''Sunshine Kitty'' is the fourth studio album by Swedish singer
Tove Lo
Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson (born 29 October 1987), known professionally as Tove Lo (), is a Swedish singer and songwriter. She has been called "Sweden's darkest pop export" by ''Rolling Stone.'' She is known for her raw, grunge-influenced take o ...
, released on 20 September 2019 by
Island Records. It includes the singles "
Glad He's Gone", "
Bad as the Boys" featuring
Alma
Alma or ALMA may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Alma'' (film), a 2009 Spanish short animated film
* ''Alma'' (Oswald de Andrade novel), 1922
* ''Alma'' (Le Clézio novel), 2017
* ''Alma'' (play), a 1996 drama by Joshua Sobol about Alma ...
, "
Jacques
Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over ...
" with
Jax Jones
Timucin Lam (born Timucin Fabian Kwong Wah Aluo; 25 July 1987), known professionally as Jax Jones, is an English DJ, songwriter, record producer and remixer. He rose to fame in 2014 by featuring on Duke Dumont's number-one single "I Got U". He ...
, "
Really Don't Like U" featuring
Kylie Minogue and "
Sweettalk My Heart".
Background
The album was recorded in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
and
Stockholm, Sweden and was called a "new chapter" for Lo, "marked by reclamation of confidence, hard-earned wisdom, more time, and a budding romance". Lo also said the album title is a "play on
pussy power", calling the cartoon cat "an extension of me and part of the new music". Lo also said the songs are "happier" than her previous material, that the album will feature "dirty pop, sad bangers, and badass collabs",
and "There's definitely some club bangers on there, but some of it is a bit more acoustic".
''Paw Prints Edition''
On 18 May 2020 the
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
ese audio
streaming website corp.com.tw released the tracklist for ''Sunshine Kitty: Paw Prints Edition''. Paw Prints Edition features the same songs as ''Sunshine Kitty'', plus eight more tracks. The lyrics website
Genius
Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for future works, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabili ...
also released a tracklist for the ''Paw Prints Edition'', featuring the same tracks as on corp.com.tw. Lo also released the cover for the song "Sadder Badder Cooler" on her social media, announced the release date for the song with a special animated snippet of Sunshine Kitty (the
lynx present on the album cover) and her animated as
Disney characters walking to the rhythm of the song. Lo can be seen walking with a sword on her shoulder and dressed in an unbuttoned jacket, with her hair blue like in the "
Bikini Porn" music video. Sunshine Kitty can be seen with sunglasses walking next to Lo. On May 19, Lo announced on her social media that ''Sunshine Kitty: Paw Prints Edition'' was going to be released on 22 May 2020.
Promotion
The promotion for ''Sunshine Kitty'' unofficially began on 25 May 2019, with Lo posting pictures of doodles to her social media accounts over three days. On 28 May, she posted a short video which introduced the character Sunshine Kitty and contained a snippet of "Glad He's Gone", as well as its release date at the end of the video. Lo also posted a picture of herself in a kitchen along with a lyric from the track before revealing the title and precise time and date of the first single's release. "Glad He's Gone" received three videos: a lyric video, which premiered on the same day as the track, a vertical video, and the official music video.
Lo also talked about the album in a few interviews, such as one with ''
Billboard'', ''BUILD Series LDN'', and ''
MTV News''. "Glad He's Gone" was performed at iHeartRadio, ''
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
''The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'' is an American late-night news and liberal political satire talk show hosted by Stephen Colbert, which premiered on September 8, 2015. Produced by Spartina Productions and CBS Studios, it is the second ...
'', and Szigest Festival 2019, as well as some other festivals and small shows.
On 30 July, Lo posted a teaser of ''Sunshine Kitty''s next single, "Bad as the Boys", which included its release date and time. The album's tracklist was revealed in a short video and a photo posted to Lo's social media.
On 26 August, Lo teased the release of another song, "Jacques", a collaboration with
Jax Jones
Timucin Lam (born Timucin Fabian Kwong Wah Aluo; 25 July 1987), known professionally as Jax Jones, is an English DJ, songwriter, record producer and remixer. He rose to fame in 2014 by featuring on Duke Dumont's number-one single "I Got U". He ...
. The song premiered as the album's third single two days later. The ''Sunshine Kitty'' Release Show took place on 19 September at Bowery Ballroom, New York City.
Every song released as a single from the album received a lyric video, while "Glad He's Gone", "Jacques", "Are U Gonna Tell Her?" and "Sweettalk My Heart" received music videos.
Critical reception
''Sunshine Kitty'' received positive reviews from
contemporary music critics. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 75 based on six reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Aggregator
AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
It was rated 72 out of 100 at Album of the Year.
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
's Heather Phares praised the album's musical direction, writing, "As Lo puts her stamp on all of ''Sunshine Kitty'' different sounds and emotions, there's a breeziness that hasn't been present in her music since ''
Queen of the Clouds
''Queen of the Clouds'' is the debut studio album by Swedish singer Tove Lo. It was released on 24 September 2014 by Island Records. The album follows her first extended play ''Truth Serum'' (2014) and includes the successful singles "Habits (Stay ...
''".
Hannah Mylrea of ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'' complimented Lo's use of her already known musical formula, stating that it is "no bad thing:
he album
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
features some of her best work in years as she boldly embraces new sounds and unusual collaborators".
''
The Arts Desk
''The Arts Desk'' (theartsdesk.com) is a British arts journalism website containing reviews, interviews, news, and other content related to music, theatre, television, films, and other art forms written by journalists from a variety of traditio ...
'' Thomas H Green praised the album's mature tone and songwriting.
