Beth Ray Writes

Cat Burns is set for her debut album to be in the top 5 albums in the UK chart. Potentially alongside Taylor Swift, Eminem and Griff. Burns has been waiting a long time to release her debut album, her website states ‘early twenties’ has been four years in the making and it’s definitely worth the wait.

Let me give you a bit of background first. Cat Burns had her breakthrough moment in 2020, when lockdown had the world staying inside Cat uploaded videos on her TikTok almost daily and the views kept rising. She made videos of her original songs, a duet with her mum, a cover of Dua Lipa’s ‘Don’t Start Now’ and a tease of an original song “Go” that to date has over 3 million views. This led to “Go” being released later that year with its popularity still standing in 2022 and led to Cat releasing a remix of different versions of the song including a duet with global star Sam Smith.
It wasn’t just 2020 though when Cat started writing songs, she released her EP way back in 2016 when she was just 16 years old. It’s been a long ride to get here and Burn’s graft has been lengthy but this album shows she’s worked hard for it to be perfect before delivering it.

For me this album does something I love on a record- it tells a story. We start with “alone”, “go” and “end game” all songs about a toxic relationship and their partner not giving them the respect they deserve. It then moves on to topics of anxiety on tracks “this is what happens” and “people pleaser” before going on a journey of finding love in “met someone”, “live more and love more” with the relationship slowly going sour in “low self esteem” and “you don’t love me anymore”. Her album is what it states – Cat’s “early twenties” with such honesty that the album feels poetic and therapeutic to listen to. It’s layered with different themes, themes such as falling in love but not being able to share the joy with friends as they may scoff at it because they’ve not found the same happiness (“met someone”) or having a rocky relationship on the brink of ending but hoping that person might change their mind and give you that second chance (“false hope”). Burns takes the listener on a journey with her as she navigates the highs and lows of her early twenties and it’s a joy to listen to.

So we know the story telling is good but what about the music? Well it’s brilliant. Cat Burns is a talented songwriter and she’s worked with some exceptional composers to make plenty of hits in this album. Songwriters such as Steve Mac (“Shivers” and “Shape of You” with Ed Sheeran are a couple of examples of his work) and Jimmy Napes (“Stay with Me” and “Too Good at Goodbyes” by Sam Smith) help ensure Cat has a catalogue of great songs on her album. Mac helps write album opener “Alone” and Napes on “Go” along with Cat on songwriting duties too.
Cat’s musical style is of an acoustic/ mellow pop vibe, her tracks are filled with beautiful vocals, soft acoustic guitar, with strings and harp’s playing a part in various tracks.

I loved so many tracks off the album but my favourites have to be “no more”, “end game” and “somethings don’t last forever”. The latter song has these lyrics:

“You don’t have to hate them to leave them” real talk.

My absolute favourite song off the whole album is the last track “healing” featuring India.Arie. It’s a gorgeous song, filled with Cat’s and India’s vocals blending to create beautiful harmonies and they creates a lovely full circle moment, concluding the album in such a gorgeous way lyrically and musically. It’s also wonderful because in an interview with the BRITs back in December 2022 Cat states India as an musical inspiration and so it’s lovely to see that she’s had that moment with her on her debut album.

Finally, my last highlight of this whole album – let’s call it a cherry on top – was Cat releasing a short film to accompany the album. It’s 12 minutes long and it tells the story of 5 friends on a night out. It’s not a musical, it’s story-telling and helps support the themes of what ‘early twenties’ is all about, how we can all relate to this album in different ways and it shows what Burns wanted fans to see with this record. I listened to the album before I watched the film and it made me love listening to the album once again after i’d watched it. It allowed me to make my own take on it first and then also see what Cat wanted the listener to take from it too after watching it.

I’ll link the film below and I hope you enjoy listening to this very special album. I hope it reaches the top 5 for Cat as she’s worked so hard on it and it really does deserve to have a place.

Enjoy listening and as always let me know what you think in the comments!

You can buy her album here.

Beth x