A church organ blares through “PRAYER”, the 37-second penultimate track of WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, as Slayyyter asks God to lead her on a righteous path. It could not be a starker contrast from the songs that surround it. Slayyyter’s third studio record revels in trashiness and earthy desires. The note it ends on—“PRAYER” into closer “BRITTANY MURPHY.”, which serves as a meditation on the hollowness and exploitation inherent to It-Girlism—feels like waking up hungover on the steps of a church, casting the endless party that led up to it in a new light.
After nearly half a decade of the inorganic push to make an “indie sleaze revival” happen—despite the fact that there was never really any coherent artistic movement to revive in the first place—when Slayyyter’s at her down and dirtiest, she runs laps around artists like The Dare, The Hellp, and Snow Strippers. The difference is that instead of getting lost in the anachronistic stew of electroclash, dance punk, bloghouse, and turn-of-the century Top 40 hits, Slayyyter synthesizes all of these influences into her own dirtbag Americana dance party. It’s a massive level-up from Slayyyter’s previous work, which failed to set itself apart from other head-empty, hyperpop-adjacent tunes of its time. Her sound was sleek, her alleged messiness pristinely produced. Her lyricism trafficked in surface-level tropes of materialism and vapidity—and to be fair, her latest release still occasionally adheres to this pointing-to-the-set-dressing style of songwriting (“orange wine, fake smile;” “New Balenciaga or that Prada I don’t pay for”). But on WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, Slayyyter emerges fully-formed: distinguished and disgusting.
One of WOR$T GIRL’s catchiest offerings, “CANNIBALISM” has Slayyyter cheerleader chanting over a punchy bassline that could’ve come straight from The Rapture or Death From Above 1979. The ideal way to listen to the following track “OLD TECHNOLOGY” would be through an iPod nano docked in a speaker that came off the Radioshack discount shelf; its bass drops just might make you feel like Daft Punk is playing at your house.
WOR$T GIRL is far more sleaze than indie. I hesitate to lend the term “recession pop” any legitimacy, but the blown-out “BEAT UP CHANEL$” is the best song Kesha never released. Its firework-synths and refrain of “I want sex, money, bitches, and the stickiest weed” would’ve easily slotted into the Spring Breakers soundtrack. So would “CRANK” for that matter, the militantly hedonist single that’s quickly become Slayyter’s de facto signature song. “I need some dick for Tuesday / Let me go put out some feelers,” Slayyyter shouts. Before you’ve got a moment to react to Slayyyter scheduling her dick appointments like they’re business meetings, she’s hits us with another gem: “He wanna fuck Slayyyter / Richard, we should link later.” “CRANK” is more than just silliness and shock value. The moments where Slayyyter’s voice clips, the busted-speaker production tearing her shouts at the seams, are highs unlike no other; it’s earsplitting dance pop maximalism at its finest.
The front half of WOR$T GIRL is exceptional, and though its B-side has some undeniable hits—the industrial clunk of “$T LOSER” or the croon of “UNKNOWN LOVERZ,” which sounds like Lana’s “Ride” monologue remixed by Justice—Slayyyter’s latest record doesn’t quite sustain the hit rate it started out with. “YES GODDD” is a pre-hashing of “I’M ACTUALLY KINDA FAMOUS”; the excitement of the latter makes the former feel a bit redundant (“Oh, you know the DJ?” Slayyyter drawls, her voice dripping with hazy resentment). “OLD FLING$” and “WHAT IS IT LIKE, TO BE LIKED?” feel like filler up against the album’s dirtier, more textured tracks. “Remember me beautiful / That sentiment probably isn’t true / Tell them I was such a funny girl / Annoying’s probably a better word,” goes the opening verse of “BRITTANY MURPHY.” WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA is beautiful, it’s funny, and sometimes it’s annoying. Luckily for Slayyyter, though, annoying looks (and sounds) great on her. [Columbia]
Grace Robins-Somerville is a writer from Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Alternative, ANTICS, Marvin, Swim Into The Sound and her “mostly about music” newsletter, Our Band Could Be Your Wife.
