For as long as she has been in the music game at this point—and as much as she has done to help break down its misogynistic barriers by speaking out against her abuse—Kesha still remains largely unrevered as a songwriter. Apparently, the “millennial hooey” sentiments of “Tik Tok” (yes, Kesha should sue the app) don’t speak well enough for themselves. Yet one would have thought that, at the very least, with Rainbow, Kesha might have gotten, oh, perhaps a flood of praise from her detractors. But no, it seemed even a couple of Grammy nominations couldn’t even legitimize her in the eyes of those who had made up their minds that she was a frivolous pop star who sings off-key.
Luckily, on the heels of pop music’s newest darling, Olivia Rodrigo, telling MTV (yes, still around) that the song she wished she’d written was “Praying” by Kesha, it seems Billboard also wanted to catalyze the overdue respect for that track as well by listing it as a song that features among the best bridges of the twenty-first century (so far—though we all know music isn’t likely to get “better” as time progresses). In addition to the 2010 hit, “Your Love Is My Drug” (at number seventy-eight on the list).
Rodrigo’s response to the question, “What song by another artist do you wish you wrote?” was: “I was just listening to it on the way over here: ‘Praying’ by Kesha. That song is so powerful, I absolutely cannot listen to it without, like, having a little frog in my throat and, like, tearing up. It’s fantastic.” It seems slightly coincidental that Billboard should then tend to agree, but maybe Rodrigo’s Pisces intuition just helps her have her finger that much on the pulse. Plus, since the entire reason for the list is in honor of “drivers license” reinvigorating the importance of the bridge—along with reminding listeners that Rodrigo’s debut album, Sour, is about to come out—it makes sense that they would include something she specifically mentioned.
Then again, Billboard has frequently shown more than just a “Little Bit of Love” to Kesha over the years. Though perhaps not quite as much as Rodrigo is already getting so early in her career, with “drivers license” featured as number three on their best bridges list. Miraculously (though, more like foolishly), Madonna’s “Hung Up” is at number ninety.
Some might also contend that “Praying” doesn’t deserve the number four spot (just before Rodrigo arrives), but then, that’s largely because Kesha has consistently been undervalued as a songwriter. Despite the fact that, long before she was in the spotlight, she was writing singles for the likes of The Veronicas and Miley Cyrus. And even after becoming a pop star in her own right by 2010, she still saw fit to write one of Britney Spears’ greatest anthems in 2011, “Till The World Ends.”
The underrating of Kesha’s musical talent is undoubtedly a direct result of her “frothy” persona and the lyrical content that has often gone with it. Lest we forget, there are rape apologists who would argue that Kesha was constantly “asking for it” with a song like “Blah Blah Blah,” in which she declares, among other things, “Boy, c’mon and get my rocks off/Come put a little love in my glove box/Wanna dance, with no pants on?/Meet me in the back with the Jack at the jukebox/So cut to the chase, kid/I wanna be naked, and you’re wasted.” Those who would wield such “fun-loving” sentiments to suggest Kesha “deserved” any treatment that befell her simply don’t comprehend the difference between declarative agency and being subjugated against one’s will.
While Kesha has had her share of appropriation snafus—including appearing in Native American garb (one such instance, coincidentally, being the “Your Love Is My Drug” video) and also looking like Riff Raff with her cornrows in “Crazy Kids”—there is no denying her talent as a musician, even if it often takes the right listener to “understand” her. Just because she has a continued “party gusto” past the decade of her twenties doesn’t make her music any less viable. As at last acknowledged by an entity other than her fanbase, the Animals (which apparently counts Rodrigo among its ranks).
