Slayyyter Just Gets It
“First he love me, then he don’t / Fuck the 90210 / Get into this bag of coke / Brand new Prada means I’m broke” is how we’re greeted into the world of Starfucker. Finally, Slayyyter is the femme fatale that pop music has been waiting for.
On the same day we were all dancing to Kylie Minogue’s newest album, Tension, Slayyyter dropped what might be one of the most incredibly produced pop albums of the year, Starfucker. Full of sex, partying, drugs, plastic surgery, nudity, sleaze, discos, and love, Starfucker is a masterclass in how pop music can fully embrace letting go of your inhibitions. Slayyyter is telling us to be unapologetic with our sexuality and our bodies.
Starfucker is how Slayyyter makes sense of her time climbing the ranks in LA, moving from a beloved SoundCloud figure (her remix of ‘Gimme More’ is the best thing ever) to one of the coolest people in music right now. One thing that Slayyyter understands is the internet — and it understands her. TikTok is flooded with content featuring people stepping into their confidence. Sure, we may be having less sex but we are far more in tune with our own bodies, sexuality, and we’re embracing being called “bimbos”. That’s exactly what the world of Starfucker is. And it’s helping to usher in a new age of truly dirty pop music alongside Kim Petras, Tove Lo, and Charli XCX. “Three more seconds ’til I get naked” she proclaims in ‘Erotic Electronic’ before she talks about how drugs make her horny on ‘Purr’. She is the early 2000s pop star that we all deserve right now. With everything else that’s going on, all we want to do is be messy, party, have fun, and fall in love.
Stepping Into The World Of Starfucker
At first listen I thought ‘I Love Hollywood’ was satire. Lyrics like “Brand new face by Dr. Weiss”, “I look so heroin chic / It’s not fashionable to eat” are sung over a hyper-pop beat. But Slayyyter is painting the world she’s grown accustomed to — the flashy (often dark) lifestyle of celebrities, influencers, and pop stars. She’s revealing the sleazy underbelly of Hollywood with a modern-day coming-of-age story about trying to navigate your own identity when so much of it is an amalgamation of what we see on social media. We’re told to be thin, hot, rich, and somehow still socially aware enough to know that those are bad things to desire. Starfucker is a beast created by Hollywood. It’s what The Idol wishes it was.
A standout track, ‘Miss Belladonna’ showcases Slayyyter’s operatic vocals over campy, noir-ish lyrics. “I kiss him like poison / Sink in, never let him go”, “He lives for love and I live for drama”. In fact, Slayyyter designed the album to come from the point of view of ‘Miss Belladonna’. “[She] starts drama, she’s a bit of a bitch,” the singer said. “She’s using men to her advantage. She’s the ultimate starfucker.” There’s really a bit of all of us in Miss Belladonna.
If I wasn’t already convinced that Slayyyter created Starfucker for the messy gays, girls, and they’s, ‘Erotic Electronic’ and ‘Purr’ are just further proof. Slayyyter told Variety that growing up she said that if she were to make music one day, she would want to be “someone that makes music for the clubs and queer spaces”. Imagine trying to explain “Drugs make this kitty go purr” and “Pussy pop in the club, boys wanna fuck with a bitch like us” to a straight man. Those that get it, get it. And Slayyyter gets it.
Coming at the very end of the album, ‘Out of Time’ is its crowning glory. We see the desperation of a pop star wanting to cling onto whatever relevancy she can, even if she is running out of time. It only makes sense that Starfucker ends with the swan song of a dying femme fatale — we’ve journeyed through her tumultuous life and now we’ve reached her end in the spotlight.
What I love most about Starfucker is that it fits perfectly into the larger narrative of women just not giving a fuck anymore. They are owning whatever outdated label is thrown at them. Slut? Cool. Stupid? Whatever. Bimbo? Thank you. Kesha, Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster, Kylie Minogue, Marina and the Diamonds, and Britney Spears have evoked a similar spirit over the past 20 years and now Slayyyter feels like she’s paying homage to them whilst carving out her own legacy. Listening to Starfucker feels like inhabiting a world where Slayyyter coexists with all the other pop girlies.
The power of Starfucker rests in how it allows you to exist in its world — as unapologetic and free as you want to be.