Don’t let the title of Kesha‘s new album fool you — on Gag Order, she’s fully speaking her truth. The 36-year-old pop star announced her highly anticipated fifth studio record Tuesday morning (April 25) and unveiled its cover art, release date and lead singles, a project three years in the making that finds her at her most vulnerable yet.
The announcement comes just three weeks before Gag Order, the musician’s first album since 2020’s High Road, is set to arrive May 19 via RCA Records. Fans only have to wait until Friday (April 28), however, to get a taste of the new LP, as Kesha will release joint lead singles “Fine Line” and “Eat the Acid” at the end of the week.
Steeped in experimental, transcendent production crafted by Rick Rubin, Gag Order is billed by the “Praying” singer and her team as a “post-pop” “emotional exorcism” on which she finds empowerment in baptism-by-fire self-discovery and acceptance. “Without the darkness there is no light,” she wrote in an album manifesto for Nylon. “So I let my darkness have the light. I can’t fight the truth. Life is difficult and painful. It is for everyone.”
“An artist doesn’t exist to make others happy,” she continued. “I believe an artist gives voice, motion, color to the emotions we all have. The good emotions, and the unmanageably f–king miserable ones.”
The album’s cover gives a literal visualization to its title phrase “gag order,” which refers to a type of legal order prohibiting individuals from making public comments or sharing information about a case. Kesha has notably been in a legal battle with Dr. Luke since 2014, when the producer and Kemosabe Records founder filed a defamation suit against her for claiming that he drugged and raped her in 2005. Just a few months ago, a New York judge scheduled a new trial start date — July 19 — for the case after key issues made its prior February start date unworkable.
See Kesha’s announcement for Gag Order, out May 19, below:
