Kesha's back and bolder than ever with 'Period'

KESHA burst onto the music scene with a distinctive brand of blunt, electrifying pop that seemed designed to take the dance floor by sheer force.

- ETHAN BECK

Then came the genre-hopping.

It's nothing new for a pop star to pivot. Claiming maturity, sonic growth or the need to express something raw, musicians from Beyoncé to Lana Del Rey to Post Malone have recently asserted their indie, country or rock bona fides. It’s rare for these pivots to go off without a hitch. For Kesha, a string of such sonic shifts have led to Period, a semitransparent bid for yet another career reset.

Period is particularly confounding after 2023's Gag Order, on which Kesha abandoned her party girl persona and reinvented herself as a purveyor of haunting, minimalist art pop. (Her earlier surprises include dabbling in rock on 2012’s Warrior and a collaboration with Dolly Parton on 2017's Rainbow.) The guttural, Rick Rubin-produced album marked Kesha’s furthest jump from the Obama-era electropop that made her famous.

It also marked the end of her association with former producer Dr. Luke, with whom she had been embroiled in a years-long defamation lawsuit, and his Kemosabe Records.