It’s no secret by now that Slayyyter has been trying to come up in the world even long before her debut album, Troubled Paradise (released in 2021). A title as telling as her second one, Starfucker (released in 2023). Each name indicating the nature of her journey in “the industry” thus far. One that, as she herself has freely touted, has been characterized by eternally “bubbling under.” With her third record, it’s apparent that Slayyyter is aiming to boil over, complete with the moniker being stylized in all caps: WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA. As if she must—refuses not to—get your attention (in fact, she even says “I need your attention” on “WHAT IS IT LIKE, TO BE LIKED?”). And isn’t that, frankly, what usually characterizes some of the worst people in America (*cough cough* the Orange Creature)?
However, most of the time, Slayyyter seems to be talking about how much other people are the “worst” on this record, starting with its call to the dance floor, titled, what else, “DANCE…” And it’s from this introduction that Slayyyter begins to weave a tapestry of “who she is” as a musician, this song establishing her “Kesha side.” Though it’s actually the video for “DANCE…” that offers up the real Keshacore, if you will. Complete with all kinds of “indie sleaze” aesthetics of the sort that Kesha is known for.
Not just her, though. For arguably the only other 2010s-era musician as known for a love of “trashball Americana” is Lana Del Rey. This being why Slayyyter’s trailer for WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA often looks like scenes from Del Rey’s cutting room floor. As for the sound of “DANCE…” (produced by Valley Girl), it has more Kesha to it than Del Rey. But then when one hears lyrics like, “I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone/I’ll never understand why/Creatures like you crawl to me every night,” it has a kind of LDR tinge. Which then pivots back to Kesha-ness with “brattier” lyrics like, “Orange wine/Fake smile/I’ll keep it real/Delusional, fuck how you feel.”
The second track (and lead single), “BEAT UP CHANEL$,” also manages to engage with a “hybrid” Kesha-Lana flavor, with the imagery—such as, “Money, drugs, chains on my chest” and “Diamond grills, champagne bottles”—bleeding Del Rey while the sound and “swagger” itself channels Kesha. And, talking of swagger, Slayyyter has no issue bragging about hers as she declares, “Swagger I bleed” in between “Lana Tourette’s” like, “I want a cigarette.” Even when Slayyyter veers into more “tough-talking” territory that would theoretically put her more in the “Kesha column”—like “Don’t try fuckin’ with me/Boy I don’t want it”—it still has shades of Del Rey (no “Shades of Cool” pun intended). For example, when the latter warns on “Sad Girl,” “Watch what you say to me/Careful who you’re talking to,” it has the same energy.
And yes, Del Rey’s warning also holds true for Slayyyter. Especially if one is to heed her vibe on “CANNIBALISM!” A song that, of course, automatically connects to Kesha, considering one of her “peak” singles from the Animal/Cannibal era was, that’s right, “Cannibal.” Co-produced by Austin Corona, Wyatt Bernard and Hamish, the initially mid-tempo rhythm sets the stage for Slayyyter to incorporate the only moment in the entire song when she actually says the word “cannibalism” with the verse, “He kisses me, it feels like cannibalism/Stone-cold, I take what he’s givin’.” And yet, once again, there’s echoes of the Del Rey signature here. This in the sense that Slayyyter is announcing that not only will she take whatever abusive behavior she’s given from “her man,” but she also seems to kind of dig it.
What’s more, like Del Rey would, Slayyyter goes on to describe what her “daddy” of the moment does for a living/how he generally is, singing, “Mr. DJ makin’ moves for a livin’” (on a side note: no DJ is really making much of any moves, unless they happen to be anointed with a charmed career like Mark Ronson’s). Apart from “Mr. DJ” being very Madonna (as in, “Hey Mr. DJ, put a record on…”), it’s an overall line that smacks of Del Rey cooing something like, “My old man is a bad man/But I can’t deny the way he holds my hand.”
