We’re at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on a Sunday evening in August. The air’s thick; if you were to stick out your tongue, you could taste the anticipation. The buzz from the crowd is tangible. Over the regular crowd noise, there’s an audible hum of excitement, of pure thrill. Everyone is dressed to impress, distress, or both. Slayyyter’s Wor$t Girl in America show has pulled a glorious mish-mash of middle America-chic and queer dance club vibes from an adoring faithful that just keeps blooming.
Finnish synth-pop duo Pearly Drops expertly warmed that faithful up. You could practically hear the Daisy Dukes creak and the lycra slide as the psyched throng prepared itself for what was to come. Then, at 9 p.m., the lights dropped and the screams began. Slayyyter emerged from a house at the back of the stage—apparently designed to resemble a St. Louis residential home—and basically owned this corner of L.A. for 90 minutes.
MC has had our eye on Slayyyter all year. First of all, her set was, for our money, the best at Coachella 2026. Sabrina Carpenter fans might have something to say about that, but we left the mega-fest convinced that Slayyyter would one day be headlining.
Then there was the album that she’s been touring. We scored Wor$t Girl in America a 9/10 in May, saying that it’s “a start-to-finish riotous, debauched, genre-defying beast of a record. Not one second is wasted. Every opportunity to rub quality alt-pop in the face of the collective is grabbed with eager mitts.”
Slayyyter’s year just kept getting better; reports suggested that she killed at Lollapalooza, as well as the Governor’s Ball. And then, as we were planning this story, news started to emerge that there would be a new “brother” album released soon. “Brand new chanel$” is the lead-off single, mirroring “BEAT UP CHANEL$,” released a year prior.
She’s right to surf this wave while it’s roaring. The Slayyyter buzz feels very similar to pre-brat Charli xcx. We all knew that something was about to happen, it was just a matter of when. But right now, this right here, is Slayyyter’s time.
You can chart her blossoming success in parallel to her maturing sound, though she’s been clever. From her 2019 self-titled mixtape through 2021’s Troubled Paradise debut studio album, then Starfucker in 2023, right up to Wor$t Girl in America this year and with the "brother" album still to come, she’s gone from catchy hyper/electro-pop to forward-thinking alt-pop that takes in influences as varied as industrial, death metal, hip-hop, and disco.
Impressively, she’s retained all of the elements that saw her early stuff earn her that loyal fanbase: catchy-as-fuck melodies, dance-friendly beats, sex positivity, and a punk attitude. In those regards, Slayyyter hasn’t changed at all. She just keeps getting better and better. MC told her as much, while asking how she views the musical progression through her albums, starting with the debut mixtape. How have things changed, and in what ways have they remained consistent?
“I think every song I have ever written, good or bad, has been very crucial to finding out what I like to make now,” Slayyyter says. “There are bits and pieces of WGIA$ in my older music—little pockets of it here and there. It took me a while to feel comfortable in my abilities, to feel confident using my voice in the way I do now. I love a lot of my mixtape music because of how much I didn’t overthink things back then. I would just make. I try to create with more intention now, but it’s always for myself just like it was around my first mixtape.”
Slayyyter’s a fascinating personality. Blessed with no small amount of swagger and strut, one can imagine her charming a room, and then kicking every ass in it. She's packed a lot into her life already, and we’re all the sum of our experiences.
Speaking of which, the Wor$t Girl in America album really feels like an experience, something you need to marinate in. While the songs do provide instant joy with the melodies, you need to listen to the record multiple times to peel away the layers and get the full gratification. Which is partly why it will have longevity – people will keep discovering it.
“I appreciate that so many people are connecting with it,” Slayyyter says. “I always make music with scenes and visions and visuals in my head; I think the different layers to it come from a place of having your feelings change over time about life and who you are and if you even belong here in the first place. I have spells of great confidence, only to find myself feeling hated by the world or like a loser the next day. This project takes the listener on that same ride.”
The album sounds pristine, immaculate, and massive. From the opening, repetitive beat on “DANCE…” which builds to the arms-in-the-air, joyous call to action, Wor$t Girl in America lays it on thick and never lets up. And yet, the artist says that it was recorded all over the place, mostly in her friends’/producer’s home studios.
“We made ‘CRANK’ in New York but the bulk of the album was made in L.A. in different houses,” she says. “It was always just me and the producer in a living room studio. I don’t like big fancy glossy studios, I find the energy very sterile and stifling. Sometimes I need to kick my shoes off and sit on the floor and sing softly or scream at the top of my lungs while no one is looking at me.”
Scream at the top of her lungs she does. As previously mentioned, there are moments on the album where Slayyyter flirts with metal, industrial and punk. “YES GODDD” is the clearest example, a song which sees the artist employ a death metal growl.
“Yes, [I’m a] longtime fan,” she says. “I have always listened to a ton of different music. In high school, I really loved Slayer and random power violence bands my friends would show me. I remember finding this band Spazz [Californian hardcore punk band around between ‘92 and 2000], and I loved how blown out the audio sounded in my headphones. I would either dive into things from the internet, or get into things from friends showing me. I always loved music that would blend a few different genres at once.”
We mention to Slayyter that we were at Coachella, and noticed that the growl in “YES GODDD” was more pronounced live than on the record. She really got guttural with it. “It always feels like a nice release,” she replies.
