Kesha Reclaims Her Pop Throne on the Assured ‘Period’ » PopMatters
Pop Culture

Kesha Reclaims Her Pop Throne on the Assured ‘Period’ » PopMatters

On 6 July 2017, Kesha released “Praying”, and almost everyone who heard it wept. Having established herself as the trashy party-rock pop diva of the 2010s (quite literally: her first single “TikTok” topped the US Billboard charts the first week of January 2010), Kesha‘s extremely public statements and lawsuits regarding her alleged treatment by producer Dr. Luke were nothing short of harrowing.

While still locked into a contract with his RCA subsidiary Kemosabe Records, “Praying” was an affecting ballad about repentance and forgiveness, crescendoing in a whistle note that was something fans had never heard out of her before. The song effectively rewrote her entire narrative, establishing her as a capital-A “Artist” instead of a mere pop star, and the industry listened, eventually awarding her her first-ever Grammy nomination.

The album from which the single originated, 2017’s Rainbow, ultimately became a chart-topper and one of the best pop albums released this decade. The singer-songwriter, born Kesha Rose Sebert, could have easily wallowed in public pity, but instead released a colorful, diverse, and surprising record that showed she didn’t need the person who created her sound to prove herself as a viable and respected artist.

She tried repeating the formula on 2020’s aptly named High Road, but unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic canceled her tour and prevented her from promoting it further. On her contract-fulfilling 2023 album, Gag Order, she pivoted and put all her darkest thoughts into one bleak yet cathartic pop totem that was as artistically potent as it was defiantly uncommercial.

Now, under her own record label, she is eager to get back to doing what she loves most: making hits. Period (stylized as a literal period), released almost eight years to the day after the debut of “Praying”, is a sprawling, uncompromised full-length that mixes bold swings with safe bets, resulting in a record bursting with independent spirit but in need of a tad more commitment to its vision.

When one hits play on album opener “Freedom”, some fans might be taken aback by the fact that it’s a full two-minute ambient piece, full of canyon-echo voices. Is this a prank? Is this a secret sequel to Gag Order? Patience is soon rewarded, as a dirty bassline kicks in and Kesha’s classic pop form emerges: “I only drink when I’m happy / And I’m drunk right now,” she intones, before dropping us a piano-pounding chorus that feels it came right out of early Chicago house records. She is in control of her element, and is rewriting her early Dr. Luke-era persona on her own terms: trashy, tacky, but with just a little bit more emotional grounding.

“Joyride”, which dropped a year to the day prior to the release of Period, is one of the greatest party songs she’s ever conceived. Riding a wild accordion line and a thumping synth chorus, she oozes attitude and wit, playing with campy choir vocals like she did on her 2019 political one-off “Rich, White, Straight Men”. The strength of Period isn’t so much that Kesha is rewriting her sonic identity, so much as she’s taking all her different eras and combining them into a summation of who she is as an artist. “Oh, you want kids? Well, I am Mother,” she purrs, headstrong and confident. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes a lip sync song on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

While she feeds her gay fanbase with giddy electro-throb tracks like “Boy Crazy”, songs like the striking “Red Flag” finds per pining for love on her terms (“I need a certain kind of chemical / It’s dangerous and unforgettable”), before finding profound similarities (“The broken in me sees the broken in you”). Between this, the country-adjacent stomper “Yippee-Ki-Yay”, and the vaguely Taylor Swift-ian stadium anthem “The One”, Period feels like a clever inversion of Rainbow: if that 2017 album was a pop album that toured through Kesha’s musical influences, then Period presents a Kesha-fied version of Top 40 radio, where it’s all hits built around her fearless worldview.

Of course, like any Top 40 radio station, there will be some lesser fare tossed around in the mix, as the quiet 1980s synthpop throwback “Too Hard” rides too slight a sentiment for a songwriter of Kesha’s wit, and “Love Forever” feels like a smooth-gliding B-side from Calvin Harris’ Funk Wav Bounces collection. These are perfectly fine songs, but lack the bite and crystal-clear intent of moments where she warns “Boys better beware / I’m on a man tear” (from “Boy Crazy”, naturally). The closing piano ballad “Cathedral” wisely isn’t even trying to be a sequel to “Praying”. However, in its search for self-redemption, it lacks the direct focal point, resulting in a somewhat more subdued emotional throughline.

While Kesha feels recharged on Period, its best moments are its unconventional ones: that ambient-opening fakeout, the horns and accordions that sprinkled all over the tracks, dynamite couplets like “Bitch, I just got a brand new start / Call the cops, baby / Kumbaya” (from “Yippee-Ki-Yay”) While the songs where she plays with both conventional structure and broader lyrical themes are almost designed to prove she could write hit-making material at the drop of a dime, it’s much a better world when Kesha stays true to her vision.

Now that she’s pushed past her most challenging moments in search of catharsis, Kesha’s ready to let loose. Period is a party-starting good time where our only wish is that it overpoured our shots just a little.

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