Your Attention, Please.
Three new albums. One phenomenon. It wasn’t until I finished listening to all three of these (very different) records that it struck me how they all seem to follow a similar pattern. While each of them had their merits individually, it feels more meaningful to address them as a group. Doing so allows us to more clearly delineate and understand the pattern at play.
More explicitly, these albums are about reclamation. These females have historically been known for having one sound. Serving one look. Sharing one story. This side of them was the badass, raging, hardcore, chaotic, sexuality-centered, party girl. Now, they’re here to show some other sides. As FLETCHER said in an interview on Made It Out, “There were only certain parts of me that were desired and wanted. It’s either this tequila-chugging, tits-signing rockstar or this barefoot, in-the-woods, soft spiritual girly. [It felt like] all of me couldn’t exist, like all of me couldn’t be at the table.”
So, FLETCHER talks about falling in love with a boy. The innocence, the love. Even if it means losing her lesbian fanbase. She talks about wanting the party to be over. About escaping to the forest. About if she will be forgiven for being well-rounded, embracing all sides of her. About if she herself can forgive herself.
Tommy Genesis comes out swinging with “I've rapped about my pussy, and I've rapped about my ex; But what would you do if I gave you me and just talked about Genesis?” She spends the next 50 minutes introducing her backgrounds, her multicultural/multiracial struggles, her family feuds, her unbrushed hair, her dogs, and not wanting to be in cages.
Kesha, celebrating her artistic and financial freedom as a newly indpendent artist, (fittingly) sings about freedom. Her love and her loss and her gratitude for the heartbreak. She makes fun of the stereotypes surrounding her on BOY CRAZY. and JOYRIDE.: “A label whore but I’m bored of wearing clothes.” She seeks forgiveness in CATHEDRAL., healing herself with the divine feminine instead of fear. Kesha is moving on and towards better things.
These women aren’t trying to reinvent themselves. They aren’t disputing or refuting the characters they’ve played previously. They aren’t shaming the sides of themselves that they’ve shown us their whole careers. They’re just adding on. They are stretching the frame they’ve been forced into. Or maybe they’re breaking the frame. Scrapping it all together: challenging the boxes that they’ve been put in by their fans, team, producers, haters, and audiences at large.
Genesis encapsulates it better than I ever could: “I was told to talk the pussy talk after one time; And don't get it wrong, my pussy is fucking divine; But on a spiritual note, who am I more than my flesh and blood; And the canvas of my skin and teeth and eyes and ears and toenails; Who am I more? Freak at your door or deep awakening in my core?”
