On the surface, it looks algorithmically tailored for success, a concoction of Charli xcx's party girl attitude, Chappell Roan's Midwestern roots and Sabrina Carpenter's bombshell blonde, but the pieces of the 'WOR$T GIRL…' puzzle started falling into place long before 2024's pop girl guard change. In fact, the algorithm wasn't on Slayyyter's mind at all; the iPod was.

Apple's iteration of the MP3 player, of course, didn't belong to a particular genre, but it was emblematic of a bigger cultural shift. Introduced as a product that allowed you to carry "1000 songs in your pocket", the iPod acted as a bridge between the limitations of faffy portable CD players and the endless scroll of streaming services; you could carry more music around than ever, but the selections were still specific to you.

For Slayyyter, those selections were huge pop albums and indietronica from the device's peak period, between the mid-2000s and early 2010s. She cites dance-pop juggernauts like Madonna's 'Confessions on a Dancefloor' and Lady Gaga's 'The Fame' as reference points, alongside artists who threw everything at the wall, like M.I.A., Kid Cudi and Gorillaz. It's the sort of stuff that now gets lumped into playlists misguidedly titled 'INDIE SLEAZE', but she probably just means albums from an era where music started to feel less tribal, where genres started blending into one another, and anything went.

"There was a time period where music consumption felt a little less algorithmic," she explains. "Whenever I use the term iPod music, I feel like I just miss the days where everything you put on an iPod would be so intentional and you would curate it, and that would be the music you were locked into listening to. You didn't have, you know, the entire catalogue of music in the world of every song that's ever been made at your fingertips. You would have to sit down and put on 'Hung Up' by Madonna, or whatever indie electronic music you were listening to at the time. I know iPod's a device, but it's like a genre to me."

While 'WOR$T GIRL…' is a love letter to her teenage years – it drops you directly in the era she's pulling from, with instrumentals as good as anything Justice, SebastiAn or Crystal Castles would've put out at their peak – make no mistake, this isn't a wistful look at the past. 'WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA' is Slayyyter staring down the barrel of a gun even in the album's softest moments.

"It felt like anger management class every day in the studio," she says. "I feel like a pretty angsty, temperamental person sometimes, so it felt really good to scream and be nasty."

With emotion leading the way, and only Slayyyter in the writing seat with a rotating set of producers, she let loose. Noting specifically M.I.A. as a reference for the delivery and lack of emphasis on lyricism, she again nails the era without it feeling dated.

"When you listen to 'CRANK', I don't even really know what I'm saying," she laughs. "I don't really know what it means or what the song is about. But it's just sickening one-liners and all these different little swagged-out bars and things that feel funny to sing. Lyrics are not always so important. Sometimes, lyrics are the last thing that I'm really paying attention to when I listen to a song. It's more about like, the feeling that it gives me."

While lyrics might've been the last thing on her mind, when they hit, they're brilliant. Much of the lyrical content is primed for Instagram captions ("I get so gay off that tequila" from 'CRANK' is already taking off online), but they aren't as throwaway as she makes out. Sure, there's the clever lore drops in 'CRANK' connecting her stage name to the film she nabbed it from via Matthew McConaughey's "alright alright alright", but there's also the borderline suicide note of 'BRITTANY MURPHY'.

Obviously, film is as much of an inspiration to Slayyyter as albums are, and as such, the visual element of 'WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA' is as integral to the record as the music. "I love any kind of media that paints a realistic portrait of life in the Midwest, or life in the suburbs, or life in a small town," she says.

The music videos – one for every single track, released as a visual album alongside the record – evoke a feeling similar to 'Spring Breakers', 'The Bling Ring' or even 'Project X', those vignettes of working class American characters with delusions of grandeur looking for a reason to be remembered, the films often floating by like a bizarre dream sequence.

"I'm from St. Louis, Missouri, so I feel like a lot of that spilt into all the visuals," she explains. "I just wanted to create this kind of fantasy world of my life, and use little references from childhood photos. I was also really inspired by the visual imagery that I would obsess over when I was in high school, and Tumblr, but I didn't want to make Tumblr-type visuals. A lot of the visuals feel forward, but also nostalgic for that internet time period when music videos had a certain colour grade, everything had a certain look, and things were less chic and a little more tacky. There's a lot of fun and whimsy from the styling to the set pieces, but also, there's a creepy element to it all. I'm a big fan of horror movies; it's a bunch of wacky little short films that feel like Midwest horror movies."

In order to fully deliver on her vision and not allow any of it to get lost in translation after filtering through anyone else's eyes, Slayyyter was incredibly hands-on with the whole project. Although for the first time wielding a major label budget (she signed a deal with Columbia when the album was around 80% done), she still chose a DIY direction, stepping behind the camera to direct every video. making the outfits herself and bringing in bits from her own house to dress the sets.

"The spirit of this album was to approach it very DIY. It wasn't about the glam and fancy designer clothes and crazy runway pulls. It's a lot of clothes from my closet, or a pair of jeans I ripped up, and it all feels very undone and imperfect, in a way. I don't even look very good in some videos. In 'OLD TECHNOLOGY', my face looks real, it's gritty, and I'm furrowing my brow and smoking weed; it's kind of nasty. There's something punk right now about not wanting to be so chic or being a woman and making pop music, and not being so glamorous with it; being kind of ugly and owning being kind of ugly. I think that that's more interesting than the super done-up and over-stylised imagery that is just, it's everywhere, it's like, fake images online, it's glossy photo shoots; things that are real feel so much more interesting to me."

As it turned out, the messiness is exactly what people wanted from Slayyyter, with the singles slowly gaining traction over the seven-month-long rollout, and connecting beyond the borders of her usual fanbase. Sick and tired of being dubbed an up-and-comer, 'WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA' seemed, to a lot of people, like her chance to truly break out.

"I feel like everyone's gonna jinx it," she says of the comments. "So, yeah, everyone, quiet down! I didn't have any expectations for this music. I do appreciate people paying attention or tuning in to what I'm up to, but it's not really the reason that I make things. I feel like artists always lie; they're like, I don't want fame and success. But I truly thought things were kind of over for me; I was considering moving back to St. Louis. Now the goal post of what I wanted with things has changed. I'm excited that everyone is liking my output, but I do feel like the nature of things moving forward is that I just want to make things that I love, things that I'm obsessed with. And I think that other people will like it too if I make it wholeheartedly. It has almost motivated me to stick to my guns with things and not compromise or try to do things because I'm expecting or want people to like it. On my last album, I definitely wanted, like, the big pop moment. This time around, I was just like, honestly, fuck it, whatever. So, people responding to that? I'm shocked. I'm like, wow, I didn't know that you guys got down like this."

But they haven't been wrong. This spring, she'll debut her brand new 'WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA' live show at Coachella, rehearsals for which are well underway when we chat. The tour in support of the album is mostly sold out, with venues already getting upgraded. She may not have been trying to make an 'authentic' album, but it's definitely been received as such, the audience valuing seeing her as herself more than any of the characters she's been before.

When 'CRANK' started taking off, a viral mashup of it hit the internet, splicing it with 'The Trolley Song' from Meet Me In St. Louis. The creator couldn't have known it, but that film, about finding everything you need in your hometown of St. Louis, made for a perfect (if not absolutely crackers) mirror to 'WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA'. ■

Taken from the May 2026 issue of Dork. Slayyyter's album 'WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA' is out now