Slayyyter Delivers 2026’s Ultimate Pop Thrill Ride

Before this year, Slayyyter’s potential has always exceeded her output. As befits an artist who took her stage name from Richard Linklater’s 1994 slacker comedy “Dazed and Confused,” Slayyyter — real name, Catherine Garner — always had a distinct style. But until recently, that never came out in the music.Her first two records, “Troubled Paradise” and “Starfucker,” had flashes — a highlight track here and there — but were messy, slight, and never quite lived up to the atmosphere around them. She just felt like another post-hyperpop new music star.That is, until her third record and major-label debut, “Wor$t Girl in America.” It’s a pulsing blend of fuzzy guitar, thumping drums, and glitchy techno production. Slayyyter has made a record meant for raves, loud Coachella performances — which it got, with plenty of deserved praise — and, in my case, head-banging in the gym. It’s not just the best pop record so far in 2026, but songs like “Beat Up Chanel$” and “Dance…” — the two highlights — are some of the best rock songs of the year too.To start with those: “Dance…” and “Beat Up Chanel$” are a one-two punch of high-octane, in-your-face tracks. “Dance” is one of the first songs she made in this era, and is a nice lead-in to the sound; less grungy than some of the later tracks, but slowly, dramatically rising into a pulsing electro-pop banger. It starts slow, but once the beat arrives, it keeps moving, and pulls you right into the harder wallop of “Beat Up Chanel$.”It’s Slayyyter’s best song ever, pairing aggressive rap-like delivery with soft vocals, blown-out synths, and a hard thumping beat as she lusts after expensive things she can’t afford and would be bound to trash. It’s hyperpop with deeper bass and G-Unit swagger, and it’s a masterpiece.The rest of the album never reaches this high again, but it’s never far from the bar.“Cannibalism!” is an outright rock track, with fast pummeling instrumentals and Slayyyter’s vocals swinging from clean pop all the way to pure noise. Meanwhile, “Old Technology” is an industrial dance eulogy for early digital tech — cameras, iPods, personal stereos — with clipping, tearing vocals, deliberately lo-fi production, and a fun, dumb drug-mantra chorus.Where her previous records were a little hard to pick out, “Wor$t Girl in America” doesn’t sound like any other pop record. It’s built to soundtrack an all-nighter — dancing in some grimy spot in the middle of nowhere, a long way from the Hollywood gloss she used to chase. And it sounds fantastic.The vinyl I bought is a single translucent sage-green disc, with a photo insert and a fold-out central photograph. The gatefold is fine but unremarkable — a record this special deserved a pressing to match. But the pressing is clean, the inner sleeve prints every lyric in tight all-caps — chic, if not especially functional — and it is a pleasure to own the cover art at this size.

Slayyyter Delivers 2026’s Ultimate Pop Thrill Ride

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