 'Die Young' is a terrible message to hear, but let's go ...

When presented with the It's Better If You Don't Understand EP back in 2010, I was excited. A small selection of four very good songs, displaying a range of potential hits and sounds, it at least presented Mars as a viable candidate for the next big thing, and on its merit, a welcome and rare example of a current phenomenon being talented. I guess it was inevitable that by the time his first LP - Doo-Wops and Hooligans - was produced, a lot of the Motown, soul and exciting edges had been polished and rejected in favour of cheesy, diabolical lovepop. Don't get me wrong, Just the Way You Are was a wonderful love song, and even 'Marry You' was good for the occasional YouTube proposal, but with the intolerable Grenade being unavoidable for a few months at the very start of 2011, and then immediately followed by the tedious, monotonous The Lazy Song , I grew very tired of Mars very fast. As is with much pop music, time can heal wounds and be very forgiving (just ...