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Strong releases from Kesha, Trainor ignite airwaves, streaming platforms

’TiK ToK’ hitmaker returns with mature-but-still-playful new sound, lyrics

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New albums out Jan. 31: ‘High Road’ from Kesha and ‘Treat Myself’ by Meghan Trainor. (Photos courtesy RCA and Epic respectively)

We’re off to what’s shaping up to be a deliciously big year for women in pop. Selena Gomez and Halsey released new albums in January and Meghan Trainor and Kesha (stylized as Ke$ha until the release of her 2017 “Rainbow”) have new albums out last week.

It’s hard to believe that “TiK ToK,” Kesha’s first single as a solo artist, reached the no. 1 spot on Billboard exactly one decade ago. Her 2010 debut album “Animal” was followed by the platinum EP “Cannibal” in the same year. Singles like “We R Who We R,” “Die Young,” “Timber” and “Blow” still dominate club play. If pop music continues to be remembered by decades, the 2010s may well be the decade of Kesha — certainly the first half. Bawdy, dancey, unapologetically electronic, masterfully produced — these are all defining features of Kesha’s artist output. Vocal virtuosity is sidelined in favor of her distinctive party girl persona.

Kesha’s 2017 comeback “Rainbow” was something of an anomaly. With singles like “Praying,” she was clearly trying to revise her previously successful formula and add some depth to her artist production. “High Road” is the brilliant culmination of her previous work, seamlessly incorporating a variety of genres, yet it remains fiercely distinct. It is both a return to the Kesha of “TiK ToK” and marked evolution from that Kesha — a perfect balance of playful and serious, innovative and mature.

Take, for instance, lead single “Raising Hell,” which features Big Freedia. It’s a bouncy anthem that manages a thumping pop bassline and churchy, gospel feel at the same time. There is even a fabulous breakdown with bluesy organ. It’s refreshing to see the effects of gospel beyond Kanye West. Like “Praying,” Kesha cleverly appropriates religious language for her un-religious party anthem: “I’m all fucked up in my Sunday best/no walk of shame ’cause I love this dress/hungover, heart of gold, holy mess/doin’ my best, bitch, I’m blessed.” Kesha has always been lyrically strong, if not vocally, but “High Road” takes it to a new level. In lieu of the empty monotony of overdone, feel-good tropes, Kesha has a sense of humor.

The song “Honey” is different sort of song. The influence of rock groups like the Red Hot Chili Peppers is evident from the first guitar stroke. The stripped down instrumentation gives one of several opportunities on this album to appreciate Kesha’s soulful vocals. The song “Cowboy Blues” is another outlier, an unexpected hipster-girl tune with ukulele — think Zooey Deschanel’s band She & Him. But, as usual, Kesha puts her own spin on quirky.

Perhaps, the biggest surprise of the new album is “Resentment,” which features Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson, country artist Sturgill Simpson and the singer Wrabel. It is a beautiful country song and it could reasonably find its way onto the country charts. It’s a crossover into country from the other direction, a sort of reverse Faith Hill. It perhaps speaks to the vitality of country music in the past several years thanks to artists like Margo Price.

But in addition to the surprises, Kesha still leaves us with a healthy dose of raucous party music. “Kinky” is a delightful up-tempo dance track that celebrates sexual freedom and polyamory: “Monogamy ain’t natural/at least not for me and you/we’re in our own dimension/we’re making up our own rules.” It’s like the 2020 update to Katy Perry’s now classic (and now utterly uncontroversial) “I Kissed A Girl.” And as always, Kesha gives us a taste of the carnivalesque with “Potato Song (Cuz I Want To).”

Treat Myself” is Meghan Trainor’s third studio album, and she’s come a long way since her emergence on the charts with the release of her no. 1 debut album “Title” in 2015. The singles “All About That Bass” and “Like I’m Going To Lose You,” which features John Legend, both from her debut, have over 500 million streams on Spotify. The new album has been in progress for some time, and is a slick, well-produced pop album.

The catchy lead single “No Excuses” was released in 2018 and has already had extensive radio play. But the album is fairly robust and offers several other excellent tracks. “Wave,” released as a single last fall, is a heavily electronic anthem that showcases Trainor’s well-harnessed vocal abilities. Of the singles, it’s hard not to be a partisan of “Nice to Meet Ya,” a collaboration with Nicki Minaj. It has similar feel to hip-hop dance tracks from the early 2000s and the way Minaj’s punctuates the last word in each line of her verse is in some ways reminiscent of songs like J-Kwon’s 2000 “Tipsy.”

“Genetics,” a collaboration with the Pussycat Dolls (who knew they were still around?), is an impeccable dance track. The bass line would make even the most resistant person in the friend group sway along. It makes me nostalgic for the Pussycat Dolls of “Don’t Cha” and “When I Grow Up.” And Trainor gives some needed vocal competence to the pulsing beat.

Perhaps the most delightful part of the new album is the song “Funk,” Trainor’s funky answer to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ 2014 “Uptown Funk.” In fact, it feels like it might have started an improvised riff on it. But it strikes a groove all of its own, and the horns take on something of Michael Jackson feel, as the chorus cleverly hammers away: “I miss the way we used to funk.” It is an inspired new direction for Trainor’s music. But if there is one thing to reproach Trainor for, it’s that her lyrics peddle in endless strings of cliché. She could stand to learn a thing or two from Kesha on that front.

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Music & Concerts

Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule

Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1

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Writer Gregg Shapiro with Jill Sobule in 2000. (Photo courtesy Shapiro)

I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.

Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).

Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.

With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.

Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”

That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.

While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.

Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.

On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.

Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.

When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.

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Music & Concerts

Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’

Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.

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Singer Tom Goss is back. (Photo by Dusti Cunningham)

Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co. 

Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.

For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.

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Music & Concerts

Kylie brings ‘Tension’ tour to D.C.

Performance on Tuesday at Capital One Arena

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Kylie Minogue visits D.C. on Tuesday.

Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.

The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”

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