With “OLD TECHNOLOGY” and “CRANK” following “CANNIBALISM!,” Slayyyter goes more into the territory of “hyperpop.” A genre she’s often been often ascribed to by critics, though she herself has stated she doesn’t feel her music truly aligns with it. Needless to say, one can’t be compared to hyperpop without also being compared to Charli XCX, which Slayyyter, of course, has been in the past. Higher praise still, even Charli herself “blessed” Slayyyter early on in her career by giving her stamp of approval to an early single, “BFF” featuring Ayesha Erotica. It was because of this very track that Charli went so far as to deem Slayyyter “THE MOTHERFUCKING FUTURE” of music in 2019 (and she felt so strongly about this prediction that she even had Slayyyter open for her on a couple of dates of the Charli Live Tour). Seven years on, XCX’s prophecy appears to be more salient than ever.
And it seemed the key to fulfilling that prophecy, for Slayyyter, has been to at last let go of trying so hard (even though, at the same time, still trying very hard indeed). To at last say, “Fuck anything that sounds commercial, fuck TikTok.” Something she should have been telling herself from the jump. Yet, it’s extremely difficult for anyone trying to come up in the music business to tune out the noise of what everyone is telling you, regardless of if you asked for an opinion or not. Whether it’s from record executives in real life or people on the internet. This being a topic that Taylor Swift spoke on at the iHeart Radio Music Awards this year (apparently wanting to be more relatable after the horror that was The Life of a Showgirl—though, of course, that didn’t stop it from sweeping the awards), remarking,
“We live in this world where there’s so much immediate feedback. Constantly. Like, you get feedback for everything you share with the world now. Like, everything you post, you get feedback, whether it’s good or bad or whatever. I just wanna I say if I have one hope for you, I would say that I hope that you get to nurture your hobby and your passion just between you and that craft. And you give yourself time. Give yourself time to make mistakes.”
Of course, this is where she kind of lost the relatability attempt in that she admitted she had the “luxury” to make mistakes by spending thousands of hours honing her “craft” (that word which makes art and music sound cringe)—all while her parents likely spent thousands of dollars on ensuring her rise to the top. It’s also easy for Swift to say something like this in that she got her first record deal when she was fourteen. Meanwhile, Slayyyter wasn’t feeling so “spring chicken-y” as she saw her thirtieth birthday looming with no sign of any change in her career trajectory (and yes, every woman who’s about to turn thirty tends to feel a bit “ick” about it—especially if they’re in the youth-obsessed pop music world).
Even so, perhaps with “maturity” came the revelation that she ought to just make music that truly spoke to her. That resonated with her, let’s call it, “Midwest background.” Though it becomes a bit dicier to bill it as “Midwest trash” because, well, Slayyyter is very much suburban-born. And a suburbia upbringing does not a trashball or “authentic ho” make (as Chappell Roan recently found out and, well before her, Lana Del Rey). At least, not in the eyes of the public. Even so, perhaps Slayyyter has enough musical cojones for her background not to overshadow the pastiche of what she’s doing: a combination of 00s tabloids shit, indie sleaze, white trash, Americana and hyperpop stylings thrown into a blender.
The concoction that came out of it has proven quite tasty to many listeners, even ones Slayyyter didn’t previously have before. As she told The Guardian, “It’s been a mind-fuck to see people respond to this music so much, just because I didn’t think that anyone would really be into it.” The same went for Charli when she was making Brat, and look what happened there. Which only adds to platitude about how “playing to the gallery” (as Bowie would call it) never yields great art. And certainly not authentic art (as Lily Allen would attest to with Sheezus).
As Slayyyter also noted of this potentially vicious circle, “You start wanting to make decisions based on what you think is going to be popular, which is a really bad place to make any kind of art or creative decision. I thought [Starfucker] had songs that sounded like a hit. And people were telling me, ‘These songs sound like hits.’ But no one really knows what that is.” And the more one starts trying to “chase” a hit, typically, the further away it gets. Besides, can a hit even really exist as it did before in this radio-averse climate? It’s only someone like Swift who appears to be guaranteed that concept anymore.
Thus, like Del Rey making peace with not hitting the big time either on a song like “Video Games” (her first success) or Charli XCX being prepared to be dropped by her label after making Brat, Slayyyter, too, only seemed destined to become a household name after letting go of the idea of conventional success. Therefore, unearthing more total freedom to create. So it is that she made a decision for this third “attempt” (a.k.a. genre-bending mirror of the times): “I told myself, you know what, I’ll make music for fun after this, but I’ll make one last album and really give it my all, do the album rollout thing, maybe I’ll do a tour if I can afford it. I’m sick of losing so much money on so much shit, I’m sick of all this stuff. I’m just gonna go in the studio, make something that if I died after it comes out, I would be proud of it.”
