Pre-fame Songwriting

Ke$ha a.k.a. Kesha Rose Sebert and Katy Perry a.k.a. Kathryn Elizabeth Hudson have a lot in. common, they had similar musical beginnings, both started out in California chasing the dream of becoming successful singers. Though they had not formed their artistic personas quite yet, fast forward a few years, and they are now household names with distinct and different styles.

Ke$ha reportedly recorded over 200 songs for her debut album "Animal", which is not that surprising considering that track recording began 4-5 years prior, and Katy has had a number of projects before album "One Of The Boys", including a debut Christian album and a non-realized studio album. During the recording process for their albums, tracks that they had written or recorded that were not included on the studio album were given to other artists.

The Veronicas - "This Love"

Official Single Cover

In 2007, The Veronica's released their second studio album "Hook Me Up" and included on the tracklisting was "This Love", which was successful as a single in Australia. The song was written by Ke$ha and producer Toby Gad ("Big Girls Don't Cry", "If I Were A Boy"). 

Check their video and compare it to Ke$ha's demo.

Miranda Cosgrove - "Disgusting"

Official Album Cover - "Sparks Fly"

Miranda Cosgrove, known for her roles on Drake and Josh and iCarly, released her debut album "Sparks Fly" in fall of 2008. Included was a track called "Disgusting", co-written by Ke$ha and her mother Pebe Sebert, as well as the producers. Judging from the track, and comparing it to another written and produced by the same producer of "Disgusting" (proof), the sound if the songs doesn't sound like the rest of her tracks on "Animal", so I would assume that they were written and recorded by her, but not up to par. 

Check out Ke$ha's demo and Miranda's version.

Miley Cyrus - "The Time of Our Lives"

Official EP Cover

Bridging the gap between Miley's debut album and her latest effort was the EP "The Time of Our Lives", which was a Platinum-selling EP released in fall of 2009 preceded by the immensely successful "Party In The U.S.A.". Written by Ke$ha, her mother Pebe, Dr. Luke and legendary songwriter Claude Kelly ("Circus", "Take It Off", "Grenade"). When asked about the song, Ke$ha said that she was writing specifically for Miley and it wasn't necessarily a left-over track.

Though a demo hasn't leaked (yet), you can clearly hear Ke$ha's lilting yodel on the chorus.

Girl's Generation - "Run Devil Run"

Official Album Cover - "Oh!: Run Devil Run"

Asian group Girl's Generation (presumably) re-recorded a Ke$ha track as the first single for the re-release of their second album "Oh!", also borrowing the title from the song naming it "Run Devil Run". Judging from the demo, it sounds like it was a part of Ke$ha's initial album plans and is a decent leak.

You can check out the Girl's Generation video, though it's in Korean, and Ke$ha's demo.

Charlee - "Boy Like You"

Official Single Cover

Austrian singer Charlee released "Boy Like You" as the lead single from her debut album "This Is Me" in Fall 2010. Only the back cover of the single reveals Ke$ha as the writer, and it's lyrically similar to her other songs, though it's different "Animal" so that and the fact that the demo is quite polished and identical to the single version leads me to believe that it was never intended for Ke$ha's album.

Check out Charlee's music video and Ke$ha's demo.

Fun-facts: Just because she hit the big time, doesn't mean she stopped writing song for other artists; Ke$ha revealed that she had written for "Loud", Rihanna's latest album, however the song was not included on the final tracklist for the album. Ke$ha has also recently confirmed that she penned a track for Britney Spears' 7th album "Femme Fatale", not surprising considering that Dr. Luke, who produced all of Ke$ha's studio album releases, is co-producing "Femme Fatale". The title is "Till the World Ends" and is about "imagining her and nay female musician touring the world, you know, when you go out, and you're having an amazing, magical night and you don't want to go to sleep and you want it to last until the world ends".

Ashley Tiasdale - "Time's Up"

Official Album Cover - "Guilty Pleasure"

In between Christian-rock "Katy Hudson" and "One of the Boys", Katy had recorded an album with songwriting/producer team The Matrix, known for their work on Avril Lavigne's debut album "Let Go". She was just to be a featured vocalist, think Timbaland, but with just her and Adam Longlands (couldn't find any info on him). One of the tracks "Love Is A Train"/"Time's Up" was taken from the album sessions and given to Ashley Tisdale to record for her second album "Guilty Pleasure", released in Summer 2009.

Check out Ashley's version and Katy's version, both are studio versions, not demos.

