Music
On her belated third album, Rainbow, Kesha attempts to reflect more of her non-pop influences
Album reviews, plus Ken Walton on the fight for gender equality within classical music
Kesha takes a leaf out of the Beyoncé bible on the strident Woman, inspired by Trump’s “locker room talk”
Kesha may be best known for her try-hard trashy pop but, like her sonic sister Miley Cyrus, she has collaborated with some of the mad, bad boys of rock’n’roll, including Iggy Pop and The Flaming Lips, and attempts to reflect her non-pop influences on her belated third album.
The Californian singer has been embroiled for the past few years in an increasingly nasty sexual harassment suit against her former producer and mentor Dr Luke and she’s in no mood to play nice on Rainbow, which opens with an acoustic country number delicately entitled Bastards. Rainbow is full of statements – of defiance, independence, empowerment. She gets personal (in a general sort of way) on by-the-numbers pop ballad Praying, channels her inner Joan Jett on processed power rocker Let ‘Em Talk, one of two tracks on which she is joined by The Eagles of Death Metal, and takes a leaf out of the Beyoncé bible on the strident Woman, inspired by Trump’s “locker room talk” and enhanced by a blast of brass from the Dap-kings’ horns.
Throughout her travails, Kesha has commanded a lot of support from some high profile entertainers. In her own strong-but-sweet way, the redoubtable Dolly Parton lends succour on a simple cover of her 1970s track Old Flames (Can’t Hold
A Candle To You), originally written by Kesha’s mother Pebe Sebert, and Kesha actually sounds at her most natural and unforced on the country numbers Hunt You Down, with its stern warning about (in)fidelity, and Spaceship, on which our space cowgirl rides contentedly into the sunset.
Mansun are now a somewhat overlooked band of the Britpop diaspora, but the Chester fourpiece were hugely successful and ardently followed in their day. Now former frontman Paul Draper kicks off his long-awaited solo debut in ridiculously overwrought style with
Don’t Poke the Bear, whipping up Radiohead levels of melodrama. The source of all that pent-up angst is explicitly tackled in the tracks Jealousy Is a Powerful Emotion,
bitter mantra You Don’t Really Know Someone Till You Fall Out With Them
and the backstabbing references in the funk pop number Can’t Get Fairer
Than That. Hopefully he feels better for the catharsis.
Poor David’s Almanack is the considerably more temperate latest offering from David Rawlings, undersung guitar ace and singing/ songwriting partner of Gillian Welch, who adds her soothing harmonies to this compendium of original country songs. The results pale slightly in comparison with Welch’s immaculate catalogue but nevertheless the couple weave effortlessly between raw bluegrass, sparse country balladry and 60s-influenced country rock with honourable mentions going to the bluesy psychedelia-infused
Cumberland Gap and Guitar Man and pitch black humorous fable Yup. Two titans of 60s and 70s music,
Carlos Santana and surviving Isley Brothers Ronald and Ernie, come together on Power of Peace without stretching themselves too far in their selection of material from the funk, soul and jazz canons of Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye among others.
The first half of the album favours Santana with his psychedelic blues licks, which are readily showcased on the somewhat slick freakout of
Total Destruction to Your Mind, before the ensemble move into the jazzsoul territory most associated with the socially conscious Isleys for the likes of breathy psych soul number
Let There Be Peace on Earth. Cindy Blackman Santana sings lead on the only original song I Remember, bringing a lighter bossa nova touch with rapturous falsetto colouring from the Isleys.