While fulfilling her contractual obligations with RCA and Kemosabe Records, Kesha used her records as a playground for experimentation. 2017’s Rainbow, 2020’s High Road, and 2023’s Gag Order weren’t perfect, but they ambitiously swayed back and forth between new territory (country, gospel, hyperpop) and old (the party-pop she helped invent with Animal) while giving her permission to be both messy and vulnerable. There’s no doubt that Kesha sounds newly liberated and no less chaotic on her sixth album and first independent release, . (PERIOD), yet it also feels oddly hesitant to take a bolder, more decisive step forward, be it by blending those styles or matching its carefree attitude with more careful production. For every moment that’s deliriously catchy, there’s another that grates. “I really do split my life,” she told Vogue. “It’s like half pop star, half hippie in the woods trying to reach my highest potential and spiritual power.” Instead of giving each side equal weight, . (PERIOD) loses itself somewhere in the middle, feeling, ironically, elliptical.
1. FREEDOM.
A six-and-a-half minute opener drifting from heavenly ambient to sure-footed nu disco, ‘FREEDOM’ is as much a bridge between records as it is an indicator of . (PERIOD)’s gleefully uneven nature. Co-producers Jonathan Wilson and Drew Erickson, who helped Angel Olsen wade into a similarly wide-eyed sense of freedom on 2022’s Big Time, render it a seamless transition, which Kesha overrides with an ironically pitched-down voice: “Narcissism! It makes you happy!” Her distinctive proclamations get the party rolling: “I only drink when I’m happy and I’m drunk right now.” After commanding to be taken to the sex shop, a little distortion bleeds into her voice when she adds, “Bitch.” A song like this is a grand symbolic gesture, but it’s in those small twists and details that her personality comes through.
2. JOYRIDE.
Kesha revs her engine with a goofy accordion sample and a pretty infectious chorus, but a whole year after its release, it’s clear the album’s lead single doesn’t have that much staying power. With lines like “A label whore, but I’m bored of wearing clothes,” though, its absurdity is all the more refreshing. You bet that a few years down the line, when the engine’s even more rusted, it’s only going to sound better.
3. YIPPEE-KI-YAY.
With a steep turn towards country-pop, the kookiness starts to become grating, and the fault’s really in the production. Does every beat and syllable really need this much oomph? The bass that much of a kick, the vocals so many layers, every synth a firework? Trashiness can be delightful, but it should be able to speak for itself.
4. DELUSIONAL.
“Thanks for the heartbreak, it gets my bills paid/ You just keep chasin’ the sun,” Kesha sings on this middling power ballad, the subtext behind the metaphor being that the guy broke up with her when she didn’t take him to Taylor Swift’s party. You’d want to write a song about that, but it doesn’t have to be a song that sounds like it was written this quickly, only for the production to once again blow any real hint of emotion to bits. It’s those booming drums that might be doing most of the damage; hearing them gone at the very end of the song almost made me feel something.
5. RED FLAG.
This is more like it: ‘RED FLAG’ might be straight-down-the-middle club pop, the safest avenue for Kesha’s irreverent tendencies, but it works so well here. BRAT fatigue notwithstanding, it brings the energy back up. Or as Kesha puts it – referring, of course, to her taste in men: “Something so wrong does it so right every time.”
6. LOVE FOREVER.
A sleek bit of Random Access Memories-indebted disco whose cloying chorus makes eternal love sound the least desirable thing one could imagine. Kesha’s playful enunciation in the verses can’t do much to salvage the track, which is produced by Stuart Crichton, the same person who helmed her much-better Eagles of Death Metal collab ‘Let Em’ Talk’.
7. THE ONE.
It’s tempting to call this the worst song on the album, mostly because it sounds the least like Kesha, her voice swallowed up just as she declares that she’s the one. Zhone’s production is really hit and miss on . (PERIOD), but this is way off, sounding huge without much to back it up.
8. BOY CRAZY.
This is more of a hit, a hornily deranged slice of brat-pop that comes a little too late but lands better than ‘Spring Breakers featuring Kesha’ – even if it still makes more sense as an idea than it works in execution.
9. GLOW.
A post-breakup anthem on the other side of ‘DELUSIONAL.’, and what a difference the shift in production makes. Hudson Mohawke’s glitchy, minimal keys and slightly off-kilter beat leave space for Kesha’s sense of humour (“Taste all them boys like a charcuterie board”), punctuating it when necessary (“You on my TikTok, I’m the fucking OG”). Keeping things a little low-key only makes her sound more radiant – the difference between a period and an exclamation mark, if you will.
10. TOO HARD.
Essentially a sequel to ‘LOVE FOREVER.’, with a sense of disappointment creeping in: “No wonder all my love was not enough/ To heal the sadness you hide.” Yet the sentiment of the chorus remains oddly unchanged, reminding the heartbreaker that she will always love him. The song, though, shouldn’t be so easy to forget.
11. CATHEDRAL.
The song’s wispy piano and religious imagery brings the album full circle, but ‘CATHEDRAL.’ isn’t the powerhouse closer it could’ve been. Kesha’s voice has all the gravitas in the world as she finally lays out her journey to freedom, but it’s strangely muffled, as if mirroring her effort to “numb the pain.” You can hear her “gasping for breath,” but instead of opening up when the beat kicks in, it’s just overbearing. “Every second is a new beginning,” she declares, screaming her heart out. Hopefully the next one’s worth every second.
