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''Sunshine Kitty'' is the fourth studio album by Swedish singer Tove Lo, released on 20 September 2019 by Island Records. It includes the singles " Glad He's Gone", " Bad as the Boys" featuring Alma, "Jacques" with Jax Jones, " Really Don't Like U" featuring Kylie Minogue and " Sweettalk My Heart". It was her final album under Island Records, as she became an independent artist on her following releases.

Background

The album was recorded in Los Angeles 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 Taiwanese 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 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'', 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. 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, 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 6.8 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. It was rated 72 out of 100 at Album of the Year.

AllMusic'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''". Hannah Mylrea of ''NME'' complimented Lo's use of her already known musical formula, stating that it is "no bad thing: he albumfeatures some of her best work in years as she boldly embraces new sounds and unusual collaborators". ''The Arts Desk'' 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'' 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'', 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'' 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.
* "Sadder Badder Cooler" is stylized in all lowercase.

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 – 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

References

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2019 albums
Tove Lo albums
Island Records albums
Vertically oriented music videos