Review Summary: Give me liberty or give me death.
Appropriately released on Independence Day, Kesha’s
Period (stylized as .) marks her departure from RCA Records and Dr. Luke after a series of bitter legal battles and allegations of abuse/defamation were ultimately settled in 2023. Kesha has referred to
Period as the first album she’s ever made where she felt “truly free”, and that sense of liberation emanates from every corner of her sixth full-length LP. It’s an album full of carefree, upbeat, no-fucks given pop anthems – which is simultaneously its greatest asset and most crushing detriment.
Kesha’s declaration of independence is more emotional than it is creative. The closest she gets to exploring outside the box is the six and a half minute opener ‘FREEDOM.’, which begins with some fluttering pianos and operatic wails before delving into a funky, groove-driven menace of a dancefloor banger. Based on this introductory track alone, it would have appeared that Kesha was primed for an artistic breakthrough akin to Miley Cyrus’
Something Beautiful. Unfortunately, that excitement derails the longer that
Period progresses, pivoting to dated-sounding pop that might best be described as a 2010s Kesha redux. Tracks like ‘JOYRIDE.’ and ‘RED FLAG.’ are serviceable in that they are fun and catchy enough to be a fair play at any party – particularly the former thanks to its colossal beat and circus-like madness – but even these generally
good songs are not musically interesting enough to demand your attention or evoke a true sense of nostalgia linked to this style’s most vibrant days. As a result, the majority of
Period comes across as
Warrior-lite; these throwbacks that are generally competent but no longer relevant. It’s a fairly disappointing result given the stylistic free pass Kesha would supposedly have to genre-meld and explore new horizons within her self-owned independent label.
Meanwhile, the mellower moments that recall more recent/mature Kesha outings (like the respectable
Gag Order), also achieve diminishing returns. ‘DELUSIONAL.’ sounds as though it could have landed on any Katy Perry album and checked off the “power ballad” box, while the belter of a curtain-call ‘Cathedral’ achieves a beautiful aesthetic, but also feels like it’s been done before – and better – on
Rainbow’s title track or even ‘Praying’. These cuts are still preferable to the sweaty 2010 sorority/frat vibe of the dare-I-say cringy ‘BOY CRAZY.’, but as a whole there’s so very little to
Period that qualifies as fresh. The meditative penultimate track is a rich, smooth exercise in dream-pop that is probably the second best song here, but not only is it ‘TOO HARD.’, it’s also too little too late.
Period is an album of lukewarm nostalgic bops, where the few moments of truly interesting artistry are left to languish alone in their respective corners. It’s by no means a poor record if you’re just in it for some lighthearted background party jams – and perhaps that should merely be the expectation for Kesha going forward – but when she prefaced
Period with a lengthy, windingly imaginative pop song like ‘FREEDOM.’, surrounded by all the personal circumstances that helped to shape the record, she set the stage for something entirely different than what we got. Instead of witnessing her personal and artistic breakthrough, we ended up with Kesha, doing Kesha-by-numbers, on Kesha’s own label. It’d be like if the American forefathers declared independence – fighting and winning a war – only to model their new nation identical to Britain. Or, maybe this is just the type of music that resides deep within Kesha’s heart. I’m not sure which proposition is worse.
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