Big doings in the world of Natalia Kills this month.
Not only did the dark-pop vixen just unveil the long-awaited clip for her gritty, irreverent sex fest “Problem,” but her new single from the Trouble campaign, “Saturday Night,” has finally arrived.
The “Problem” video is exactly what the song would suggest it’d be: aa completely in-your-face assault of problem-making, including some naughty phone booth shenanigans, police car gyrations, sledgehammering revelry, sleazy make-out sessions in motels (and supermarkets, and cop cars, and also everywhere) and twerking in fur. The best part? The incoming call from an “Unknown Problem.” That, and walking a hound in houndstooth. But most of all, setting fire to fur on the beach — and that fierce pose she strikes as the thing burns. Glam bitch.
And then, there’s “Saturday Night.”
As she explained to me when I first heard the song in March, the Jeff Bhasker-produced song is Natalia’s most personal offering yet — a defiant battle cry for a broken girl.
Steering away from the 3-minute radio-friendly pop productions of Perfectionist, “Saturday Night” is a big, anthemic midtempo in the vein of Fun.‘s “We Are Young” (also produced by Bhasker) or a Ryan Tedder production, gliding across striding drums, a stinging electronic undercurrent and Emile Haynie-produced yelps in the distance. “Don’t tell me I’m unfixable / You don’t know what it’s like to be 17 with no place to go,” she angrily quivers, conjuring the lonesome drawl of Lana Del Rey (minus the whole lovey-dovey thing.)
And then, there’s the arena-ready, fists-aloft chorus — an instant earworm from the very first play: “‘Cause it’s just another Saturday night, oo-WHOA-oh!” It’s big and belt-y — her voice has gotten much more powerful in the past few years! The lyrics pour out like a poetic diary entry: “Momma you’re beautiful tonight / Movie star hair and that black eye / You can’t even notice it when you smile so hard through a heartfelt lie,” she croons in the song’s first few moments, revealing more about her past than ever before. It’s a pretty major evolution in sound and substance — sort of blows Perfectionist out of the water, no?
Pour a glass, take it to the head, raise your fist and scream-sing along — ’cause it’s just another Saturday night.
“Saturday Night” will be released on July 2. (iTunes)