January 1st, 2010. Ke$ha dropped her debut album Animal– a bold, high-energy record packed with autotune and party anthems. It was instantly polarising.

Some dismissed it as “a drunk girl using autotune because she can’t sing.” They were wrong. It was inspired. It was pure internet chaos. And for me, then 19 going on 20, dancing in clubs with cheap spirits in plastic cups, it was everything.

Kesha’s Animal: The Party Album of 2010

Packed with electronic beats, quotable lines, and references to dancing with strangers, Animal was a party girl’s fantasy. Loose morals? Questionable drinking references? Who cared. It was fun, upbeat, and full of freedom. Kesha told us herself in 2010:

For girls, I think it’s an empowering record, it’s funny, it’s cheeky. I think people need to have fun with whatever they’re doing- makeup, their clothes, music, live shows- anything you don’t need to take too seriously, don’t take too seriously.
Kesha in Seventeen Magazine, 11 Jan 2010

Take It Off. Kiss and Tell. Boots and Boys. None of it was serious — and honestly, it was never meant to be. This wasn’t an artistically “important” album. Compare it to Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs or Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, both weighty, self-reflective records making big cultural statements. Animal wasn’t that and nothing captured this better than its lead track.

Kesha’s “Tik Tok”: Before TikTok Took Over

The lead single dropped on August 7, 2009, a few months before the album. It was an instant worldwide hit, reaching number one in eleven countries. In 2010 alone, it sold 12.8 million digital copies, making it the best-selling single of the year. The appeal was obvious:

I’m talking pedicure on our toes, toes
Trying on all our clothes, clothes
Boys blowing up our phones, phones
Tik Tok, Ke$ha (now Kesha)

The styling was peak IDGAF millennial. Perfectly tousled-but-messy blonde waves? Check. Heavy eyeliner? Check. Glitter, cowboy boots, layered tees? Check, check, check.

In the video, Kesha set the tone right away, crawling out of a bathtub with one boot on, last night’s makeup, and a leopard-print pedicure. It was hedonistic. It was grubby. It was liberating.

Questionable hygiene aside, I loved it. “Tik Tok” was a pop anthem built for the dancefloor- even better with a £1 vodka and coke in hand. YouTube’s mega-star of the time, Shane Dawson, parodied it endlessly, dropping it into skits and spoofs- back when you actually followed channels instead of letting the algorithm decide. Simpler, stranger times.

Still back then, being a Kesha fan felt like something you had to apologise for.

I’m sorry, Kesha.

At 19, I didn’t have much self-esteem or feminist savvy. “Girl power” belonged to the Spice Girls in the ’90s, and by 2010 feminism had become a dirty word- one guaranteed to earn eye-rolls. It was a brutal time, and one I hope younger peers don’t have to endure.

Back then, liking Kesha just wasn’t cool. Early 2000s magazines had trained us to criticise women- scrutinising their looks, their behaviour, their every move. “Slut.” “Whore.” Ugh. Even pop culture tried to call it out:

‘You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It only makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.’
Tina Fey as Ms Norbury. Mean Girls (2004)

But let’s be honest: plenty of people didn’t move past those shallow judgements. For them, it was about questioning Kesha’s legitimacy as an artist.

Kesha, Autotune, and the Double Standard

One of the biggest criticisms Kesha got in 2010 was her heavy use of autotune. Detractors said it was proof she “couldn’t actually sing.” But here’s the thing: everyone was using autotune at the time.

When men did it, it was seen as innovative or just plain fun. T-Pain built a whole empire on it, to the point of releasing an app so anyone could autotune themselves. Kanye West dropped 808s & Heartbreak in 2008, drenched in vocal processing, and it was hailed as artistic. Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop” leaned on it too, and he was praised for bringing autotune into rap. Even mainstream acts like Black Eyed Peas (Boom Boom Pow), Akon (Sexy Bitch), and Usher (OMG) were all over it. And let’s not forget The Lonely Island, autotuning themselves into comedy hits.

But when Kesha did it? Suddenly autotune wasn’t fun or experimental- it was a stick to beat her with. She became shorthand for “fake pop star” in a way her male peers never were. Pure gatekeeping. A glitter-smeared, messy-club-night 22-year-old woman didn’t get the same critical generosity as the men.

Looking back, Kesha wasn’t ruining music with autotune, she was calling out the double standard we all missed the first time.

Kesha After Animal: Control, #MeToo, and the Fight for Respect

Behind the glitter, cheap vodka, and “Tik Tok” bravado, Kesha’s story was anything but free. By the mid-2010s, she was locked in a brutal legal battle with producer Dr. Luke, accusing him of abuse and manipulation while still being tied to contracts that controlled her career. The case stretched on for nearly a decade, resolved only in 2023- and even then, it ended in a settlement, not vindication.

This fight unfolded against the backdrop of the #MeToo era, where women across industries were finally breaking silence about harassment and exploitation. Kesha became a symbol of that struggle in pop: an artist who had built her brand on wild fun but was quietly wrestling with the darkest parts of the music industry. Meanwhile, Dr. Luke’s career hardly stalled- his name simply slid off the liner notes, even as he continued producing hits for stars like Doja Cat and Katy Perry.

There’s a bitter parallel here to the saga with Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun (see last blog post). Both stories highlight how women in pop, even megastars, found themselves battling for control of their own work, their reputations, and their futures. It underlined the fact that they were fighting to be recognised as women with agency, not just frozen in their teenage pop-star image.

Parallel Lives: Growing Up Alongside Kesha

Growing up around the same age as these women (Kesha is 38), it was hard not to draw comparisons, mine far less dramatic, but familiar all the same. I drifted through boyfriends, club nights (see below), and dead-end call centre jobs, unsure of myself and desperate to be prove myself in a world where young women were still too often dismissed.

Watching Kesha fight her way through the industry while I stumbled through my own twenties made her story hit harder. She wasn’t just a pop star in glitter and eyeliner, she was a reminder that figuring yourself out, and demanding to be respected while you do it, is its own act of defiance.

Kesha in 2025: What Her Story Really Means

Looking back from 2025, it’s striking how Kesha’s early image obscured the truth of her situation. In 2010 she was written off as the tabloid party-girl; a decade later, she’s remembered as one of the first major pop stars to drag industry abuse into the public eye. Her fight became bigger than music; it forced a conversation about who controls women’s art, bodies, and futures.

In hindsight, Kesha’s journey is the “second draft” of that era of pop. What looked like carefree lyrics and messy fun were really the first notes in a much harder story, one that shaped how we now think about power, ownership, and respect in the music industry.

Fifteen years on from Animal, Kesha’s rewriting the rules. Now releasing under her own label, she’s free, fearless, and sharper than ever. The party girl the tabloids sneered at has become a pop survivor, a Grammy-nominated artist with billions of streams, and an unapologetic voice for ownership and freedom.

Kesha’s second draft is about taking control and proving she was more than the industry ever gave her credit for. And in 2025, she’s still stomping across pop culture like it’s her dancefloor.