Perhaps saving the best for last in terms of who she wanted to unveil as a collaborator on her Brat remix album, Charli XCX has at last given fans an overdue Kesha feature. Really, it should have happened long ago, but perhaps Kesha wouldn’t have been “at home” in the Number 1 Angel or Pop 2 universe (even if, somehow, Carly Rae Jepsen managed to fit into the latter). On Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, however, any style—anything goes. And Kesha is undoubtedly one of the OG brats (along with Blackout-era Britney Spears)…embodying the definition long before Charli fully crystallized what it meant.
After all, Kesha was the one singing solely about partying and waking up hungover only to do it all over again on her early albums, Animal, the Cannibal EP and Warrior. Hell, she even had a song called “Sleazy” (on Cannibal) that spoke to the core of what “being brat” is all about. And yes, she was also all about glitter (this was before that particular party girl accoutrement started to get more flak for its anti-environmental properties). And Kesha, too, understood the value of a remix album, releasing a successful one in 2011 via I Am the Dance Commander + I Command You to Dance: The Remix Album (which rolls off the tongue about as easily as Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat).
This early period of back-to-back albums for Kesha (from 2010 to 2012) would have still been at a time when Charli had yet to even release her first studio album, True Romance, in 2013. However, that didn’t mean that she wasn’t still plenty busy making and putting out music, including her first two mixtapes, Heartbreaks and Earthquakes and Super Ultra, both released in 2012. Music that, in some way or other, was informed by pop songs of that moment as much as Charli’s own predilection for the “underground sound.” And, of course, Britney Spears.
In fact, some listeners might not be able to avoid pointing out that the most perfect choice for a collaboration on this particular song would have been Spears (snatches of Britney crooning the word “everytime” from her 2003 song of the same name are, after all, prominently featured throughout and she was referenced multiple times in Spring Breakers, including with use of that single). Even so, Kesha is undeniably the second-most perfect choice (besides, Spears only exits her semi-permanent retirement for Elton John remixes). She being just as associated with “party girl antics” as Charli.
This even in spite of all the trauma and sadness she also became associated with amid her endless Kesha v. Dr. Luke legal battle. Indeed, because the case was only recently settled (in June of 2023) after being tied up in court for nearly ten years since the time when Kesha first filed a lawsuit against her erstwhile producer in 2014, most of her career has been underscored by this legal battle. That said, her newfound sense of liberty from a man whose shadow loomed over her for years is apparent in the first single she released, “Joy Ride,” on her own independent label, Kesha Records.
That jubilant aura of freedom is also present on her contribution to “Spring Breakers.” A movie which came out at the height of her party girl image in 2012. Which also marked the same year Icona Pop and XCX’s “I Love It” reached number one on the Billboard charts (and entered the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100), launching the latter into the spotlight as a key player in the music industry. And as XCX’s party girl image began to rise, Kesha’s party girl image started to wane. Not just because she was effectively blocked from making new music, but because her next album after a five-year hiatus was Rainbow, a more contemplative record compared to the party bops of her past.
When she pivoted back to dancier music with the release of High Road in January 2020, her attempts at connecting with her audience again on tour were foiled by the pandemic. Gag Order then served up a mix of styles in 2023, bringing us to the present, with Kesha seeming to get fully back into the dance/pop genre she started out in, albeit with far more experimental flair. Something Charli XCX knows all about. Hence, the lyrics, “Every time, I make it so outrageous/Always gonna lose to people playin’ safer.” But, in the present, playing it safe no longer guarantees the success it once did (just look at Katy Perry), with XCX noting that “the niche” is being rewarded more than ever.
As for Kesha’s own “unsafe” added verse, she sings, “Ooh, these bitches, we tied/Art is not a competition/Rating go up when the clothes come off/But a real bitch come when the dick goes up, like/Ooh, these bitches rip off/Wish they could be OG, but they not/We going psycho, we going off/Yeah, me and Charli, we the party girl gods.” So it is that Dionysus has been duly informed. And while insisting that art is not a competition while also noting that the new bitches on the scene will never be OG (ergo, truly “legitimate”) sounds like a dichotomy, well, it just speaks to the Brat manifesto of a song like “Girl, so confusing.” You can have occasional contempt for another girl while also respecting them. Again, dichotomies. That’s what Brat is all about—apart from “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra.” Accoutrements Kesha has presumably gotten on board with in lieu of glitter.
Elsewhere, Kesha braggadociously adds, “Oh baby, you mad watchin’ me win/Do it again ’cause I’m Kesha, bitch/Makin’ me sick, nominated/All the motherfuckers better be prayin’/Singin’ my song, singin’ along/TikTok [the song, not the app] bitch ’til the kingdom come/Give ’em a hit, they can eat shit/Choke on my name when you suck on my dick.” A fine sentiment, to be sure…especially when directed at Dr. Luke or anyone else trying to stop Kesha’s party. Or Charli’s Brat autumn.
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