Comes on orange/red vinyl LP.
High Road is the fourth studio album by American singer and songwriter Kesha. It was released on January 31, 2020, through RCA and Kemosabe Records On High Road, Kesha doesn’t so much return to form as she detonates it. After the raw, cathartic gravity of Rainbow, this 2020 release feels like a deliberate swerve—louder, stranger, and far less interested in cohesion than in freedom. The opener, “Tonight,” is pure whiplash. Built on a glossy, high-BPM pop foundation, it swerves into punk-ish chanting and back again, with stacked vocal layers and digital distortion that give it a deliberately chaotic sheen. It sets the tone: this is maximalist pop, engineered to feel just slightly out of control.
“Raising Hell,” featuring Big Freedia, leans into gospel-inflected pop, with booming 808s, churchy piano stabs, and a call-and-response chorus that sounds like a revival tent filtered through a club system. That anything-goes approach peaks on “My Own Dance,” a track that weaponizes absurdity. The beat is skeletal but punchy, leaving space for Kesha’s half-sung, half-spoken delivery, while glitchy vocal processing and abrupt transitions give it a surreal, almost cartoonish energy. It’s bratty, self-aware, and engineered for impact.
Then there’s “Kinky,” featuring Ke$ha—a playful nod to her past persona—where rubbery basslines and warped synth textures create a slinky, off-kilter groove. The mix is deliberately elastic, with sounds bending and snapping in ways that keep you slightly off balance.
But High Road isn’t just sugar rush and chaos. What makes High Road compelling is its refusal to pick a lane. The production—handled by a rotating cast but anchored by a consistent commitment to excess—treats every track like its own universe. Some experiments land harder than others, but that’s beside the point. Kesha isn’t chasing perfection here; she’s chasing possibility.