To be sure, WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA is something to be proud of. Particularly as it manages to capture the disjointedness/total lack of cohesion of the times by way of how it actually sounds, while also conveying that everyone doesn’t seem to give a fuck that the world is ending. All living as though there’s no tomorrow because, as Don Draper would confirm, there probably isn’t. So why not just “[leave someone] all alone at the gas station” on a whim? “GAS STATION” being arguably the most Lana track of the record (this extending to the purported “daddy issues” it speaks to). Not least of which is because she has a song called “Queen of the Gas Station.” And in it, she sings, “Baby if you love me, take me to the gas station.” But surely, don’t leave her there. For that doesn’t show love. Just as it doesn’t for Slayyyter, who bemoans, “Was it really for me?/When you left me all alone at the gas station?/I was crying out my eyes, oh, the desperation.” The dreamy tone of it, paired with Slayyyter’s “baby voice”-esque vocals only heighten the LDR flair.
So perhaps that’s why she swings back to a grittier, grimier sound on “YES GODDD.” A song that seems like an attack on predatory men as Slayyyter calmly describes, “Playing dumb and doin’ the unthinkable/Make ‘em all blame a girl only half your age.” Which is usually the case with sexual predators who claim things like, “She was asking for it.” But, as Slayyyter reminds, “Poor thing, there’s no excuses/Do you think I’m stupid?” In a way, it’s a bit like her version of Billie Eilish’s “Your Power” as she essentially tells men not to abuse theirs with such threats as, “I’ll tell everyone whether you like it or not” (in another moment of “Eilish-ness,” the end of “CRANK” bears an auditory similarity to the moody, visceral musical conclusion to “Bad Guy”).
At another point, Slayyyter delivers the Pearl-inspired assertion, “Bitch, I’m a star.” More shocking than that, however, is Slayyyter saying, “I love America.” Something Del Rey would probably say too (and, in fact, even has a song called “God Bless America – and All the Beautiful Women in It”). Even though, arguably, there’s never been a time when America has been less loveable (you know, like apart from slavery times). The Jordan Palmer-produced backbeat also sees Slayyyter offering up yet another musical comparison: Turn Off the Light-era Kim Petras with a dash of Daft Punk (especially during the concluding musical breakdown).
However, it’s right back to Lana on “UNKNOWN LOVERZ,” which also finds Slayyyter mentioning the gas station milieu anew. And this done right from the very first verse when she sings in one of her sweeter tones, “Burn you a CD, I send it across the nation [this reference to “old technology” a reinforcement of how Slayyyter is aiming to recapture a certain “aesthetic” through a period in time]/I call you from a payphone at the old gas station/He’s rolling cigarettes up and I’m rolling off his molly/My friends all fucking hate him, but when has that ever stopped me?” The latter line, however, is purely Sabrina Carpenter-esque (while said in Slayyyter’s best impression of a “The Shangri-Las talking-singing voice”).
To be sure, there a few other lyrics in this song that sound like they could easily be from Man’s Best Friend. Including, “I know I’m much hotter, but I prefer them cold [Carpenter, too, loves a double meaning]/I really need him bad like a new accessory/I’d fashion him sitting on the couch right next to me.” Granted, that first part of the verse that speaks to the object of her affection not being as hot as her also has a parallel to Lily Allen’s “4chan Stan” lyric, “You love all the power/But you’re not even cute.”
Just as this bloke in Slayyyter’s “UNKNOWN LOVERZ” appears to have all the power. Which Slayyyter freely admits as she wistfully sings, “The more that I chase him, the faster he runs.” In truth, there are many parts of the song that make it sound as if Slayyyter is either a stalker (“I put your record on to dance around my old apartment” and “Keep his name carved with a heart in my underwear drawer”) or a necrophiliac (that whole “fashioning” him on the couch thing) or both. Whatever the nature of the dynamic is, “UNKNOWN LOVERZ” is definitely a song fit for a movie about tainted love. Particularly if it’s a soundtrack put out by the Italians Do It Better label, as this track’s sound has all the ethereal hallmarks of bands like Desire and The Chromatics.
