Sunshine Kitty - Tove Lo: Review
is a Swedish pop singer who blew up in 2014 off the back of a huge single Habits (Stay High) but has grown to have a more specific audience of devoted conscious pop listeners. After dropping two records under her "Lady Wood" era she has turned over a new leaf and transformed her sound to a more conventional pop approach on Sunshine Kitty.
Review By Lavender:
I have always been a passive Tove Lo fan, each of her three records have scored a six or higher in my reviews, but none of them have reached an eight. She has a number of great singles and some excellent high profile features under her belt but has yet to come through with a truly breakout record. Despite the fact that none of the singles for this record were as great as Disco Tits or Habits I still had some hopes for it, while Sunshine Kitty isn't that much of a let down it is the weakest full length project Tove Lo has released yet.
The singles weren't necessarily bad either a few of them I quite enjoyed. Glad He's Gone is a sweet love triangle type of track with a simple but incredibly catchy refrain. The track has some decent call and response vocals that I don't love but the simple yet effective veneer is incredibly effective. Bad As The Boys may be my favorite song of the entire era with a fantastic sugary sweet hook that absolutely warms the heart. Tove Lo is working with more conventional pop sounds and a formula but this is about as good as you can do it and it pays off once again. The last single I loved was really don't like u which features Kylie Minogue and sees the two pairing up for some fantastic harmonizing and yet another sharp hook.
The two singles I didn't like as much are more indicative of some of the deeper problems on the record. Sweettalk my Heart is another simple ballad that I don't like nearly as much as the instrumental is very weak and with a hook that couldn't be less catchy it kind of falls apart. Jacques is basically a Robyn song from 2010 that emits some swagger but is about a decade late on some trends. Chasing after trends is something that happens a few times across this record particularly with latin music. Despite almost everyone in popular music in 2019 making awful latin pop ripoffs Tove had to give it a shot herself on a number of songs here. Mateo is the most tolerable but I still don't love it. The weakest songs on the record are when the latin infusions go horribly on the awful tracks Are U Gonna Tell Her? and Equally Lost. I'm not really sure who told Tove that these tracks were good enough to be put out but I have no idea why artists continue to try to adopt this sound so halt-heartedly because it never turns out good.
There were a couple of decent tracks that are fine while their on but don't make much of an impression on me Shifted has a great hook but the long and winding verses really tend to test my patience. Anywhere U Go is the closing song but it doesn't really have much significance and I don't really see the significance of it coming last. Come Undone has a very rough instrumental with some rattling high hats and a dreadful snare pattern but overcomes it with one of Tove's best vocal performances on the entire record to make it worthwhile.
Thankfully there were two more great tracks aside from the singles that this record had to offer. Stay Over is a throwback to the Lady Wood era with intimate singing paired with some bustling and heavy electronics to emit brooding sensuality that I absolutely adore. As well as Mistaken which features a gorgeous instrumental with some soaring keys as well as a catchy lead vocal refrain that Tove absolutely kills.
Sunshine Kitty feels like the most insignificant Tove Lo release yet. Without a cohesive set of themes or styles it reads as tunes that sound and address whatever was on her mind at the time of recording and the quality suffers as such. With tracks on here that reach down as some of the weakest points of her career without some of the excellent highs her previous albums have featured it is her weakest release yet. Despite this I think Sunshine Kitty still has a handful of worthwhile songs that put it above some other notable pop releases of 2019 like Taylor Swift, Marina and Billie Eilish, and I do think it is worth most pop fans time. 5.5/10
