Ke$ha’s Crazy, Beautiful Life Is Crazy. And Beautiful. And Other Things?
The popstar's surprising behind-the-scenes reality show premiered last night in the US.
Last night, MTV (in the US) aired the first episode of Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life, a documentary series about the pop phenomenon behind ‘Your Love Is My Drug’ and ‘Die Young’. Shot in hand-held style, the show feels raw and real, stripping away the layers of glitter and hair extensions to take a look at the thoughtful and vulnerable singer underneath.
In a series of frank backstage interviews, Ke$ha opens up about those who have inspired her over the years, including Freddie Mercury, Madonna, and the 19th century economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen. “In itself and in its consequences,” she says, “the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men’s eyes – crazy beautiful!”
The episode touches on the days before the world tours and hotel suites, when Ke$ha was broke and living in a trailer park with Veblen’s 1899 text, The Theory Of The Leisure Class. “It is much more difficult to recede from a scale of expenditure once adopted than it is to extend the accustomed scale in response to an accession of wealth!”, she says with a knowing laugh.
“In itself and in its consequences, the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men’s eyes – crazy beautiful!”
The documentary also offers a rare glimpse at the elaborate production that is Ke$ha’s live show. “The apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner without help,” she says, rolling her eyes as a roadie helps her climb aboard a 12-foot fibreglass phallus.
One particularly candid sequence sees her break down in tears as she addresses the subject of her many detractors. “In the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to increase one’s visible consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed,” she sobs. “Basically, it’s about giving the haters the middle finger.”
“A failure to increase one’s visible consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed.”
Ke$ha writes from the heart, and over the course of the episode, the true stories behind various hits start to emerge. “‘Dinosaur’ is about getting hit on by this really old dude at a party,” she says. “‘Tik Tok’ is about waking up and feeling like Diddy, while ‘Blow’ is about how the need of conspicuous waste stands ready to absorb any increase in the community’s industrial efficiency or output of goods.”
The final, triumphant scene shows Ke$ha, wrapped in a distressed American flag and flanked by backing dancers, performing to a sell-out crowd as glitter cannons explode around her. Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life is a thrilling rock documentary, and a reminder that the domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, as compared with the éclat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on before the eyes of observers.*
* I have not seen this show.
Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life premieres locally on MTV on Wednesday May 8 at 8:30pm.
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Alasdair Duncan is an author, freelance writer and video game-lover who has had work published in Crikey, The Drum, The Brag, Beat, Rip It Up, The Music Network, Rave Magazine, AXN Cult and Star Observer.