Why Kesha’s 2010 Was an All-Time Great Pop Star Year

If you looked at the Billboard Hot 100 dated Jan. 2, 2010, you’d see a new name at No. 1 — a name you might not even have recognized just a few months earlier. Kesha Rose Sebert — then known as Ke$ha — had crashed the pop music landscape (and the charts) with the suddenly inescapable breakout hit “Tik Tok,” capturing the first Hot 100 No. 1 of the new decade. In the process, she not only set the tone and tempo for the turbo-pop of the early 2010s, she kicked off a streak of hits that would take her all through 2010 and even into 2011 — a run that, while treasured by pop fans, feels a little underappreciated from a 2025 vantage, since it ended a little more abruptly and dramatically than anyone would’ve hoped for.

On this week’s Vintage Pop Stardom episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast, host Andrew Unterberger is joined by r/Popheads moderator and Main Pod Girl host AJ Marks to talk about the original pace-setting star for one of the great years in modern pop memory: 2010, a year ultimately defined by pop giants like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Rihanna, but which Kesha ruled as much as anyone. We follow her 2010 from her “Tik Tok” breakthrough to her run of Animal singles and its Cannibal bonus EP — a year which ultimately resulted in six top 10 Hot 100 hits, one No. 1 Billboard 200 album, and generally unprecedented validation for bearded dudes worldwide.

Along the way, we brace all the most pressing questions about Kesha’s 2010: What made Kesha a pivotal pop star at such an important moment in pop history? Do the deep cuts on Animal and Cannibal actually clear the singles? Did Kesha’s 2010 really need quite so much 3OH!3? Why didn’t critics get any of it? What is the most effective use of Jack Daniels during the teeth-brushing process? Will Kesha’s Period album, due this Friday (July 4), hit for pop fans like her earliest work? And knowing what we know now from the years of fallout that followed her early peak — do we look at this 2010 Kesha run a little differently than we once did?