On the subject of that Coachella appearance, and the volume of lavish praise that’s been heaped upon Slayyyter since that and other festivals this year, we ask her how much work she’s been putting into her live show this year.
“So much,” she says. “I knew from the minute I started making this record in 2023, it needed a live band. I wanted the live show in general to shift a bit from what I have done. I didn’t want it to feel like a pop show. I want to let go on stage, and I want people to let go in the crowd.”
One might think that, when performing at a big festival like that, whether it be an outdoor stage or in a tented stage, she’d go about things differently. At Coachella, there were clearly a lot of Slayyyter fans in attendance, but also people who wandered over to check her out. How does she approach that?
“I approach all audiences the same,” Slayyyter says. “Whether it’s people showing up for me at a headline show, me opening for another artist, or playing a festival where no one is there for me at all, I always work for my dinner. I don’t think I have ever half-assed a performance once in my life. Not even when I had a shyer stage presence. I always try to put on a big performance for anyone who is watching.”
All of that is true. In the middle of a blazing hot day in the desert in front of a still-arriving festival crowd and at her own headline show in Los Angeles, Slayyyter gave it everything. She danced like a queen and stomped like a demon, all before you’d caught your breath. Half-assed? Not on your fucking life!
Those huge performances, coupled with the undeniable quality of the album, are why she’s having such a banner year. And now we know that there’s going to be another album released very shortly. The lead-off single from it is “brand new chanel$,” the ‘inverse’ of “BEAT UP CHANEL$.” We ask Slayyyter if that was always the plan, to record a “brother” album to Wor$t Girl…
“Not at all,” she says. “I was making more music when WGIA$ was finished just because I felt inspired to keep going. Some of those songs ended up being ‘flips’ of songs on the albums in ways. When the project came out, I was going through a lot in my personal life and wanted to keep writing. I kept writing with flips of titles from the album in mind, and it all started to form very naturally. Instead of a deluxe or doing remixes, I wanted to make a brother album, or a counterpart to this project, that felt linked to the music and visuals from before, but inversed, and from a different perspective.”
Very cool. So let’s dig into the “brand new chanel$” single. We ask Slayyyter how it reflects “BEAT UP CHANEL$."
“It’s a song about betrayal,” she says. “I think there is something devastating about being hurt or betrayed or lied to by someone you love and care for very much. The song feels like such an emotional burst, but there is still something hopeful behind it all. I think it was the most emotional vocal delivery I have ever given, because I was hurting very much in real time while so many good things were happening to me and my career. It felt like I was finally getting what I wanted in my career, but someone I loved wanted something new and someone else. It was hard to process it all in any other way than making music, and keeping the work going.”
The song sounds lush, and beautifully “full.” That, Slayyyter tells us, is by design.
“I love big, full, wall-of-sound style production,” she says. “There are so many things going on at once, it kind of makes your head spin. But it also feels so intimate and timid and emotional at the same time. Like when you try to cry silently to yourself in public, and then it all bursts out and you don’t care if anyone sees you.”
The “brand new chanel$” single was recorded in Los Angeles with Wyatt Bernard and Austin Corona, at Bernard’s L.A. studio.
“It was actually an old demo for the original album with a sad melody and a few lyrics,” she says. “I would always revisit it, but didn’t quite have the words to finish it at the time. Then one day I did.”
One has to wonder, then, if the rest of the new album (possibly though not definitely called Worst Man in America) will follow suit. Will each track be the flip of a song off of Wor$t Girl…?
“It’s different for some—not every single song has an inverse,” Slayyyter says. “It’s about nine songs, and like a perfect flip of the album before it feels lighter and softer and sadder. Not as bitter and angry as the music I made previously. Some of the flip songs are opposite of the subject, some are opposite of the sound. I want people to hear and discover for themselves what new song they think is a flip of the old ones. Some aren’t so obvious.”
Excellent, we love a puzzle! It’s also worth noting Slayyyter has live musicians on stage with her, a group that she refers to as the “BE$T BAND IN AMERICA!” Those guys are: Mike Robinson on drums, Jake Strate on bass, and Haven Cody on guitar.
“We have also had Austin Corona on guitar and bass for some shows and festivals, as well as Dan Graham on guitar for Australian shows and festivals,” Slayyyter says. “All incredible musicians but also such kind, fun, wonderful, hard working people. Their performances every night blow the roof off the place, and they have given this show such a massive sound and feeling.”
Naturally, we ask Slayyyter if there’s any key piece of gear that she can’t do without. Her simple, understandable answer is the U2 Special Edition iPod.
If 2026 was a big year for Slayyyter, 2027 could be bigger. She’s on the cusp of something very special, and it’s going to be a thrill ride just observing it from the outside. She’s doing this her way—unapologetically, confidently her way. If anyone doesn’t like it, or her, they can get out of the way. As for the artist herself, she’s keeping her eye on the prize and staying focused. She’s got a busy period ahead.
“Tour, more tour, make more visuals, pray, be well, be happy, be healthy, release brother album, a little more tour, more tour,” Slayyyter says in conclusion. “Then maybe I will treat myself to a float trip down the river.”
It’ll be well deserved.
Photos by Kait Muro
Cover image by Alexa Zeliger
