Bonnie McKee Fans

On Wednesday, McKee released “Slay,” the lead single off Hot City, an LP full of what she describes as “sparkly, maximalist pop.” (The song’s technicolor video premieres with Rolling Stone.) The album includes re-recorded and revamped versions of the songs that got shelved in 2013, plus a few she’s saved from the course of her career. There’s also one brand-new track. She plans to drop Hot City in the fall. To McKee, the album has stood the test of time and fits into the early-2010s pop nostalgia that has overtaken much of the internet.

MCKEE’S COMEBACK ALBUM Hot City takes place in an imaginary, retro-futuristic city, a world with an “Eighties-Miami, expensive prostitute vibe” that lives in McKee’s head. Several songs have leaked over the years: “Forever 21” is one fan favorite. It was inspired by a so-called friend who stole her credit card and charged thousands of dollars at the clothing store early in her career. “The track might seem like an innocent pop song but it has a dark underbelly,” she says. Other tracks include “Jenny’s Got a Boyfriend,” a conceptual play off Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl,” in which she sings about fantasizing about stealing her friend’s flirty boyfriend. (“It’s not about actually going for it, okay!”)

And there’s the revamped, “sexually frustrated brat” pop song, “I Wanna Fucking Call You,” which McKee wrote about a summer fling she had with an unnamed celebrity. “A couple of songs were inspired by him,” she says with a smirk. “It was a very lusty five seconds of summer type of situation.” There’s also “Snatched,” the only fully new song on the album, which she wrote with the drag community in mind. “Yeah I came to serve/Did I strike a nerve?” she sings on the ballroom-esque track.

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Photographer: Danin Jacquay @deathcats

Songfacts: Do you have a plan for getting the album out there? McKee: I'm going to start with singles in the next probably month or six weeks, and I'm just going to keep putting singles out until I feel like there's enough interest to put out a full-length. But, I have a full-length written and recorded, it's just a matter of getting the timing right. It's just that it's a different market - it's not like, get a record deal, look at a calendar, do two singles and then the album. It's just completely different - everything is up for grabs. I just read a quote from Katy the other day that was like, "Yeah, I'm going to put out singles and not put pressure on myself to do a whole album." I think that's a really beautiful, freeing thing for an artist, but it's also kind of scary and unstable because it could just go on forever. It's nice to have a plan to be like "OK, the album is coming at this time, we're doing this many singles," but it's kind of like you choose your own adventure and just figure it out as you go.

makeup: anthony h. nguyen

Wants to release an album this summer; will be new and old songs.

She said all old songs from American Girl era will be released in some form eventually.

Sleepwalker is her favorite song of hers.