Kesha Sebert, or Ke$ha, is a singer-songwriter who rose to fame in 2009 with her feature on Flo Rida's track "Right Round." She has had ten 'top-ten' singles on the Billboard Hot 100 including "Tik Tok", "My First Kiss" with 3OH!3, and "We R Who We R." At the start of her career, she signed with RCA Records and in 2010 released her first album Animal. Moving forward, she released Warrior in 2012, and Rainbow in 2017. Throughout her musical career, she has had some changes to her sound and style, ultimately dropping the '
Recently, Kesha released her fourth album High Road, and she stated on lyric website Genius, that the album title comes from "many meanings." Kesha moves on to say that, "Morally, I try to take the high road. Sometimes you just got to stay above it. In a sense, I take the high road, but in a sense, I definitely am not taking the high road in the [self-titled] song." From this quote, we can take away that Kesha will never be just one thing, instead, offering multiple different meanings and interpretations to (some) of her work. In this case, maybe labeling the entire album High Road, while also stating that sometimes she doesn't take the high road, is counterintuitive. Maybe the album should've been called something like Moving Forward, or This Is Me Now because we know she will reinvent herself in the future.
The album began with the song "Tonight" which incorporated lyrics like "Tonight's the best night of our lives/Can you feel it/We got it all, if we're alive." The song eventually moves on into the post-chorus with Kesha singing "B****, we going out tonight/B****, we going out/B-b-b- b****, we going out tonight/B****h pick up your phone." Lyrics like this show that although Kesha is releasing more material, there will still be that essential 'party' piece that makes Kesha, Kesha. Frankly after listening to Rainbow, I was surprised that "Tonight" was the first track on her new album because I had expected more in-depth lyrics, or more of a feminist theme. Rather, this track involves a lot of shallow/repetitive lyrics, and a basic beat that doesn't get the audience moving.
Track two "My Own Dance" shows that Kesha won't abide by anyone else's standards, and will do her own thing despite the opinions of others. I feel that she also reverts back to her 2012 self in this song due to the song's heavy pop elements, and basic melody. The chorus in this track "Hey, I don't do that dance/Hey I don't do that/Don't circumcises my circumstance" backs up this idea. I felt that a lot more could have been done about this song, and I was disappointed with how she back-peddled her sound, rather than try something new.
The next couple songs, "Raising Hell" featuring Pop singer/songwriter Big Freedia, and "High Road" were some of the most anticipated tracks on the album. Kesha stated on Genius that the concept of "Raising Hell" was that "good people sometimes enjoy doing bad things, and it doesn't take away from you being a fantastic soul." However, I believe this thought process to be absolutely false. Any person could commit any atrocity on the basis that they're just doing it to bad, and that if they believe themselves to have a fantastic soul, then they will. Moving on, Kesha also stated that "Raising Hell" was an a** shaking song, which is completely understandable given the depth-full lyrics in the track. "Drop it down low, drop it down low/Drop, dr-drop it down low, drop it down low (Get it)/Drop it, drop it, drop it, drop-drop-drop it down, down low/Bounce it up and down where the good Lord split it." Needless to say, these lyrics were also some of the cringiest. The track "High Road" also featured a cheer-leader type style beat. In an interview with Apple Music, Kesha told them that, "I'm just at a point where I can sit back, smoke a little weed, and have a laugh and not be so invested in all this shit that people talk." Which is pretty much the theme of the chorus, however each verse seems to do the opposite. An example of this is within the first verse of the song during her 'rap', "B-I-T-C-H, I'm that b**** you love to hate/S-T-R-8, talk that sh** straight to the bank/So aggressive, passive aggressive." In this way it seems that she isn't ignoring those who criticize her, instead it appears that she is stooping to their level.
Further, tracks five "Shadow", six "Honey" featuring Tayla Parx, seven "Cowboy Blues", eight "Resentment", and nine "Little Bit of Love" were all very easy to move through. Each song had a lot of people working on them including; the 'Mozart of Pop' Brian Wilson, Kesha's mom Pebe Sebert, Country artist Sturgil Simpson, Record producer STINT, lead-singer of Fun. Nate Ruess, and many others. Each person brought their own talent to the table in creating each piece of music, however I felt that it took away from Kesha as her own singer/songwriter. Obviously if you have the 'Mozart of Pop' helping you to write lyrics, or songs, the end product will end up sounding good. Kesha currently writes music for a bunch of other artists and I would encourage her to write her own lyrics every now and again. I think her main audience would also appreciate hearing what she has to say, formed in and by her own voice, rather than words from someone else. "Cowboy Blues" was my favorite track on the album due to how catchy the chorus was "Did I f*** my whole life up", however it wasn't without its own faults. At the start of the track, Kesha is heard laughing (fake laughter?) and saying "Sing it with me sh**head" which brought on a whole new level of cringe to the album. Ignoring that, the song's melody was very nice, and I appreciated how much of a "sing-a-long" song it was.
Tracks 10 "Birthday Suit", 11 "Kinky" featuring Ke$ha, 12 "The Potato Song (Cuz I Want To), and 13 "BFF" featuring Wrabel were all really tough to get through. Each song felt very shallow, and quickly scrapped together. In "Birthday Suit" Kesha sings about wanting to get someone naked (obviously, what else would the song title refer to?), while in "Kinky" Kesha incorporated old-school-style rap "Ke$ha". I thought it was weird how she referred to her old-self as this other person, but whatever. "The Potato Song" featured some lyrics written by Stuart Chrichton, as well as a weird carnival-esc type beat. Finally, "BFF" had a sample of Kesha being on the phone with her mom, which transitioned into her and Wrabel singing about how they're best friends (again very obvious from the song title). "BFF" had to be one of my least favorite songs on the album because of the twinkle-style beat used, as well as lyrics like "Its five years later and it keeps on getting' better/my mom's here too" which was awkward to hear knowing that her mom helped write the song.
Finishing up the album, tracks 14 "Father Daughter Dance", and 15 "Chasing Thunder" were some of the best songs on the album. This is due to the themes that Kesha sang about in the songs. Additionally, I enjoyed how each of them were produced. In "Father Daughter Dance" Kesha sang about growing up without a dad, and how it impacted her life, while in "Chasing Thunder" she related to being a wildflower, and feeling free.
All in all, Kesha left me surprised with her work on this album. The themes and elements expressed in the songs on High Road could've been more depth-full, but that might just be me holding Kesha do a higher standard. With all of the people used on each song, one would've thought that this album would have been better than it was, and again I would love to see Kesha write an entire album by herself. I look forward to listening to future pieces of music by Kesha, however this album received a 5.5 out of 10 and I would avoid buying this music on vinyl.