Mick Jacobs of ''Spectrum Culture'' classified the album as an improvement over the singer's previous ones, highlighting its songwriting.
Similarly, Louise Bruton of ''
The Irish Times
''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'' noted that the album "feel
like the light at the end of the drug-fuelled tunnel that she resided in" on her previous releases,
while Max Russell of ''The Young Folks'' wrote "With the success of her last three moonlit albums, Tove Lo could have continued chasing the night highs, but Sunshine Kitty shines a light on a wiser yet still wild side of her".
Beth Bowles of ''
Exclaim!'' considered the number of tracks to be large, but stated that "Essentially, every song on this album would bring anyone to their feet".
Writing for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'',
Laura Snapes criticized Lo's nihilism throughout ''Sunshine Kitty'', stating that it "dominated the latter half of the decade and no longer sounds as fresh as it did".
''
Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'' Harry Fletcher wrote that the album's "often forgettable collection of songs doesn’t do justice to Tove Lo’s obvious charisma and lyrical candor".
Year-end rankings
Track listing
Notes
* signifies a co-producer
* "Sweettalk My Heart" is stylized as "Sweettalk my Heart".
* "Are U Gonna Tell Her?" is stylized as "Are U gonna tell her?".
* "Really Don't Like U" and "Anywhere U Go" are stylized in
sentence case
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
.
* "Sadder Badder Cooler" is stylized in
all lowercase
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
.
Personnel
* Tove Lo – primary artist, composer, creative director, executive producer, lyricist, vocals
*
Samuel Burgess-Johnson – art direction, design
* Tom Fuller – assistant engineer, engineer
* Gustav Weber Vernet;– band/crew member, producer, keyboards
* Rickard Göransson – bass, acoustic guitar
* Jack & Coke – bass, background vocals, beatbox, drums, guitar, keyboards, producer, programmer, programming
* A Strut – bass, background vocals, beatbox, drums, guitar, keyboards, producer, programming
* Mattias Larsson – bass, composer
* Robin Fredriksson – bass, composer, drums, flute, keyboards, percussion, producer, programming, ukulele
*
Shellback – bass, composer, guitar, keyboards, percussion, producer, programming
* Mattman – bass, drums, flute, keyboards, percussion, producer, programming, ukulele
* The Struts – bass, composer, drums, keyboards, producer, programming
* Caroline Ailin – composer
* Jakob Hazell – composer
* Jakob Jeristrom – composer
* Max Martin – composer
* Ludvig Söderberg – composer, executive producer, keyboards, programming
* MC Zaac – composer, featured artist
* Timucin Lam – composer, instrumentation
* Mark Ralph – composer, instrumentation, mixing, producer
* Ian Kirkpatrick – composer, instrumentation, producer, programming
* Joel Little – composer, producer
* Umberto Tavares – composer, vocal engineer
* Jefferson Junior – composer, vocal engineer
* Charlie Twaddle – creative director
* Jax Jones – featured artist, producer
* Alma – featured artist, vocals
* Kylie Minogue – featured artist, vocals
* Doja Cat – featured artist, vocals, lyricist
* Harley Jones – illustrations
* Stuart Hawkes – mastering
*
Serban Ghenea
Șerban Ghenea (born October 13, 1969) is a Grammy award-winning Romanian-Canadian audio engineer and mixer.
Early life and education
Ghenea was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1969. In 1976 he moved to Montreal with his family. He later attended ...
– mixing
* John Hanes – mixing engineer
* Moni Haworth – photography
* Elvira Anderfjärd;– producer
* Club Ralph – producer, mixing
* Fera DoMar – vocal engineer
* Henrik Michelsen – vocal engineer
* Kalle Keskikuru – vocal engineer
* Yeti Beats – vocal engineer
Charts
Tour
Setlist
This setlist represents the show on the 15th of February in
Montréal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...
and does not represent every date on the tour.
# "Gritty Pretty" (Intro)
# "Glad He's Gone"
# "Bad as the Boys"
# "
Cool Girl
"Cool Girl" is a song recorded by Swedish singer-songwriter Tove Lo for her second studio album ''Lady Wood'' (2016). Lo co-wrote the song with its producers Jakob Jerlström and Ludvig Söderberg, who are known collectively as The Struts. The t ...
"
# "Shifted"
# "
Influence
Influence or influencer may refer to:
*Social influence, in social psychology, influence in interpersonal relationships
** Minority influence, when the minority affect the behavior or beliefs of the majority
*Influencer marketing, through individ ...
"
# "Are U Gonna Tell Her?
# "Jacques"
# "
Talking Body
"Talking Body" is a song by Swedish singer and songwriter Tove Lo, released to American contemporary hit radio on 13 January 2015 by Republic Records. It served as the second single from her debut studio album, ''Queen of the Clouds'' (2014). It ...
"
# "Really Don't Like U"
# "
Disco Tits
"Disco Tits" (stylized in all lowercase on the tracklist) is a song by Swedish singer-songwriter Tove Lo. It was released on 7 September 2017 as the lead single from Lo's third studio album, '' Blue Lips,'' and it was her first release after the ...
"
# "
Not on Drugs"
# "
Moments"
# "
Hey You Got Drugs?"
# "
Bitches"
# "
True Disaster"
# "Mateo"
# "Come Undone"
# "Anywhere U Go"
# "
Out of Mind"
# "Sweettalk My Heart"
# "
Habits (Stay High)"
# "Bikini Porn"
Shows
Canceled and postponed shows
References
{{Authority control
2019 albums
Tove Lo albums
Island Records albums
Vertically-oriented music videos