Pop star anointments come in many forms — the most modern might be the festival performance that goes unexpectedly viral.
A couple years ago, a standout Lollapalooza set catapulted Chappell Roan from beloved cult figure to mainstream star. And this year, a daytime Coachella set underscored the fact that the young singer laying waste to pop is Slayyyter.
It was not always a guarantee that would, or could, happen. Slayyyter released her third album, “Worst Girl in America,” in March. It’s a rowdy ride, full of cranked-up electro and potty mouth lyrics tempered by some unerringly elegant songcraft — think Christina Aguilera meets Kesha. At 29, with two cult favorite albums under her belt, going even more eccentric was a risk, but ultimately one that paid off, cementing her spot in the 2020s pop-girl pantheon.
The videos from Coachella that circulated widely online showed a confident performer with a healthy sense of humor and a penchant for reckless abandon. They also showed a crowd prepared to rage right alongside her.
“I never dreamed that even the bare minimum of attention on my music at all was possible. When I was a hair salon receptionist and I got like 4,000 plays on SoundCloud, I was geeked. That was major to me,” Slayyyter said in an interview on Popcast, The New York Times pop culture show.
But now, in the thick of a breakout summer, Slayyyter (born Catherine Grace Garner) is maintaining a level perspective, formed in the cauldron of uncertainty that marked the early stretch of her career. “I just want the tools to make things that I love making, that I’m proud of,” she said. “If things go bigger from here, then that’s awesome. If everything stays right where it is, that’s also great, because this is so much more up than it was.”
In conversation with Popcast’s Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, Slayyyter discussed her slow-simmer career arc, why preexisting pop-star formats didn’t hang well on her shoulders, and how mainstream classics and forgotten detritus can be equally influential.
These are edited excerpts from the conversation, which can be watched in full or listened to below.
JOE COSCARELLI: You have done something that is not always common, which is leveling up not instantly, but later in your career. When did you know, oh, it’s finally happening, this thing I’ve been yearning and reaching for?
SLAYYYTER: I think the reception on “Beat Up Chanels,” even though that was pretty early on, that was the first single from this project. People really loved that right off the bat and I wasn’t really expecting them to like it so much. This whole album, I very much felt like my career was kind of done. I was like, you know what, this isn’t really working. I’m losing money on tours. It’s so expensive to tour, it’s unreal. But I just felt so over it all. And so I made this album from a place of like, all right, if I die tomorrow, and this is my last piece of art that I leave in the world, what would I want to say? What would I want it to sound like? I want to make stuff that I would have thought was cool when I was in high school and has a bit of punk electronic in it. Has a bit of distortion and dirty elements and feels like it hits home for me.
COSCARELLI: And that’s a genre that you’ve cleverly called iPod music.
SLAYYYTER: iPod music is almost more like [an] eclectic collection of songs that were popular around that time, so it’s not just like the cool indie stuff. Everyone at that time would usually share iTunes in their household so it’d be like some Beach Boys stuff from my mom and then like Lil Wayne from my sister and then I would download “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga or “Hung Up” by Madonna, or songs from Coldplay or M.I.A. or Santigold. The iTunes free single of the week, that was awesome. The amount of music I discovered that way when I was young — unreal.
JON CARAMANICA: You said something in an interview many years ago, talking about the early to mid-2000s, you said you love the flop pop stars of that era, like Heidi Montag’s pop career.
SLAYYYTER: Oh, she’s not a flop. [laughs]
CARAMANICA: I wonder if you can talk about the difference between serious music and unserious music. And do you think that there’s a gap there, or do you think that that’s a false dichotomy?
SLAYYYTER: I think there is a gap because people don’t know how to blend the two or maybe appreciate the two for what they are. I really hate pretentiousness with music. Nadia Oh is a great example. Space Cowboy, who was a producer on [Lady Gaga’s album] “The Fame,” produced all of this music for this artist Nadia Oh. She has all these great songs, but she didn’t really continue with the pop star thing. So if you will, a flop pop star.
