Kitty - Miami Garden Club (2017)

Kitty has stated on Twitter that the inspiration for the album cover was "dreams of losing teeth represent losing control. i lost teeth in almost all of my dreams for years" and dude.. That shit just makes me sad. Excellent album cover.

If you know me, then you should know (because I like to get drunk and vent all of my frustrations) that there are few things I hate more than waking up in the middle of the night to take a piss. Seriously, I'm just laying there, having dreams and shit, then I gotta get up because my dumbass self thought it'd be alright to drink an entire glass of water before bed. Now, these dreams I have are frequently about meeting up with old friends I've lost contact with for whatever reason, and I'm totally lost in this bittersweet feeling of nostalgia, like "hey, we're just dumb fuckin' kids once again!" as we run through the grass at my old church once again. In my dreams, we're not kids anymore, we're exactly as we look today, and there's a thought that pops into my head on occasion, which is "Man, I can't believe how much we've grown since back then.." and I feel the exact same way about Kitty. When she first appeared on the scene back in 2011, rapping over MF DOOM beats, people were really divisive on her: Is it awesome that she's rapping over MF DOOM beats.. Or is it hip-hop sacrilege? Should we burn her at the stake?! Personally, I thought it was pretty fucking dope, but a lot of "hip-hop heads" couldn't handle a teenage girl rapping over their most beloved songs, for whatever stupid fucking reason. Regardless, I have some fun moments in my life linked back to her music that she made by fucking around with a laptop microphone. She was one of those musicians who suddenly popped up on the scene who was similar in age to yours truly, and was part of the reason that I picked up making music again, because there was a bit of that "We teenagers can do ANYTHING!!" energy in me, that was given to me by Kitty, Tyler, the Creator, and even those random Pitchfork flavor-of-the-week bands. It was an odd but fun time to be a teenager.

Kitty has changed a lot since the days of 2011, and has dipped her toes in other types of music, but on "Miami Garden Club" it sounds like she's made all of her previous music collide into itself to make a debut full-length that perfectly shows off the various stages of her career in an almost 47 minute runtime. On this album, you get Kitty's signature charm over some dreamy and/or trippy beats that'll have you throwing a party by yourself in your bedroom, late at night, quietly, but hey, fuck it, it's a party, and ain't no one can tell you otherwise. Actually, let me back up for a second: The production on this album is GREAT for Kitty's style! It ranges from poppy instrumentals, to trippy and even vaporwave-influenced beats (seriously, listen to "2 Minutes" and tell me that isn't vaporwave-influenced) but even more interesting is the fact that she continues to fuck around with vocaloid shit on this album, which, if you've listened to Kitty's previous material, some of her best material (such as "m0rgan stop =͟͟͞͞ʕ•̫͡•ʔ =͟͟͞͞ʕ•̫͡•ʔ =͟͟͞͞ʕ•̫͡•ʔ =͟͟͞͞ʕ•̫͡•ʔ =͟͟͞͞ʕ•̫͡•ʔ" and HOLY SHIT look at how my blog fucked up the title of that one) had chopped up vocal samples, and FUCK, dude, I was amazed to learn that Kitty produced "New Leaf" entirely by herself, that's some GREAT shit!! This album is full of interesting sounds, really. Yeah! PUT A WEIRD SOUND IN THAT SONG!! AH FUCK YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Now.. I do think the first half of the album is stronger than the second half, even if the second half isn't bad at all, but really, of course the half that has "Mass Text Booty Call (feat. Sprightly)" (GET THIS SHIT ON THE RADIO NOW!) and "Song For Sunset Ave (Running Away)" is going to be stronger than the other half, but I still think this is a pretty good album! Kitty's rapping is still just as calming and entertaining as it was before, and her voice is lovelier than it's ever been. I can't wait to see where she goes from here, now that she's proven that she can make an entertaining and engaging full-length album that's as accessible as it is odd, and ultimately, comes across as much more mature than the music she was previously known for. Hell, it'd be dope to just get an instrumental version of this album to just vibe to and dissect all of the layers of production. This album has got some really good shit that deserves to be on the radio, so be sure to pick this album up before all your "normie" friends do.. And stop using the term "normie" you stupid fucks.

7/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!