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.