It’s a bit of a cliche of pop music in 2023 to call a project that isn’t engineered for streaming success to be ‘daring’ or ‘unexpected’ but this is a feeling that takes over whenever I think about Gag Order the fifth studio album from Kesha. Across these 40 minutes Kesha defies pretty much every expectation a fan, a music critic or even a ‘hater’ could have. It’s a bold statement and might just be the record of Kesha’s career.
From the opening moments of intro ‘Something To Believe In’ the biggest change is evident. This is by far the most raw and emotive we have ever heard Kesha’s voice, an artist who built a career and defined the AutoTuned party girl era of Pop for so many. We had glimpses of it on 2017’s excellent Rainbow and occasionally on the patchy but enjoyable High Road in 2020, but on tracks like ‘Living In My Head’ here the rawness is a stark change. There’s an emotional part of her performance she’s tapped into for the first time. Perhaps it’s the influence of Rick Rubin who has produced this entire album alongside Kesha herself, but I think the context of the release does more to answer why it’s such a change.
It’s ‘Eat The Acid’ that kicks off the album proper with its haunting repeating mantra of ‘You don’t wanna be changed like it changed me’. The way the repeating lyrics build and build within the music itself is thrilling and Kesha does an incredible job alongside her producers to create such a powerful atmosphere on the song.
The other pre-release single ‘Fine Line’ takes a starker approach, the lyrical focus here allows Kesha to sing more directly about dealing with nearly a decade of lawsuits and counter-suits in an industry not siding with her, and the damage it has done to herself mentally. “Fine line between survivin’ and livin’, and god some things never should be forgiven. Guess what? I’m sick of pretending for you”. For an album literally called Gag Order this is the most free Kesha has been to speak on her own experience, all done while still releasing the album the label she so desperately wants to leave.
We get so many more direct moments like this on ‘Hate Me Harder,’ ‘Too Far Gone’ and closer ‘Happy’, but it’s the songs where Kesha and Rick Rubin take a different musical direction that end up standing out the most. Peace & Quiet’s vocoder based hook could be seen as a recall to Kesha’s earlier records, but it manages to be even more chaotic than this. ‘Only Love Can Save Us’ has a huge impact in the centre of the album, potentially the most commercially viable hook on the record. The choir on the chorus jarring against the thudding drums and bass on the verses. It’s a definite standout and is one of the songs here that will really shine when Kesha gets to perform it live.
The weirdest moment of the whole album and potentially the deal breaker for any casual Kesha or Pop fans here is ‘The Drama’. The sharp casio sounding keyboard line gives the song this off kilter feel. It’s sort of genreless pop, pulling from all sorts of places, which for me gives it this same engaging feel that we heard on Self Esteem’s Prioritise Pleasure or Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters. It might be the simplicity of the lyrics with the dissonance of the melody against the music that gives me that comparison, but as the song closes with Kesha telling us ‘In the next life I wanna come back as a house cat’ I’m brought right back to thinking nobody but Kesha could release a song as bonkers as ‘The Drama’.
In the end Gag Order will be a divisive turning point in Kesha’s career. I’ve already seen some pop fans confused by the entire thing, while for me this is comfortably the most exciting, honest and dynamic music of Kesha’s career. The context of a Kesha album still released on the Kemosabe label is unavoidable and for the first time it feels like she’s nearly able to break free entirely. One of the year’s best pop albums.
Words by Sam Atkins
Picky Bastards 
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