Kesha - High Road (Album Review)

In her fourth studio album, Kesha tries to harness folk music with her old-school electroclash brand, occasionally succeeding.

Tonight opens in the same way as Poppy's I Disagree: a "buffet" track showcasing all the different elements that are going to characterize the entire album. Among these, crystalline power ballad choruses, folk-pop guitar arpeggios, saucy old-school electronic talk-raps, voguing-like rhyhtmic patterns and some deliberately harmonic dissonances. All of these in the same track, though, may be a little too much.

6.3/10

My Own Dance has the same self claim taste of her past song Woman, also exploring the same southern soft rock influences. Being as sassy as liberating, it can easily be her most finely balanced song to date.

7.2/10

Raising Hell has very good moments but overall results unfocused. It would work very well for... let's say courtyard family party background uplifting music (?) but isn't really as memorable as a lead single would have to be. Moreover, Big Freedia doesn't really sound necessary here.
6.5/10

Sadly, High Road may be one of the album's fillers. The title track's highlight is undoubtely her fast rap segment. Unfortunately, it is just a short spark. The outro was better avoided and the percussion pattern is reminescent of Taylor Swift's Shake It Off.
6.0/10

Shadow is a pretty piano ballad, but its similarity to Rainbow, the title track of her previous album, is almost embarassing. The lyrics are beautiful, but everything screams recycling, from harmony, to melody, to topics.
6.7/10

Honey is commendable and pleasant due to an untraceability of any kind of effect or artificial alteration in the production. Everything from the stripped down instrumentation to vocal lines shines by an acoustic, natural, raw and high quality recording. The lyrics could have been more inspired.
7.5/10

Cowboy Blues follows Honey's formula. Composition wise, though, a lot of her past melodic clichees are widespread, thus making the whole track, along with an immovable guitar line, unimaginative. The only kind of interesting part resides in her protaction of the last chord when she ironically states "I don't remember if he remembers me while I sit here thinking about him".
6.2/10

Resentment represents what the few previous songs wished were like. Effortless, inspired, heartfelt and not trivial in composition. Probably one of her all-time best songs.
8.5/10

Little Bit of Love has a pretty alternation between shrill piano shored verses and spacious brass-filled choruses. I only wish each segment was doubled in length, everything is too hasty and the song ends too early for its potential.
7.0/10

The Super Mario Bros. 8-bit synth at the beginning of Birthday Suit introduces a new section of the album. The chorus is actually funnier and more effective than expected. And when the post-chorus follows everything becomes even more enjoyable.
7.7/10

Given that Kinky is supposed to feature her past persona, the track is slightly unexpected. At least, it is not as kinky as expected for sure. Both the structure and production of this track are not well polished. Meh.
6.1/10

On her Potato Song Kesha purposefully sounds much cringey. It may find an efficiency in a very specific context, but not on this album. Cohesivity mislays. Cuz she wants to.
5.0/10

BFF is built as a repartee duet. The production is very vintage, in the cheapiest sense feasible. The flow is on point as the track is continuous and not disrupted, but fails in evolving into something new.
6.0/10

Father Daughter Dance is a ballad that manages to be fresh thanks to the first appearance in the album of a violoncello. Alt rhyhtmic elements contribute in the making of an epic, fresh sound that goes supernova when Kesha's voice rises to a shattering high. Might be the most inspired track on High Road.
8.3/10

Chasing Thunder is also superior to the mid-album similar guitar country/soft-rock tracks. This is what I was looking for in terms of evolution withing a song structure. And while the chorus is too Imagine Dragons and the verse is too Kelly Clarkson, the pre-chorus marks another highlight of the album.
7.8/10

Summer closes this singular journey with an unique intercalation of harmonic voltages, fizzy uptempo moments along with more reflective ones. Despite the amount of different ingredients, this is still more cohesive than half of what listened so far. The outro may be one of the worst ones I ever heard, especially considering it should be the portcuills of the whole album.
6.6/10


After having taken close attention to High Road's proposals the conclusion might see Kesha as a skilled masker: she is still looking for her own sound, but she is able to disguise her quest with an aura of flippant and perky sense of freedom that succeeds in being infectious towards whoever is listening. After all, this sense of unfocused gypsy approach might represent better than everything else, her actual matured mark. Neverthless, there is no discussion that some of the tracks on this album terribly suffer of a lack of compositional inspiration. Rainbow stays unbothered.

Highlights: Resentment, Father Daughter Dance

Partial scores:
ASS (average songs score) = 6.8/10
Overall composition = 5.6/10
Overall production = 6.9/10
Overall songwriting = 7.4/10
Creativity = 7.3/10
Cohesivity = 5.7/10

The final score is obtained using the FUXYA FORMULA:
(ASS x 2 + composition x 2 + production x 2 + songwriting x 2 + creativity x 1 + cohesivity x 1)/100 =

66.4/100

High Road's final score falls within the category satisfactory albums. 

0-30: DISASTER
30-40: VERY BAD
40-50: BAD
50-55: PRETTY BAD
55-60: MEDIOCRE
60-65: JUST ENOUGH
65-70: SATISFACTORY
70-75: PRETTY GOOD

75-80: GOOD

80-85: VERY GOOD
85-90: EXCELLENT
90-95: VERY EXCELLENT
95-100: PERFECT