Hey, it is producer Russ. I am dropping a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon All Access episode

in which myself and Rolling Stones, Brittany Spano's friend of the pod, discuss Keshe's sixth studio

album, period, while Louie is off writing his book. If you enjoy this snippet and you want

to hear the rest of the episode, plus weekly bonus episodes of of this show you can subscribe at patreon.com slash pop pantheon you can get the link for that

at the show notes of this episode or you can subscribe for the audio only directly in the apple

podcast app brittney you reviewed gag order to get situated, can we drop down a little bit on that album, how it was received, what you thought of it artistically, and where Keisha was sort of prior to this moment.

Yeah, I mean, so, you know, this wasn't the first album that Keisha had had released since the start of her legal battle at Dr. Luke and, you know, this wasn't the first album that Keshe had released since the start of her legal battle at Dr. Luke.

And, you know, a big part of this was that she was stuck in this recording contract as she was going through this really tumultuous, horrible, very public legal battle with her producer and who runs her label.

And she still had to release albums

on his label while they were kind of trapped in this really contentious case. And so it wasn't

the first and the couple before it were much more kind of this idea of I am going to make it out

of this. I have hope still. I don't want this to be the entire way that you think of me or my career or that you attach these feelings to my music. It's still my music. I am still my own artist and all that. And gag order was angrier. You know, gag order, I mean, just from the name itself. Like, I was really, you know, I was so excited for the album the minute I saw the name because I was just like, this is like a real like she's kind of going for it in a way that she really didn't and couldn't as much before kind of in the thick of this battle because, you know, obviously he had countersued her for was at slander libel and defamation and all of that. So, you know, it's kind of a big deal for her to come out like a little more vicious this time and come out a

little more direct about what was going on and a little more hopeless really like in a lot of

the songs and kind of the sound of this album. I kind of was channeling so much of this anger.

She worked with Rick Rubin, which, you know, Rick Rubin over the years obviously kind of a bigger

deal in the past to work with him. I think this was sort of

at the tail end of people kind of caring about Rick Rubin as a producer. I still, I think it did

bring out something kind of interesting in this album. You know, I think most of it comes from Kesha, because it does sort of pull from a lot of the psychedelic influences that we've already heard in her music over the years.

But, you know, kind of is like darker and more moodier and more minimalist, which is obviously a tenet of Rick Rubin's production. But I, yeah, I really love this album, but it was a very, it was a much more kind of like angry kind of almost like cold, desolate sound to the album. And I thought it really worked for her, but obviously was never going to be like the direction of Kesha. Because there is, Kesha is so much about joy in her music. And obviously

that was kind of fighting against what was going on in her life. But yeah, it was definitely a

really interesting direction. I think it's a really great sort of moment in her discography. Yeah,

I also really appreciated it. I found that it was a genuinely strange album. It was a real

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