The next Lady Gaga and Laura Marling and the saviours of guitar pop and indie – among them Ke$ha, Paperplain, the Drums (…)

KE$HA

If 2009 belonged to Lady Gaga, this year’s electro-shock queen-in-waiting is Ke$ha Sebert, a Nashville-born, LA-based wild child whose songs are every bit as brazen, attitudinal and addictive as her New York kindred spirit’s. Some have already dismissed the 22-year-old as trying that little bit too hard and failing to mask a mighty ambition, much as they did with Gaga — as if, in 2010, ambition, and an unwillingness to conceal it, could ­possibly be described as distasteful. Ke$ha’s back story is as E-numbered-to-the-hilt as her music: the daughter of a Tennessee songwriter mother who penned hits for Dolly Parton, she has written for Miley Cyrus and the Veronicas, sung backing vocals on Flo Rida’s No 1 single Right Round, and for Paris Hilton, and outsold Jay-Z and Taylor Swift on the American singles charts with Tik-Tok, which was a Top 10 hit here last month.

Collaborators on her debut album, Animal, include Dr Luke (Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson) and Max Martin (P!nk, Britney Spears), and the finished product is stuffed full of potential hits, among them the bitchy kiss-offs Kiss N Tell, Blah Blah Blah and Backstabber, and the swooning, crush-on-you soft-pop of Stephen. Pursed-lipped musical purists would be advised to handle Animal with care: its ruthless pursuit of the killer hook, the delirious crudeness of its chord progressions and choruses, and, above all, the sheer unabashed and scandal-gathering chutzpah of the singer at its centre are likely to induce apoplexy. Anyone unburdened by such an uptight approach to music will love it, and her. Which is, of course, just the way Ke$ha wants it.

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