While there are many measures of mainstream success at this point in time, the tried-and-true way to really tell that a person has “made it” at that level is if they land a performance on The Tonight Show. As a program that’s been beamed into the “average American’s” living room since 1954, it has launched into the stratosphere the careers of musicians as varied as Bob Dylan and Dua Lipa. And, like Slayyyter, those respective singers were already plenty well-known before they took the stage of The Tonight Show. But it was only afterward that they entered American consciousness on an entirely new tier. Proving themselves to be “resonant” with the coveted mainstream audience.
It’s unclear if the same could possibly happen to Slayyyter on such a scale as Bob Dylan and Dua Lipa (as nothing really does happen on that scale anymore when taking into account the total disappearance of monoculture, perhaps last seen in 2016, before the rise of TikTok). But one thing is certain: Miss “Queen of Middle America” (far more that the “Worst Girl in America”) was amply “assimilated” into the homes of her Middle American brethren on the May 19th episode of the show. Introduced by Jimmy Fallon (the now long-standing host of “the thing”), the opening notes to the presently “viral-on-TikTok” “DANCE…” begin as Slayyyter stands in silhouette against the familiar background she used for her set design at Coachella back in April. Which also marked the first time she opted to perform her music with a live band as opposed to her usual tendency to incorporate a backing DJ. And clearly, she enjoyed how the songs sounded with live instruments if she kept it going for something as important as The Tonight Show.
Besides that, having a three-piece band behind her adds a bit more “cinematic value” to her stage presence. Along with the “white trash” flourishes of some DIY t-shirts hanging on a clothesline (which, again, is the same repurposed set design she used for her Coachella performance, and will no doubt reappear on stages across the country as she embarks on her Worst Girl in America Tour). Then, with her hair whipping in the “miraculous” wind (no doubt created by some offstage source) and her hand maneuvering the mic stand to the beat, a strobing light illuminates her so that the audience can take in the full grandeur of her decidedly Lady Gaga-esque costume. Specifically, the soda-can-top (a.k.a. pull-top a.k.a. can end) “nipples” of her “trashy” riff on a showgirl outfit in shimmering silver (the kind that Taylor Swift would never deign to wear).
The wind flourish is just as significant as the pull-top bra cups, for behind her is a video backdrop featuring a tornado ripping through the lands. This being yet another nod to her Midwestern roots. Not to mention Slayyyter’s very deliberate choice to wear some “ruby red slippers” of her own to go with the rest of the costume—an undoubted nod to Dorothy Gale, a Midwestern mascot if ever there was one. What’s more, that pop culture reference undeniably speaks to the fact that Slayyyter herself isn’t “in Kansas anymore,” so to speak (even though, in her case, it’s Missouri). No, she’s gone off to the lands of Technicolor: L.A. and New York. In other words, the Lands of Fame.
The “bombast” of the costume also seemed to compensate for a more subdued (that is, compared to how one is accustomed to seeing Slayyyter typically act onstage) take on the song, bodily movement-wise. And choosing “DANCE…”—as opposed to, say, something even more “high energy” like “CRANK”—as the track with which to make her grand “broadcast TV” debut isn’t just because that particular single is having a bit of a moment on TikTok, but also because it has a certain sentimental and thematic value when it comes to the creation of WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA. For, as Slayyyter told Switched on Pop, “‘DANCE…’ was one of the earlier songs we made for this project and I think I kept going into sessions showing that as like the reference of, like, ‘I just made this song, I want to pull this into like every other sound’ and, like, I feel like everything sounds kind of different, but I was using that as, like, a through line. I just loved it.”
That statement clearly still holds true based on her performance of the track on The Tonight Show. A performance that, while not as dynamic as what she did at Coachella, was clearly designed to appeal to the type of audience that a fictionalized version of Jay Leno (Adam Ray) on Pam & Tommy would brand as “Uncle Jim and Aunt Susie in Duluth.” Another Midwestern state in addition to the one where Slayyyter (not to mention Chappell Roan) hails from: Missouri. And knowing that there is as much of a wholesome side to that part of the nation as there is a “rough-hewn” one, Slayyyter seemed to take no issue with altering her lyrics to comply with the censors, opting for “Delusional, that’s how you feel” instead of “Delusional, fuck how you feel.” Thereby changing the intent behind that lyric entirely for the sake of “adhering” to the so-called standards of decorum that the FCC likes to enforce with a vengeance (just ask Howard Stern).
Slayyyter then offers the “good people” of Middle America (you know, the ones who probably voted for the Orange Creature) what they really want as the song starts to come to a close, the screen behind her giving way to the images of fireworks bursting out. The same ones that appear in her “DANCE…” and “BEAT UP CHANEL$” videos—because “God bless America” and all that rot.
Delivering her series of vocal moans that round out the track in a “witchy woman” sort of way, it’s almost as if Slayyyter is conjuring the spirits and that’s the real reason for all this fucking “wind” (not the tornado). And maybe, in her way, she has, having made the kind of Faustian pact that everyone assumes all celebrities make. Though Slayyyter has actually admitted to looking up “how to sell your soul to the devil” when she was a teenager and casting some spells to make her dreams of fame come true. With this very mainstream appearance on The Tonight Show, it’s entirely possible at least one of those spells must have worked.
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