FOR HER THIRD STUDIO DISC, THE 32 YEAR OLD ARTIST FINDS A WINNING PLACE BETWEEN ELECTRO POP GLITTER AND TRUE GRIT

BY EVAN MONROE

In keeping with the gathering industry trend of slow rolling track releases even seasons ahead of associated album debuts, Kesha (who dumped the stylized Ke$ha moniker in 2014) began teasing the January 10 scheduled Kemosabe/RCA Records disc, High Road (cover seen below), in October with “Raising Hell,” featuring hip hop bounce genre icon, Big Freedia. A strange and grabby mix of country, gospel, and electro pop, it suggested a return to the candy coated glitter of early work in 2010’s Animal, when she to pretty much equal parts praise and upbraiding developed a musical character described by Los Angeles Times writer Ann Powers as “aggressive superficiality and libertine self-empowerment.” Then came the late November High Road track, “My Own Dance.” Movement propelling, absolutely, and bookended by shimmering synth and thudding base, it also seemed darker its lyrics describing how to be happy under increasingly bizarre circumstances. Its video saw Kesha sporting new brunette locks while wandering through a house full of what seem like MDMA induced hallucinations. The latter song was more in keeping with her second studio disc, Rainbow, which was a more thoughtful, drama fueled, and nuanced feminist manifesto, widely praised and Grammy nominated as a result.

It didn’t require much analysis to come to the conclusion that real life circumstances have played a role in the increasing emotional complexity of Kesha tracks. The Los Angeles born artist seemed, for an extended period, to be as much litigant as performer, as she initiated a series of lawsuits accusing a former producer, Dr. Luke, of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse as well as employment discrimination. The last of the cases was ultimately dismissed in 2016, principally for exceeding statutes of limitation, but both the legal effort and fellow performer praise afterwards placed her center in a Me Too movement that caught fire shortly thereafter.

The person who emerged both writes in and is video presented in more shadowy tones in large part, and is a fascinating cocktail of top 40 marketability and battle hardened thirty something with increasingly fascinating things to say.