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Kesha Returns to Wild on 'Period'

American singer Kesha has released her sixth studio album, "." (Period).

It's her first independent effort, released on her own label Kesha Records, and represents a complete artistic release after years of struggling to maintain her rights.

The album returns Kesha to the brash, energetic sound she became famous for at the start of her career, but with a new level of maturity and control. It weaves together pop, country-pop, hyperpop, and '80s inspiration. Period marks a fresh start, more or less bringing back the Kesha who bragged about brushing her teeth with Jack Daniel's and took to the stage with dancers dressed as giant penises. Only the closing piano ballad “Cathedral” seems fully rooted in the recent events surrounding her song rights – “Life was so deadly… I died in hell to start living again.” Elsewhere, an occasional nod to something dark in the author’s past (“I earned the right to be like this”) is drowned out by the sound of Kesha returning to print in no uncertain terms: “take me to a sex shop,” “bartender, pour me some fucking liquid,” “I like chaos dripping from head to toe,” “give me, give me, give me all the boys.” There are 11 songs on the tracklist, including several previously released singles. “I like weird types, mean people… God, I like hopeless motherfuckers,” she sings of her taste in men in Red Flag. Period features a host of producers, from longtime collaborator John Misty, who contrasts with Jonathan Wilson, to Madison Love, who counts Blackpink and Addison Rae among her songwriting clients, who are truly behind her in making Period a success.

“This album is about joy and power and madness and finally being yourself,” says Kesha.

It’s accompanied by a lengthy world tour, announced with a photo of the singer expressing her freedom by riding a jet ski topless. Observers of her turbulent career might note that it’s not all that different from how she introduced her third album, 2017’s Rainbow, which she described at the time as “really saving my life,” featured her naked on the cover, and was accompanied by a tour called Fuck the World.