Recession-indicator jokes are everywhere — anything that hits at an intersection of vague nostalgia and bizarre disdain can be a sign of our tanking economy. Low-rise jeans back? Recession indicator. Tumblr being a fun website again? Recession indicator. It’s rare, however, that the recession indicator identifies itself, but that’s what Kesha did after announcing her new album, . (which, for the sake of ease, we’ll just call it Period), and her Tits Out Tour back in the spring.
Period doesn’t start out sounding much like a Kesha album. Its opening track, “FREEDOM.,” begins with a piano interlude, plaintive and lyrical. There’s no irony to the moment either. As Kesha sings long, sustained notes, there’s no hint or sign that things will turn. The inspirational beat goes on for nearly two minutes: a prolonged sigh of relief as the singer belts the title of the song. “Everything’s changed now,” she sings, and then the song devolves into drum, bass, and tambourine. The familiar Kesha emerges: talk-singing and cussing and boasting about her penchant for horny partying. The chorus may be gospel-inspired, but this is Kesha as she’s always been. “I only drink when I’m happy, and I’m drunk right now,” she says over and over and over again. For the first time in a long time, she wants the listener to know without a shadow of a doubt that she’s free.
Kesha the pop star was born out of the 2008 recession — her hit feature on Flo Rida’s “Right Round” hit radios the first week of January 2009, and her first solo track, “Tik Tok” (app unrelated), arrived by late summer. Her first two albums, Animal and Warrior, were platonic ideals of early 2010s pop: synthy and dirty, more inspired by mashups and remixes than anything organic. As a star, Kesha professed a wild reputation, though a then-MTV show called Kesha: My Crazy Beautiful Life showed her to be mostly anything but. What happened next is well-documented. In 2014, Kesha went to rehab and sued her then-producer, Dr. Luke, for emotional and sexual abuse. She went on to make three more albums under Luke’s label, Kemosabe Records, before the lawsuit was settled out of court, at long last, in 2023.
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Period is Kesha’s first album under her own label — the aptly named Kesha Records — and feels, at first, like a hodgepodge of styles and genres that have come to define the singer’s work over the past decade. There’s a bit of country, R&B, the aforementioned gospel, and even a bit of rock. Her scattered style once felt like a rebellious singer detached from any one scene; on Period, these styles all merge into a kind of greater flex. Kesha was and has always been capable of all this and more. Even on the album’s sillier songs — “YIPPEE-KI-YAY.” and “JOYRIDE.” — Kesha refers again and again to her newfound freedom as an artist. “I’m flying high, it’s a miracle / I’m drinking spirits and spiritual,” she sings in “YIPPEE-KI-YAY.” That signature clunk in the latter line — she’s both doing an action and feeling an adjective — sounds like a revelation. All her new songs give way to this feeling of rejoicing even if the song is just about getting in a car and driving away.
On Monica Lewinsky’s podcast, the singer said, “In real time, I’m healing in front of the entire world, and it feels so vulnerable.” Why expose herself like this? Why not take more time to heal? Because, as Kesha adds, “I’m hoping that somebody watching me show up and be honest and looking cunty and having fun who’s been through something really hard.” Since Animal, I’ve wondered whether Kesha would be able to make a song as great as “Your Love Is My Drug,” a 2010 single that worked as both genuine bop and earnest expression of romance. Walking the line of banger and hymnal always felt like something only Kesha could do. On Period, the standout track is “THE ONE.,” which feels, at times, like a spiritual sequel. “I’m the one I’ve waited for,” she announces in the song’s chorus. There’s an earnest joy on display — a testament to herself. Period is an expression of rallying, of picking yourself up and moving on, as raw and humiliating and strange as it may be. And partying in spite of it all.
