Trouble (Natalia Kills album)

Background and recording

Kills started recording new material approximately a year after the release of her debut studio album Perfectionist. Primarily produced by Martin "Cherry Cherry Boom Boom" Kierszenbaum and Jeff Bhasker, the set was released in March 2011 to mixed critical reception. It yielded three singles which, similarly to its parent album, performed moderately on European charts. During that year and the following, Kills participated in other musical endeavors, most notably collaborating with groups. She provided guest vocals for Far East Movement's song "2 Is Better" and guested on "1974" by The Knux. Kills featured on the duo LMFAO's single "Champagne Showers", which became a mild success internationally, and collaborated with DJ Tatana on his single "You Can't Get In My Head (If You Don't Get In My Bed)".

Trouble was primarily recorded in the Enormous Studios, located in Los Angeles. Other songs were finished in the city's Record Plant and the New York City-based Jungle City Studios. Emile's Studio served as a secondary recording location for "Watching You", which was produced and instrumented by its owner, Emile Haynie. Unlike Perfectionist, a limited number of producers was enlisted for Trouble; Kills worked with the musicians Guillaume Doubet, Glass John, and Haynie for the first time. Bhasker was assigned for executive production and several tasks, including production, instrumentation and programming, as well as post-production processes. He characterised his production on Trouble as "some of his best work" and stated that it possesses "dark angles". Bhasker recorded background vocals for some tracks, such as "Devils Don't Fly" and "Problem". The electric guitar was recorded by Danielle Haim and Jimmy Messer, whereas Haynie played the keyboards. The programming was handled by Doubet, Haynie, and the American producer Mike Will Made It. Messer, Pawel Sek Tyler Sam Johnson and Rob Suchecki served as engineers for select songs of the album. Bhasker and Tony Maserati mixed Trouble and its mastering was controlled by Chris Athens at his eponymous studio.

Composition

According to Kills, Trouble represents an integral departure from her debut studio album. Kills described this sound as mixing hip-hop-resembling strong percussion with electric guitar-led instrumentals. Writing for The New Zealand Herald, Paula Yeoman deemed the album's music as "darker pop", while finding it resemblant of Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani's works. AllMusic's Matt Collar opined that the overall sound of the record was influenced by the latter, Grimes and Courtney Love.

Similarly, the lyricism of Trouble deviates from that of Perfectionist. While the latter explored Kills' ambitions and perfectionism, the former narrates her upbringing and adolescence, when she left her home and pursued dangerous behavior. Kills stated that she conceptualized the album in order to depict her experiences as a teenager and feelings of "having no control", as she did not identify with recent, "happy" popular music. She regarded this attempt as difficult, since it involved the confrontation of her past problems; nonetheless, Kills desired to reflect them in the songs' lyrics as she felt they had defined her personality. She also stated that "once [she] started writing, [she] couldn't stop" and compared the process to a "confession".

"Television" and "Rabbit Hole" contrast their dark, "sinister" lyricism with their uptempo production. The former, described by Romy Olutski from Harper's Bazaar as a "more alternative" song, opens with the sound of police sirens and its instrumentation progressively introduces electric guitars and percussion with a vocoder effect. The latter contains explicit references to recreational drugs and sexual intercourse while utilizing the metaphor of "falling down a rabbit hole" to falling in love. The pop-styled "Problem" is influenced by rock styles such as garage and pop rock; the last genre is also incorporated in Trouble's title track, which finds Kills singing in a raw and "exhausted" voice backed by "arena rock choirs".

"Daddy's Girl", which was denoted by Kills as her favorite from the album, places a sample of American music duo Hall & Oates' single "Rich Girl" over a "thumping beat". Described as a "love song", it discusses her mother's support and "devotion" towards Kills' father when he was incarcerated. Second single "Saturday Night" employs synthesizers on a new wave-based instrumental. The track was described as autobiographical and discusses growing up in a house where domestic abuse occurs; Kills also deemed it a song about "feeling OK when everything is not". The sole ballads found on the album are "Devils Don't Fly" and "Marlboro Lights". The main instrument utilized in the latter is piano, while the former displays more instrumentation, including the organ and keyboards. Writing on behalf of MuchMusic, journalist Allison observed Motown influences on "Outta Time", a melancholic love song.

Release and promotion

The announcement of Kills' second studio album was made with the release of a music video for its first promotional single "Controversy" in mid-September 2012. During an interview with Glamour, Kills explained that it served as an introductory track to the album "because it's a verbal collage of things we see on a daily basis that we turn a blind eye to, especially in the Internet age, where you can literally see anything and everything instantly. (...) We all laugh and joke when it's someone else's suffering." The album's first single, "Problem", was digitally released by Interscope in mid-March 2013, followed in June by its music video. In the same month, "Saturday Night" was chosen as Trouble's second single. It received mostly positive reviews from music critics.

Kills attended an after-party for the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, held on 25 August 2013 in Brooklyn, New York City, where she performed various songs from Trouble. She previously stated she wished her performance to be "remotely accurate" to the sound and packaging of the album. Trouble was officially released on 3 September 2013 as a digital download in the United States and Canada. A CD release proceeded in the US and Canada on 10 and 17 September 2013. "Outta Time" was released as the album's second promotional single, free of charge, coinciding with the US release of Trouble. On the same day, a lyric video for the song was released on YouTube.

For the US release of Trouble, "Boys Don't Cry" was premiered on the website of the magazine Glamour. On 18 October 2013, a remix of the song was available on Cosmopolitan. To promote the album and its singles, Kills was interviewed by a number of magazines and websites, including Billboard, Teen Vogue, Refinery29, and Playboy. On 9 October 2013, Kills performed at a Chicago nightclub, and on 31 December 2013 she performed at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. She also performed an acoustic set for Yahoo! Music. During a promotional trip in New Zealand, Kills attended the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards.

Reception

Matt Collar of AllMusic awarded it a rating of three and a half stars out of five, characterising it as a "pantomime that artists have been trying to pull off ever since Madonna sang about a sexual experience so revelatory it gave her back her virginity". He also noted that Kills' personality, although similar to that of Pink and Lady Gaga, was "enough [...] to keep your attention". Writing in Idolator, Sam Lansky highlighted Bhasker's production, which he credited with making the album cohesive. Lansky opined that Kills had evolved as a songwriter and given legitimacy and "richness" to Trouble's songs. So So Gay Magazine praised Trouble as an evolution from her previous album Perfectionist, and stated that Kills "remains largely unknown and underrated; astonishing considering the quality of her two albums. She’s definitely some sort of anti-princess of pop."

On behalf of The New Zealand Herald, Paula Yeoman stated that pop listeners "should pay attention to" the album, to which she gave a rating of three and a half out of five points. Mike Wass of Idolator chose Trouble as his favourite album of 2013, while David Byrne and Tony Peregrin for Windy City Times said the album was one of 2013's "excellent efforts".

Commercial performance

The record entered the US Billboard 200 at number 70, becoming her highest-peaking album on the chart. It opened with sales of 6,000 copies, almost half of Perfectionist's total sold copies, and left the chart the following week.

Track listing

Song credits obtained from the liner notes of Trouble.

Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Trouble.