Slayyyter’s “Beat Up Chanel$” Reanimates in the Form of “Brand New Chanel$”

As Slayyyter prepares the world for her inverse album to WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, WOR$T MAN IN AMERICA (not sure why it’s not “WOR$T BOY”), she’s chosen to release “brand new chanel$” as the first “foil” track. The one that complements (or contrasts, depending on one’s perspective), “beat up chanel$.” The latter was released on August 1st of last year, while “brand new chanel$” got almost exactly the same release day this year: July 31st. And yes, to that point, there is a kind of “Fourth of July hangover” quality to both visuals. As if Slayyyter is still coming down from a creepy Americana-drenched reverie.

And, as the lyrics make apparent, a post-relationship bliss reverie. For, like the jealousy motif of “Old Fling$,” Slayyyter isn’t having it when it comes to playing “the third wheel” in matters of romance. Except, in contrast to “Old Fling$,” she doesn’t paint herself as the triumphant victor who gets to “keep” her man on “brand new chanel$.” That much is made immediately clear with more downtrodden visuals that commence with Slayyyter lying on a bed (wearing a “football jersey-inspired” shirt, favoring the number “26”) before the initial verse lets the listener know she is so over this “worst man in America,” telling him, “Send another weak ‘I’m sorry’/Unforgivable as always/I knew you had seen somebody/Was it worth causing all my darkest days?”

As she asks these questions in earnest, the scene has cut to her still in the same “football jersey-inspired” shirt, only now the look has been rounded out by her take on a shako a.k.a. the hat people wear when they’re in marching band. Because leave it to Slayyyter to intermix two high school “factions” together: the football player and the band geek (as for Slayyyter herself, she described her own “group” [of one] in high school as “the Cookie Monster pajama pants girl”). Sitting on a quilt that has her now signature dollar sign “S” logo on it (because, after all, Kesha hasn’t been using that symbol for a while), the general vibe of forlornness continues as more intercut scenes introduce Slayyyter in a desert setting—presumably somewhere in California, even though there comes a time when she will embody the look of a Las Vegas showgirl (far more than Taylor Swift) as she preens inside a mobile home. Or “trailer,” if one wants the “classier” version of that term.

Before that moment arrives, however, Slayyyter, who once again self-directed the video, shows herself in lacy black mourning attire (complete with her take on “bunny ears” for this ensemble—as rabbit imagery has become decidedly her “thing” for this album’s visuals) outside of the very same house she appeared in during “beat up chanel$” wearing white bunny ears and generally whiter, “brighter” attire. But the black mourning “costume” in this scene is meant as a response to the death of a love, and the feelings of betrayal she’s experienced as a result of this relationship. One in which the object of her affection even went so far as to cheat on Slayyyter with another woman in her own apartment. This made clear by the lines, “Ah, in my apartment, my clothes in the corner/Why’d you let her stay the night/Did you hide all of our pictures in the kitchen?/She would probably never care ‘cause stupid bitches never mind.”

It’s the kind of “hating on another woman” vibe (along with “I, I bet she rock brand new Chanels/What a chop, I cut ya off and get away, yeah/I, I’m better off, I always knew you’d do it/Why’d you have to lie, made me feel crazy”) that channels the mid-00s/early 10s vibes that Slayyyter is going for with the sound and aesthetic of WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, and now, one imagines, even for WOR$T MAN IN AMERICA. And rather than speaking from the perspective of that latter for this single, it seems as if Slayyyter is addressing that worst man after having survived him. Literally. At least based on the lyrics that really escalate the drama with, “Found out that you tried to kill me/Right before my most important day.”

Around the time she says this, a new scene of her wearing “shooting range accessories” (goggles/protective glasses and “earmuffs”/noise-canceling whatever) cuts in, complete with a human silhouette target that bears the words “WOR$T MAN IN AMERICA” above it. As if the “Lana codedness” wasn’t already flickering in (and has been for a lot of the visuals Slayyyter has offered up for this album), she really drives home (no pun intended) that parallel by then cutting to a scene of her riding on the back of a motorcycle that’s being steered by an “old man type” in the spirit of the Daddies that Del Rey has always expressed a fetish for (and, to be sure, this moment has plenty of “Ride” video influence).

Slayyyter continues to escalate the callbacks to the original video for “beat up chanel$” by bringing back the fireworks scene (again, more Lana-esque, Americana-loving shit) and at one point, brings the image of her album cover back into it, but positions herself in the “Worst Man in America” role for the updated mise-en-scène. Even though, to say it again, she seems to be talking to that worst man on this song rather than embodying him (as she embodied the so-called worst girl). Even sure to add more accusatory flourishes like, “I know what you do/I see how you move/But I’m standing here still/Oh, I’m here standing still.”

The sonic and lyrical connection to “beat up chanel$” is ramped up toward the end of the track, with Slayyyter singing, “He want sex, money, bitches and to lie through his teeth/Getting head, white and blue if you know what I mean” and “At those nasty little after parties/He want brand new Chanels/He want brand new Chanels/He want brand new Chanels.” And if that is really what he wants, it appears Slayyyter will have nothing to do with him, still content to work with/prefer her beat up ones.

As for the final scene, a wide shot of Slayyyter walking away on the football field, where night has now fallen, well, it definitely feels like a nod to one of her favorite movies, Dazed and Confused (where she got her stage name from). For it’s also at night on a football field that some “worst boys” in America get into trouble for smoking weed on the fifty-yard line in said film. But, in the end, of course, they’re all just following Wooderson’s (Matthew McConaughey) advice to “keep livin’.” As Slayyyter will do after recovering from this bad relationship. Which might just turn out to be the origin story of how she became the worst girl in America. That is to say, by falling for the worst man and getting her heart broken by him.