The mid-tempo dreamy sound continues on “OLD FLING$,” which allows Slayyyter another opportunity to 1) gloat and 2) ultimately brand someone else as being the “worst.” Obviously, an old fling of the man she’s currently with. But, unlike Mýa on “Case of the Ex,” Slayyyter is in no way threatened by this old flame, mostly mocking her for even trying to approach her man, especially since she’s “by his side.” Which means that the ex can’t speak freely at all, let alone take the plunge on actually approaching. Even so, the ex still tries to keep a line of communication open, as Slayyyter tells it with the verse, “Texted him sorry, said you didn’t mean to bother none/Show face at his own party like it’s a coincidence/I see you seethin’, he’s not leavin’ here with you tonight/That shitty poetry only made you the pick-me type.” The latter line being quite the coup de grâce on insults.
The snark ramps up tenfold on “I’M ACTUALLY KINDA FAMOUS,” with Slayyyter mocking the delusional types (of which there are many in this day and age) who think they matter because they have some tenuous connection to something or someone that is actually famous. In many ways, the song bears a tonal and sonic connection to Miss Kittin’s 1998 signature, “Frank Sinatra.” On which Miss Kittin fittingly “sings,” “To be famous is so nice/Suck my dick, lick my ass.” Which is essentially what even nobodies who think they’re famous want people to do nowadays. Talk about a false reality. As perpetuated, (un)naturally, by the internet.
Giving John Bender from The Breakfast Club when he mocks Claire Standish for being a rich kid, Slayyyter concludes her master class on how to deride someone who thinks they’re important with, “You and your little Chanel bag/Did daddy buy you that for Christmas?/That’s real nice.”
Since she’s in bitch mode already, Slayyyter keeps it going on “$T. LOSER.” Although it initially sounds like the song might consist of nothing but the same lyrics as she continually repeats, “I think about you” and then “Do you think about me?,” that’s not the case. And, though such questions might seem romantic at the start, in truth, Slayyyter is leading up to going for the jugular of a poseur as she then segues into, “I think about you/I think you piss me off/I wish I didn’t think about it when you rip me off/I think about you/I think you’re lacking swagger/I get sicker by the minute, shit you can’t manufacture.” Throughout the song, there’s a theme that bears a resemblance to both Charli XCX’s “Girl, so confusing” (minus the part where Slayyyter has any empathy for whoever she’s speaking to) and Taylor Swift’s “Actually Romantic” (except that Slayyyter’s “diss track” isn’t so patently lame).
Getting to the part where she wields her “$T. LOSER” epithet, Slayyyter offers a combination of contempt and “acceptance” when she adds, “So pretentious, looking down at my $t. Loser [a nod to her native St. Louis] misery/I think about me/I shouldn’t be such a hater/If kids are bumping my shit, that’s a recession indicator.” And that right there is one of her ultimate homages to Kesha and acknowledging that the two share a similar sound/worldview/aesthetic. For Kesha is frequently cited as a prime example of what came to be known as “recession pop,” a genre that emerged in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. And yes, this is the era that Slayyyter seeks to embody in her music (not that she needs to, as the present is a constant crisis, financial and otherwise), complete with the sleaze and high BPM-pulsing beats that make people lose themselves. Maybe even feel just slightly akin to happy for about three minutes as they dance to it.
As they probably would during “WHAT IS IT LIKE, TO BE LIKED?” This being the track on the album that most openly speaks to Slayyyter’s feelings of being stuck on the outside looking in. Being (as Charli XCX puts it on “I might say something stupid”) “famous but not quite/But I’m perfect for the background/One foot in a normal life.” It’s having that one foot still in the normal life it that has made Slayyyter feel such a combination of uneasy and dissatisfied as she reaches the end of her twenties. And that’s why the outro to the song is so brutal in its honesty as Slayyyter announces,
“Ah, fuck all the parties/I’m still nobody, I, I, I need a new hobby/All that they see in me is a, a cheaper copy [another real-ass line in that it addresses that Charli XCX and Kesha comparisons]/But I’ma go out like a star [a line that refers to Slayyyter’s willingness to let this be the last album if it doesn’t legitimately turn her into a star a.k.a. a mainstream singer], they’ll all be sorry/I, I wanna die I wish I lived a different life, I lost that time/Can’t get it back, and so I cry/All day and night/Sometimes I wonder what it’s like/To be so liked.”
