Ever make a list of things you want in your Notes app and then look at it sober the next morning? Mine’s fucking chaos. Half of it’s aesthetic (guys with everlasting hardons, gummies that hit immediately, rainy Sundays). The other half is deeply questionable life choices I keep making anyway because they feel too good to stop. I showed my therapist once and she just… paused. Long pause. Kiki T clearly has the same Notes app I do, except she turned hers into ‘Favorite Things’ and now we all have to confront the fact that our wish lists say way more about us than we’re comfortable admitting.
Kiki T is an LA-based artist who describes herself as “the theoretical love child of Jimmy Buffet and Paris Hilton,” which honestly tracks. She calls one of her genres “gleemo” and writes what she terms “island pop” and “girl crush indie,” but ‘Favorite Things’ lives somewhere messier than any of those labels. This feels more like if someone recorded your most honest drunk conversation with your best friend and set it to alt-pop production. It’s self-aware chaos wearing a smirk.
The track opens with ” What’s a girl to say / You ask me what I like / If I guess right / Can I be your type “ and right away we’re in performance mode. She’s playing a game where she knows all the rules but pretends she doesn’t. There’s power in that kind of strategic vulnerability. Asking if she can be his type while cataloging exactly who she is feels like a dare disguised as a question.
Then she hits you with “It’s likely I’m a covert narcissist / If I admit it you’re less likely to resist.” Holy shit. That’s the move. Calling yourself out before anyone else can, weaponizing self-awareness into seduction. The honesty becomes the hook. She’s admitting to manipulation while actively manipulating, and somehow it works because at least she’s telling you what she’s doing. I’ve dated this energy. Hell, I’ve been this energy.
The production gives her room to be contradictory. It’s upbeat enough to feel playful but has enough texture for sharper edges underneath. She moves through her list with the kind of confidence that comes from actually knowing yourself, even the messy parts. ” I like writing songs / Even though I can’t play / I’ll give you my stories / At least I’m not fake / But there’s just one thing / I should mention / Half of them I made up just for attention. “
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That last line kills me every time. She’s a writer who admits to fabrication for attention and frames it as honesty. The confession is performance. The performance is confessional. It’s a fucking ouroboros of self-awareness and I’m here for it.
When she sings ” I love getting scared / Feeling alive / The rush that’s too much / But you somehow survive “ she’s tapping into something we don’t always say out loud. That we chase fear because it feels like proof we’re real. That adrenaline and attraction get tangled up together. That sometimes you want the thing that scares you specifically because it scares you.
The next verse wrecks me. “Do I love being in love / Or terrified / Is he the one / Or a new supply / I can’t decide.” She’s asking the question most of us are too scared to ask ourselves. Is this connection or is this just the neurochemical hit of something new? Do I want him or do I want the feeling he gives me? She doesn’t answer it. She just names it and keeps moving, which feels more honest than any resolution would.
“I keep changing my mind / I should say less / I’ve done no crime / No need to confess / I’m just a harmless / Reformed hedonist / Bad things are things / That good girls like best.” Reformed hedonist is such a goddamn lie and she knows it. You can hear the wink in her voice. She’s not reformed. She’s just better at framing it now.
The specifics in the second half make this whole thing feel real. ” I like Nine Inch Nails / And warm Coca-Cola / Fridge cigarettes / I know / They’re no good for ya. “ These aren’t curated aesthetic choices. This is someone’s actual life. The fridge cigarettes thing is so specific it hurts. We all have our version of the fridge cigarette—the thing we do that we know is terrible but tastes like freedom anyway.
“I love the bleach that gets me blonde / And the wrong that gets me off / A song so explicit / That the bridge hits me different.” She’s equating physical transformation with desire with music with the thrill of doing something you’re not supposed to do. It’s all pleasure. It all counts. The wrong that gets you off might be the most honest three seconds of the entire track.
When she gets to “I like late night texting / And drinking in bed / Being overdramatic / I love being red,” she’s describing a whole mood. Late night texting is foreplay. Drinking in bed is intimacy. Being overdramatic is self-expression. Being red—flushed, angry, turned on, embarrassed, alive—is the point. She wants to feel everything at full volume.
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“Overdressed / Just like Jessica Rabbit / Men try to break me / Like I’m a bad habit.” Jessica Rabbit is the perfect reference. The woman who’s too much on purpose, who knows exactly what she’s doing with that red dress. Men treating you as a habit they need to break means they’re already addicted, and she knows it. The power dynamic flips in that one line.
The specifics keep coming. “Mean girls in loose jeans / Minor notes out of key / Recklessly spending / On things I don’t need / I love when a man lets me pull all the strings / These are a few of my favorite things.” Mean girls, financial irresponsibility, musical imperfection, and control all listed together as things she loves. There’s no hierarchy. No apology. Just documentation.
The bridge pulls everything back to the central tension. “I love being loved / That’s what I like / When the vice advertised / Lives up to the hype.” She wants the feeling of being wanted. She wants her indulgences to deliver. She’s admitting that love is dopamine and she’s chasing it deliberately. ” I haven’t been high / Since I was sixteen / I don’t need drugs / I’m my own dopamine. “ This is someone who figured out early that she could get the same rush from attention, drama, and desire that other people need substances for. That’s either incredibly self-aware or slightly terrifying. Probably both.
The closing feels like the thesis statement. “I like talking shit / But my conscience is clean / You know us writers / Love our fantasies / Carried away / ‘Cause us girls like to sing / These are a few of my favorite things.” Writers love fantasies. Girls get carried away. These are presented as explanations, not excuses. She’s documenting her appetite and calling it art, which it is.
Kiki T made a track that answers the question “what do girls want” with brutal honesty. We want contradictions. We want to feel everything. We want attention and autonomy and aesthetic pleasure and emotional intensity and the freedom to be messy without apology. We want the rush. We want the risk. We want to be seen and desired and respected and occasionally just left alone to drink wine in bed and text people we shouldn’t.
I went back to my Notes app after listening to this on repeat for two hours. Added ‘Favorite Things’ to the list. Didn’t delete anything else. Turns out owning your mess looks a lot like cataloging it honestly and calling it what it is. Kiki T gets it.
