Jerry Seinfeld has never been less relatable than when he refused to hug Kesha. Because she"s wonderful.
The "Tik Tok" singer has been locked in a legal battle with Dr. Luke, whom she accuses of years of sexual abuse, and her music career has been on hiatus. Reportedly, Kesha"s been desperate to get back to work and get her new music out there.
And now we have her new song, "Praying," along with it"s vibrant and captivating video, below. We"re not going to use the word "shooketh" but that would be an accurate description. Watch for yourself and see what we mean.
Kesha has been taking back her life, piece by piece, and this music video seems like exactly the comeback that she"s wanted and needed all along.
Actually, let"s be real — it"s also the comeback that we"ve needed from her.
Visually, Kesha takes us on a spiritual and perhaps religious journey.
(Spirituality and religion are related, but in a Venn Diagram sort of way)
Suffice it to say that the symbolism and imagery is not subtle.
Kesha appears to be dreaming or hallucinating or spiritually projecting or whatever while adrift at sea, stranded and weak and lamenting that she can"t even seem to die to end the suffering, all in black and white.
On land, in color, she slumbers in colorful attire while two men in business suits wearing pigs heads (it is wildly unsettling, you guys) stand over her, thick drool dribbling from their open mouths.
We see Kesha, conscious, in multiple contexts and costumes.
In one, she"s dressed as an angel and playing a keyboard and singing.
We also see her walking past a row of old-timey televisions that each have white signs for screens, some with horrible messages that she"s likely received on social media (body-shaming, political nastiness, etc), and others with typical dystopian messages (like "CONSUME").
Among her other outfits is a veil with little butterflies all over it, but honestly our favorite costume for the whole video has to be the one with golden feathers that form a collar.
(Quite frankly it looks like something that Ravenna would wear, which is peak fashion goals)
She smashes one of those dystopian television signs — one that reads "Weapons of Mass Deception."
Cute, right?
She also is chased by and fights off the pig-heads.
The music picks up and her powerful vocals become impossible to miss.
And no spoilers but the ending involves both a whale and a rainbow.
First and foremost, we should probably talk about some obvious influences.
Because you can"t really talk about "Praying" without talking about Beyonce"s Lemonade.
The use of color isn"t new for Kesha, but the still and quiet opening with poetic narration?
That"s straight out of the Lemonade playbook.
To be clear, we"re not accusing Kesha of copying Beyonce, precisely.
Great artists — truly great artists — inspire others to follow in their footsteps, creating new trends and styles in the process.
We"d never in our lives seen anything like the journey that watching Lemonade took us on.
But Kesha"s adventure is very different.
The setting is much more whimsical, and the subject matter is entirely different.
As the music builds, Kesha — even the version of her on a raft — seems to have some sort of spiritual awakening.
In a sense, that"s what the whole song and video are about (among other things).
In terms of the religious imagery that you"ll see, it sort of falls into that trap that a lot of (but not all) New Age-y spirituality does.
Like, Christian imagery absolutely takes center-stage, which is too much for most religious minorities.
But then the presence of non-Christian imagery and some of the more agnostic lyrics won"t win over many Christians, either.
You know, though, you don"t always have to appeal to everyone in every thing that you do.
Art is ultimately about self-expression and communicating that to others.
Kesha does that very successfully with "Praying," in terms of both the song and the video.
We"ve always known that Kesha is beautiful and has an amazing voice.
But in case you"d somehow forgotten, this music video will make it hard to miss.
Watch and enjoy for yourself.
We"ve already watched it a half-dozen times, easily.
