Music Video Breakdown: Kesha's 'High Road'

The titular track from Kesha’s new album “High Road” just received a new music video. The vintage video, one that emulates the distortion of an old home movie, begins with a title card resembling that of an old video game, its retro style paralleling portions of the song that channel a youthful cheer with a Kesha twist. “So aggressive, pass-ive aggressive,” she sings.

The video features a mix of somewhat disjointed imagery, from cats meowing to chickens roaming around to Kesha, adorned with a crown, sitting in the bed of a truck that’s been converted to a ball pit. The imagery of a ball pit, the prom queen-esque crown and sash, an athletic trophy, and the song’s childhood rhymes all give the video a sense of nostalgia. Its seemingly random imagery could also be a result of the lyrics, “I’m taking the high road, I’m high as f***,” implying that the high road is not metaphorical but is in fact the pathway where Kesha is less than sober.

This video stands as a representation of both Kesha’s new album and her new persona as an artist. Her music can’t be contained by any singular category, genre, or feeling. Instead, Kesha’s recent music has enabled her to explore a multifaceted approach to her art. The change of her name from Ke$ha to simply Kesha, which occurred before her album “Rainbow” (2017), marked a turning point in her career. Since this iconographic shift from her old artistry to her new, Kesha has redefined the kind of music she creates. This music video perfectly encompasses the unrelenting, exuberant chaos that is the result of that transition.

“High Road” signifies a further shift into a blend between her old style of music and her new trajectory. The track “Kinky” goes so far as to feature “Ke$ha,” the personification of her old self. While Kesha’s music has diverged from her previous discography of mostly “party” music, she’s reabsorbing the fun, felicitous nature of that music into her new identity. Her newest music video, which stands as a representation of this album, perfectly encapsulates the all-over-the-place-ness of her music while honing back in on the excitement of her younger party sound.

— Staff Writer Joseph Kelly can be reached at joseph.kelly@thecrimson.com.