Kelly Clarkson - "I Do Not Hook Up" & "Long Shot"

Official Album Cover - "All I Ever Wanted"

Kelly Clarkson's latest album, released in Spring 2009, saw 2 recycled Katy tracks, "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot", the first becoming a successful single. Both tracks are leftover from Katy's unrealized debut album, and both the Kelly versions are produced by Howard Benson, who has a mostly Rock background (Daughtry, Flyleaf, Reliant K). "I Do Not Hook Up" was originally titled "Hookup" and was co-written with Kara DioGuardi and Greg Wells while "Long Shot" was co-written with Glen Ballard (Annie Lennox, Michael Jackson) and Matthew Theissen, lead singer of Reliant K, who also worked on Owl City's studio album "Ocean Eyes".

Long Shot: Check Katy's music video and Kelly's track.

Hookup: Compare Kelly's video to Katy's original version.

Selena Gomez & The Scene - "Rock God"

Official Album Cover - "A Year Without Rain"

SGaTS' second studio album "A Year Without Rain" was released in Fall of 2010 and included "Rock God", a song co-written by Katy Perry, Victoria Horn and Printz Board (The Black Eyed Peas, Fergie). Selena confirmed that Katy had given her an old track and was also featured on the background vocals, which you can hear clearly when you listen to the chorus.

Katy's version and Selena's track.

Fun-facts: On Miley Cyrus' debut album "Breakout", 2 songs were included that had been recorded by Katy Perry, "Breakout" and "The Driveway". Now, checking the album booklet for the writing credits, both "Breakout" and "The Driveway" don't list Katy as a writer, but do include her as a background vocalist. I've read some fan comments claiming that Katy recorded the vocals after Miley had been given the song, but Katy recording a full version wouldn't make sense, especially since her version "The Driveway" has different lyrics than Miley's. I'm not sure if Katy had a hand in writing the songs, but she always writes her own music, besides these songs, I've never heard Katy record a song she didn't write (unless it was a cover obviously) so it's a mystery to me.

Check Miley's "Breakout" and Katy's version and you can also check Katy's slightly different "The Driveway" and compare it to Miley's.

E.T. - Single Review (EDIT: Kany West feature reviewed)

Official Single Cover

Sometime in May/June of '10, Katy Perry's demo for "E.T." then labeled "E.T. (Futuristic Lover) leaked and up until then, all I had heard from the singer was "I Kissed a Girl", "Hot N' Cold" and "Waking Up In Vegas". Though my friend had burned me her album "One Of The Boys", I actually never listened to it until that summer, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I ended up getting pretty attached to the song, the chorus especially reminded me of another song, not entirely sure which one, some say t.A.T.u.'s "All The Things She Said", the repetition in both songs is similar.

I don't need to say anything more about Dr. Luke, he for sure knows what he's doing, and he co-produced this with frequent collaborator Max Martin and newer producer Ammo, a.k.a. Joshua Coleman, who also co-produced "Your Love Is My Drug", "We R Who We R", and "Check It Out". The writing for the song has the same whimsy as many of Katy's others, but she pulls it off without being corny, which, for a song called "E.T.", is quite a feat. The single has a great *thump thump clap* beat playing over a bleeping melody followed by a powerful chorus driven by a rapid hi-hat beat, swooshing electro gusts and an unintelligible noise someone is moaning, appended by a simple synth and chord repetition on the bridge. 

In my opinion, the demo is better than the album version, listen here. Maybe because that's what I grew to love first, but there are pros and cons to both; the demo of course is not as produced as the finalized product, so instrumental wise, not as great, however vocally, Katy sounds over-produced and the singing is much simpler on the final version, they take out some of her distinctive voice during the verses, especially on the runs on the emphasized last words of the lines (could you be the devil, could you be an angel). The song did not initially cross my mind as a single choice, I would've expected "Peacock" or "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) as it is a rather dark-sounding song, but its is unexpected, which is something Katy loves to be, so we'll see how it fares on the charts, strong downloads when it was released as a part of iTunes Countdown to the album made it peak at 42 on the Hot 100.

EDIT: Katy has since released the single that will be impacting radios and it features a couple verses from Kanye West. This union is a good example of a couple things; the difference between a song originally intended to be a collaboration (California Gurls with Snoop Dogg) and one that wasn't, compromising morals in order to sell more records (wasn't it Katy who Tweeted after the Taylor Swift scandal "FUCK U KANYE. IT'S LIKE U STEPPED 0N A KITTEN." which has surprisingly not been deleted) and a good idea gone awry.

It's not that the +Kanyeezy version is totally bad, it's that when compared to the original, it falls flat. It doesn't sound like he really grasped the concept of the song, or he just didn't care. His verses consisted of him talking about, what else, getting girls, sex, wearing nice threads, sex, being a legend and sex. So he really went out of the box with this one.

Bottom line: it's interesting to see someone's artistic interpretation of the song's theme. But please play the album version.

Official Single Cover