Slayyyter’s midwestern magnum opus, WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA

(Photo Credit: Slayyyter and Kaitlyn Muro)

Slayyyer’s third studio record and major label debut is filthy, feminine, nihilistic and undeniably bold: a deceptively smart artistic statement that finds an artist pulling from her past to carve the future of pop music.

Slayyyter, born Catherine Garner, has come a long way from recording her vocal arrangements in the bedroom of her Missouri home. 

What first began as experimenting with pop music while she was a college student turned into something Slayyyter herself never quite expected. 

Originally self-releasing tracks through her personal SoundCloud account, Slayyyter independently grew an online cult following through her neon, Y2K-tinged, Britney Spears-esque aesthetic and sound. 

Although Slayyyter’s career began in a small space, she never allowed her surroundings to limit her creativity.

2021’s Troubled Paradise and 2023’s Starf*cker took inspirations from sounds of mainstream pop and evolved them with Slayyyter’s signature edge of grittiness, seductiveness, and unadulterated camp.

While those records toyed with throwback and modern club aesthetics with ease, they also reveled in what I would describe as self-made glamour; glitzy production, sticky hooks, and all the attitude of a mainstream superstar, while made in an almost DIY mindset. 

Though Troubled Paradise and Starf*cker are fantastic records in their own right, they are Slayyyter’s statements as a pop artist. 

WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA’s (WGIA) direction finds Slayyyter aiming for a different beer bottle, so to speak.

Clean pop structures, big vocal hooks, and glossy synths are now replaced high distortion, screamed vocals, instrumental breakdowns, and crunchy aggression. “IPod music,” as Slayyyter describes it: her chaotic amalgamation of all the late 00s and early 2010s underground music Slayyyter grew up worshipping.

Inspired by artists from Justice and Crystal Castles to Gwen Stefani, Gessaffelstein, and The Cramps, WGIA’s sound palette is explorative, antagonistic, and distinctly itself.

The record’s production and visuals work hand in hand to create the feeling of a space that is grimy, hazy, solitary, and liminal. Every song feels like its own scene, providing a solid foundation for Slayyyter’s vocals and storytelling.

WGIA sounds and feels, for lack of a better term, like Slayyyter’s upbringing— the stale blur of living in the Midwest, the pulse of the beat at your situationships’ house party, the daze of day-long binges, the perpetual daydreaming of something beyond your grasp.

(Photo Credit: Slayyyter and Kaitlyn Muro)

In a way, this sense of mundanity is the secret sauce that makes WGIA so poignant and tangible. 

Made in a headspace that Slayyyter herself described as “creating her last record,” WGIA is a clever and understated concept record in a way that is almost autobiographical.

What Slayyyter does not explicitly say in her lyrics is present in her delivery, always evident sarcasm, and most importantly, her smart album sequencing.

The album begins at a standstill: “DANCE…” the kick start to the storyline at play. It has a meandering intro that takes a second to kick in; almost like the moment when you’re striking the match against the light strip, waiting for the flame to ignite.

“DANCE…” finds Slayyyter (or in this case, our narrator) succumbing to the need of becoming what is essentially a caricature of a mid-Western party girl who lives in chase of a perpetual high, whether that be through music, drugs, boys, or all of them all at once.

She is so lost in the depressive lows of her bland, monotonous everyday life, that all she craves is a space where she can feel not just like somebody, but rather something.

In so many ways, “DANCE…” represents what has always been Slayyyter’s mission statement; “Feel it in my bones, written in blood / I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone… / it doesn’t matter, let me dance.”

This is the catalyst for the narrator; the moment when she decides to chase self-pleasure in an effort to attain true happiness.

Immediately after on the exhilarating “BEAT UP CHANEL$,” Slayyyter states her manifesto: “You know all that I want is / money, drugs, and chains on my chest.” 

“BEAT UP CHANEL$” is our first taste of chaos; it’s the ideation of all the things that motivate our narrator throughout the entire record. 

