Bonnie McKee has released debut album 'Hot City', 11 years after it was dropped

It took 11 years for Bonnie McKee to release her debut album, Hot City, but it's finally here. On Friday, the pop star and Teenage Dream The songstress has officially released her album, which includes her 2013 hit “American Girl” and 15 more sparkling, nostalgic pop tracks.

Along with previously leaked tracks like “I Wanna Call You” and “Forever 21,” the LP also features collaborations with Tessa Violet on a reworking of “Don't Get Mad, Get Famous” and Was here drag star Priyanka in “Snatched”.

“I wrote my album Hot City 11 years ago. I was at the top of my songwriting career, wrote 10 No. 1 hits for other artists, got a record deal and felt like I'd finally earned permission to come out of the backstage and be an artist again.” McKee wrote on Instagram. “But the universe works in mysterious ways, and Hot City never saw the light of day.”

For years, McKee's fans have been clamoring for her to release her shelved music and take another shot at her artistic career. McKee said Rolling rock in a profile last summer that it took the pandemic, a breakup and a few words from Lana Del Rey to take another step in her music.

“Hot City took on a much bigger and brighter purpose than just fulfilling my own dreams,” he wrote. “This album is for all the misfits who reach for glory from the gutter, who see the shine in the grit.”

Last summer, he said Rolling rock she invested all her money from writing hits for Britney Spears, Rita Ora and Katy Perry into releasing the album. (He also has a second album of newly recorded music that he plans to retire later Hot City.)

“When the whole world has told you to sit down and shut up, and you're like, 'Fuck you. I'm about to kill, there's something inspiring about that,” he said. “That's why I do it.”

Hot City set in a fictional, retro-futuristic city, a world with an “Eighties-Miami, expensive-whore vibe” that lives in McKee's head.

“I am closing a chapter that has not been finished for so long. It was like a hole in my heart,” she said Rolling rock. “I always felt like I was letting myself down because I wasn't doing the artist's work. I tried to fight it and I was so unhappy. Now, I just have to follow my heart.”