Fortunately for Slayyyter, WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA will have her wondering no longer. For it seems destined to be her breakthrough album. Particularly since it’s awash in everything that people are “obsessed” with right now: the 2000s. This extends to her singing as if she’s speaking from 00s-era Paris or Lindsay’s perspective when she flexes, “I’m pussy stuntin’, I look stunning every night/You wish my money was your money, but it’s mine/Got a lot of friends, got a brand-new Benz and a DUI.” As for the “brand-new Benz” phrase, Kesha also uses it on her 2010 single, “Sleazy,” asserting, “I don’t need you or your brand-new Benz/Or your bougie friends.”
The penultimate track, “*PRAYER*” (not to be confused with Kesha’s “Praying”) is an interlude, of sorts. And one that has Slayyyter very much serving up her best impression of Prince during the opening of “Let’s Go Crazy.” It is here as well that Slayyyter openly addresses the peace she’s made with not being “liked.” Or at least not liked enough to feel financially secure as a result of her fame. So she decides to let go of trying so hard to “make it happen” and, instead, just “letting it happen” if it’s meant to be. Hence, her prayer: “Lord, grant that I may seek to comfort rather than be comforted. To understand, rather than be understood. To love, than be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen.”
And, on that note, Slayyyter somewhat irreverently transitions into the final song, “BRITTANY MURPHY.” (after all, she is someone who died and experienced a kind of “eternal life” that goes hand in hand with being immortalized onscreen). Hardly a person who qualifies for “worst girl in America” status, but does appeal to Slayyyter’s 00s-era sensibilities. But it’s not just that. In Murphy, Slayyyter sees a few parallels with not having a father figure in her life and also forever “bubbling under” in their respective careers. For although Murphy was extremely prolific as the late 90s/early 00s commenced, she never quite made it to the status of being “A-list.” Which is something that Slayyyter can identify with, hence the reason this song is an elegy for both herself and her career (on a related note: ROSALÍA also saw fit to conclude her latest album, Lux, with a funeral-type song called “Magnolias”). This is why it gets unabashedly suicidal amidst the glitched-out beats and occasional panting (à la Britney on “I’m a Slave 4 U”) that could be right at home on Spears’ Blackout.
As Slayyyter explained, “The song is more about me and some dark feelings I had last year about feeling stagnant in [my] career and questioning if I even want to be here and do any of this anymore. I titled it after her because I really love her so much, I see similarities in her life and mine with not really having father figure, that kinda of thing can affect you and hurt you forever. I think she was so great, she inspires me in so many ways… I hope the song would have been something she would have liked. I don’t think people give her enough credit for her absolutely incredible singing voice as well [hear: “Faster Kill Pussycat”]. I wish she would have made an album.”
But at least Slayyyter has made this album that manages to not only honor Murphy’s legacy with a single song, but Slayyyter’s own. One that she has been “quietly” (through her oh so loud music) establishing since 2017. And it was by 2018 that she was starting to feel like maybe “big things” were happening. She had drawn a lot of attention with “BFF” and was already securing interviews with a magazine like The Fader, which commenced an article titled “Slayyyter Really is the Future of Pop Music” with the paragraph,
“Slayyyter isn’t really famous yet, but she could fool you. When the twenty-two-year-old singer shows up at The Fader offices in New York wearing a pink tennis skirt accented with a shimmering rhinestone belt and a matching “S” choker, it’s like she’s stepped off the set of a music video. But really, the young pop star and current part time receptionist at a hair salon is in town from St. Louis, where she’s lived her whole life, and she’s accompanying her mom who’s on a business trip. Despite her small-town situation, she’s producing some of the most exciting, big budget-sounding pop music I’ve heard in years, boosted with the sole help of a small unit of stan accounts and internet misfits.”
As of 2026, all of that is still pretty much accurate (save for Slayyyter’s age). But it might not be for much longer. Because there’s a reason that WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA sounds frenetic, chaotic and utterly determined all at the same time. In other words, it bears the pronounced aura of a pop star who will no longer be ignored. Or even worse, relegated again to an “up-and-coming list.”
