Her fifth album, produced by Rick Rubin, features sonic risks and strange subject matter. It mostly works.
Cast your mind back to 2009. Think low-rise jeans, a velvet tracksuit (shudder) and a chunky statement belt. Chances are the song that made its way into your brain that year was Ke$ha’s infectious banger “Tik Tok.” A swaggering star was born, who got the party started and brushed his gnasers with Jack Daniels. More than a decade later, Kesha (she retired the dollar sign in 2014) is no longer swinging from whiskey bottles. The party has stopped.
She’s back with fifth album ‘Gag Order,’ the follow-up to 2020’s ‘High Road,’ a deeply introspective body of work she gleaned from her fans, The Animals. The singer has been put through annoyances over the years: her legal battle against producer Dr. Luke, real name Lukasz Gottwald, whom she accused of sexual and emotional abuse, charges she has always denied are running.
In the manifesto of his latest offering, he explained: “I let my darkness see the light.” Over the course of 11 tracks produced by industry veteran Rick Rubin, listeners are given an all-access all-areas pass to an emotional exorcism as Kesha does some serious soul-searching. On the trippy synth-splash lead single ‘Eat the Acid,’ she reflects on the spiritual awakening she had in the summer of 2020: “The universe said your time is now / And told me everything’s okay.”
No punches are pulled on ‘Fine Line’, a twinkling piano and string arrangement that provides a false sense of calm before an erupting storm of lyrics: All the doctors and lawyers cut the tongue out of my mouth / I Hiding my anger, but bitch look at me now. It is a sequel to 2017’s howl-at-the-sky anthem Praying: “I’ll bring the thunder, I’ll bring the rain / Oh, when I’m finished, they won’t even know your name”, she once sang.
There’s barely a whiff of chart-troubling hits. Kesha has said that this time there was no name of the game. ‘Only Love Can Save Us Now’ is the closest thing to a bonafide bop, the bubbly verses riding along over a beat that unexpectedly breaks into a Kumbaya-style chorus, complete with hand claps. Hate Me Harder also pricks the ears, a mid-tempo middle-finger at trolls: “You say I’ve become one / You say I look old / No one was asking”
Sonic risks are taken, but they don’t always pay off. “Take the Drama,” a cacophony of squealing bass that ends with Kesha’s chant-like wish to be reincarnated as a, er, house cat. The record ends on a high note with the ballad “Happy,” which bubbles with hope, vulnerability, and Kesha’s sweetest vocals to date; In fact, there’s a notable (and appreciable) absence of autotune throughout. Probing, cathartic and brutally personal, ‘Gag Order’ – despite its title – is the embodiment of an artist who has found her voice.
Details
- Release date: May 19, 2023
- Record label: Kemosabe Records
