Pop culture, especially in the ’90s and early 2000s, often portrays the “valley girl” as shallow and superficial. But actress and singer Kylie Cantrall’s sophomore EP, Valley Girl Problems, proves there’s far more depth beneath the surface.
The Catalyst
Following the success of her debut EP, B.O.Y., Cantrall was ready to head back into the studio and build on the same “up-tempo, fun, baddie anthems” she had already established. However, she soon realized that the music wasn’t being true to what was actually happening in her life.
“I feel like I need to write something that is actually reflecting what I’m going through in this moment instead of being too conceptual with it,” she explained in a coversation with Juice Box Press and 1824. “Let me just write as if this was me telling the world, ‘Hey, this is actually what I’m going through and how I feel. And this is the music I’m drawn to make.’”
With that realization, Cantrall put the original project aside, including songs that no longer fit the vulnerability and sensitivity she wanted to explore on Valley Girl Problems. While she didn’t elaborate much further on the personal experiences that inspired the shift, that vulnerability is unmistakable throughout the EP.
Carrie Bradshaw
The first song she wrote after deciding to shift directions was “Carrie Bradshaw.” Cantrall was drawn to the dichotomy of the iconic Sex and the City character. “She’s someone who is fashionable and always seems to have it together on the outside because she’s so good at curating herself to look a certain way, but then you obviously watch the show, and you’re like, ‘Shit, this girl is a mess. She doesn’t make the best choices.’”
Both vulnerable and empowering, the song and its accompanying music video embrace that contrast through bold colors and clever, honest lyrics like, “I don’t know if I’m ready, but I carry it all, Carrie, Carrie Bradshaw.”
That message of embracing both the polished exterior and the messy reality carries throughout all nine tracks.
Cantrall joked, “Hopefully, one day, I’ll be more like Samantha Jones core,” referencing another Sex and the City character. She continued, “Not in the sense that she’s like crazy, but in the sense that she’s so herself, like so confident.”
Finding The Valley Girl Sound
For Kylie, the Y2K R&B sound felt both natural and essential to the album.
“I’ve never really gone in with the thought of today I’m gonna make a Y2K-sounding song that feels nostalgic,” Cantrall explained. Instead, she said, “I always kind of gravitate towards sounds and melodies that do kind of have that essence to them without me even being consciously aware of it.”
Cantrall attributes that instinct to the music she grew up listening to. “Growing up, my dad, he would always play like 2000s, 90s R&B and like Brandy, TLC, Aaliyah, Britney, and Janet. I was always listening to that in the house. So I think that kind of set the foundation for my taste.”
Now, Cantrall hopes to return the favor by introducing her own fans to some of the artists and sounds that shaped her. “I have the chance to put people onto artists they haven’t heard of before and introduce them to different sounds that they may not have known otherwise. I think that’s what’s cool about it, getting to show it to a new generation.”
A Mary J. Blige Sample
One of those artists is Mary J. Blige.
On track three, “Closet,” Kylie samples Blige’s 1992 hit “Real Love.” As she shared earlier in our conversation, the beat and piano naturally found their way into the song, but the sample came later in the process. “It wasn’t in there originally,” Kylie revealed. “That was something that got added after the song was written and after it was recorded.”
She credits her A&R, Wendy Goldstein, Chairwoman and Chief Creative Officer at Republic Records, with suggesting the sample. “She was like, ‘I think this could use that Mary J. sample.’ And I was like, ‘Girl, I know you saw that on my playlist.’”
The Sequence
While the album’s sound came naturally to Cantrall, its sequence was much more intentional.
“I want it to feel like a movie,” the Disney’s Descendants actress and singer explained. “I wanted it to feel chronological. I wanted to have those interludes so that it felt like, shit, like this is an actual story. This is the climactic moment. This is the catalyst that then transitions us into the last three songs on the EP that are way more heartfelt.”
For Cantrall, the way she writes lends itself to the chronological narrative format because she writes from her real-life experiences. Through candid conversations with her collaborators and confidants, including Tayla Parx, Lisa Shinta, and Jim Levine, she found the stories and throughlines within her own turmoil. “It wouldn’t even look like we were getting work done,” Cantrall jokes, “because we were just like talking and they were letting me kind of vent to them of like, ‘my god, you won’t believe this text I got. Can you believe she said that?’… I think the natural kind of way that the lyrics flow in a lot of these songs, it’s really like sound bites from my journal, diary entries, or just like conversations we had in the studio.”
The Human Girl
As Cantrall prepares to take the album on the road for her first-ever headlining tour, kicking off September 25 in Minneapolis, she reflected on what she hopes fans take away from both the album and the live experience. “They definitely are seeing Kylie, the human girl,” she shared. “I think [on this album] people [are] getting to just get to know me, my emotional side, who I am through everything.”
Cantrall is especially “excited” to bring the album to life visually on tour and experience those connections firsthand. “I’m excited… to see people’s faces, see them connect to the songs, and I think it’s just gonna be such an emotional roller coaster.”
She’s already preparing for the emotional moments, including one song in particular. “I’m like, I need to not cry when I sing ‘Space Between’ on tour. I already know I will.”
As for what’s next, Cantrall offered a little tease of where her music may go from here. “I think the next thing is really going to be…how I think the heartbreaks and the painful periods kind of helped me become even stronger. So I’m excited for that.”
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Amelia Cordischi, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Juice Box Press, is an accomplished digital marketing professional with over a decade of experience in media and communications. Her work has been featured in notable publications, including The Boston Globe. A communications graduate of Simmons University in Boston, Amelia served as manager of Simmons College Radio (“The Shark”), where she also launched and co-hosted her radio show, The Find.
In addition to her editorial work, Amelia is an established freelance photographer, with bylines in Blended Magazine and CelebMix, capturing artists and cultural moments across the music and media landscape. Her career began at WCVB-TV’s Chronicle, the ABC affiliate in Boston, where she gained firsthand experience in broadcast journalism and storytelling.
When she’s not taking photos from the photo pit, interviewing emerging artists, or crafting the next Juice Box Press feature, Amelia can be found thrifting and exploring the world of sustainable fashion.