“OLD TECHNOLOGY” and “CRANK” undeniably take place after the club past 3AM and are the first moments on the record where Slayyyter begins to assimilate into the life she has as craving so badly. 

“OLD TECHNOLOGY” is a twisted banger— while upbeat and clubby, it bears an electro-metal production influence that is prevalent throughout the record. It’s an electronic grit that borders on rock aggression, recalling past experimental pop and EDM projects such as Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP. 

While seemingly pointless on the surface, “OLD TECHNOLOGY” is a key point on the record as Slayyyter slyly notes, “Relapse into a bender… / I hope I die. / I’m doing drugs tonight, / ones that are not prescribed.” Though our narrator is actively stating she’s confident, independent, and content with this lifestyle, the simple word “relapse” tells us that she’s aware of her substance abuse issues and was once working towards something more for herself.

While the songwriting isn’t overtly literary or flowery, the storytelling is not supported only by the album’s sequencing, but largely illustrated through Slayyyter’s word choice, language, and clever frequent references to other songs in the track list. 

The Lana Del Rey inspired “UNKNOWN LOVERZ” recalls to the feelings of cold rejection and abandonment present on “GAS STATION.” “I call you from a payphone at the old gas station… / my friends all fucking hate him but when has that ever stopped me… / the more that I chase him, the faster he runs” she confesses, almost admitting that every attempt at affection she chases is artificial and half-doomed from the start. These songs offer insight as to why our narrator has reached this point, and offer depth to her background while maintaining a healthy sense of mystery.

(Photo Credit: Slayyyter and Kaitlyn Muro)

“I’M ACTUALLY KINDA FAMOUS,” “$T. LOSER,” and the the nostalgic tinged highlight “OLD FLING$” illustrate Slayyyter in control of her newfound social cache and party status.

Cold, superficial, self-important: Slayyyter jokes, “You think I see you? / You think I care about you? / I’m actually kinda famous…” 

On “$T LOSER” she now looks back on her old self and her past life in an almost insecure manner, admitting, ”Every single day I think about you, / do you think about me? / I think about you, / you don’t think about me…” 

Rather than linger too hard on these feelings, Slayyyter’s once again declares, “I think about me… / I think about money, drugs, chains on my chest”. It’s these moments in the songwriting that makes it clear that our narrator is inherently unreliable; there is always a sense of dishonesty in what is being presented to the audience.

What is being said on these songs is not necessarily how the narrator truly feels; there’s a heavy dose of sarcasm and nihilism on nearly every track. On “WHAT IS IT LIKE, TO BE LIKED?” the record’s narrative begins to approach its conclusion as Slayyyter begins to deconstruct the box she single-handedly has put herself into. 

In a song’s final verse, Slayyyter sings, “Fuck all the parties, / I’m still a nobody… / I’ma go out like a star, / they’ll all be sorry. / 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.” It’s a modern take on Britney Spears’ Lucky; the idea that a girl can attain everything she’s worked and lived for, but artificiality cannot inspire happiness. 

This sentiment is mirrored on the album’s closing number, “BRITTANY MURPHY.” A commentary on the media tropes around the “self-destruction” of young starlets, Slayyyter draws a parallel to the late and great Brittany Murphy as she asks one final wish of the audience: “remember me beautiful… / tell them I was such a funny girl… / you should say I was incredible… / make them all know I was great ’til I crash down.”  

“BRITTANY MURPHY” asks damning questions of the audience: When does someone become a lost cause? Is a girl still deserving of love if she doesn’t live a life that is expected of her? “Is my face too disgusting for an open casket?”

While not being a concept record in the traditional sense, WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA presents a harrowing story of a normal mid-west girl who has nothing, but wants everything.

WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA is Slayyyter’s true come-to-Missouri moment: the acknowledgement that there is nothing left to prove, and the acceptance of the things she will never be and the girl that she has always been.