COSCARELLI: You’re going to make people rediscover her. I think aspiring artists know how to pull from forgotten lost art, right? Do you feel like that’s part of your purpose as an artist, to take things that have been disrespected in the past and put a new sheen on them to have them reconsidered?
SLAYYYTER: Sometimes it’s not so thought out in that way. Things just kind of stick in my body or in my mind almost subconsciously. But yeah, I think that there’s something that’s been happening recently. I call it taste peacocking. And it really makes me annoyed. People will name niche bands and niche things, and it’s great to like those things. There’s nothing wrong with having good taste. But it’s OK to be like oh my god, I love Lindsay Lohan’s first album. Anyone who says they were listening to Death Grips when they were 12, you’re lying.
COSCARELLI: You opened for Charli XCX all the way back in 2019. Did you feel like, ‘oh, this is the one, this my rocket ship, and you just missed?’
SLAYYYTER: I’ve never felt that way on anything, honestly. Even with every project that maybe in the eyes of the general public would be considered a flop, I always had the slow, steady growth of this cultlike fan base. I don’t like to make excuses. I’m always just like, I’m gonna make something better and cooler, and better sounding, and just try to go deeper inside myself every time I make something, you know?
COSCARELLI: Pop songwriters who are writing the most No. 1 hits, I think even they are bringing a little more edge in the last couple of years. Was there ever a push to get you in the studio with Amy Allen or these hitmakers who are, I think, good at honing people’s individuality but also have their songs across 10 different people who are all over the radio?
SLAYYYTER: Yeah, I actually did a session with Amy Allen. She’s wonderful, wonderful. I feel like I write in such a specific way that it’s sometimes hard — like this whole album, I didn’t really work with any songwriters. I’ve tried to be more open with it, but it is hard for me. I don’t think anyone could write “Crank” but me. But also I have so much respect for Amy and Sabrina, Sabrina Carpenter’s project is so cool to me because it’s so pop star, but it’s also just different from what I feel like. I could almost do a TED Talk on why she’s not your typical pop star.
CARAMANICA: Did you know the Coachella thing was happening as it was happening? Because the thing about Coachella that I imagine must be frustrating for an artist, especially if you’re not the end-of-the-day headliner, is you just don’t know if they’re there for you, because people are buying tickets for the festival, not necessarily any one person.
SLAYYYTER: Definitely something was in the air that day, for sure, almost cosmically or spiritually. I didn’t realize how many people were actually in that tent or that that wasn’t normal for the time slot and whatnot, because I was the first set of the day. So it was one of those things where I kind of prepped myself: You’re going on pretty early. People might not be even in the festival yet. That’s OK, this is such a milestone either way.
I’m actually so glad that I played so early because it made it that much more special that there was that crazy of a turnout, but to be honest, not until the very last song of the set, “Beat Up Chanels,” I think I took my in-ear out and I heard people singing back and to hear that many voices, I was shocked. Usually when I get offstage, I have like a thousand notes about like, oh man, I missed that one note and blah, blah, blah. But this was the first time I like walked offstage and my friend Anna, who also was tour managing me that day, I just collapsed into her arms and I was just sobbing and I was just like, “We did it.”
Credits
Popcast is hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli and produced by Sophie Erickson and Kate LoPresti. This episode was filmed by Bernardo Garcia Elguezabal, Dave Mayers and Pat Gunther and edited by Jamie Hefetz. Our theme music is by Elisheba Ittoop. Nick Pitman is our audio engineer and Amanda Webster is our photo editor. Brooke Minters is our executive producer. Header video cinematography is by Tim Schutsky. Special thanks to Sarah Bonn, Rebecca Blandon, Dahlia Haddad, Mike Cordero, Nicole Huber, Aaron Byrd, Carl Mazurek, Zach Caldwell, Maddy Masiello, Brad Kimbrough, Andrew Wilcox, Sia Michel, Nina Lassam and Sam Dolnick.
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