PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICK LITTLE
STYLING BY CODY ALLEN

Slayyyter is a pop star who gets it. We’re still a few months away from the release of her widely-anticipated debut album, Troubled Paradise, yet the independent artist has been – in the words of one fan – “feeding the gays” and “saving the music industry” with the vibrant campaign, releasing music video after music video and expanding on her signature “bimbo” aesthetic that garnered her a loyal following with her self-titled 2019 mixtape. She’s giving us the full pop era experience in a time where music videos are a dying breed due to the increasingly popular nature of streaming services and, of course, TikTok, where a (half-assed) dance craze can catapult a song to the top of the charts. “I just always looked up to the full package when it came to artists, people who visually have such an identity,” says Slayyyyter. “I get bummed out because I’m like, ‘Oh my god, was Lady Gaga the last great artist that we’re ever gonna have?’ There’s less raw talent forming cool, artistic projects that get me excited. I feel like that is getting lost now because everything’s like, ‘What’s the next quick song that we can push?’ That makes me sound like an old, bitter hater!” 

The star, birth name Catherine Slater, is the antithesis of the aforementioned pop artists who release one or two music videos per “era”, or, none at all. So far, she’s released four clips, each of which boast their own unique identity. In the red-tinted video for Self-Destruct (featuring Wuki), Slayyyter embraces her inner she-devil, horns included, and performs the track with a hand-held camera over a grainy filter to match the experimental track’s chaotic energy. The video for the title track, to us, feels like her first major pop-star clip. Set against a colourful, jungle-esque background, Slayyyter busts out choreo with backup dancers in matching tiger-print catsuits. It’s a pop moment. Clouds see the star escape to the skies, as well as some Wonderland and Oz-inspired locations, while Cowboys follows her on horseback in the desert, complete with high-fashion western ensembles.

Like the tracks on her mixtape, each of these singles are energetic, up-tempo numbers with breathy vocals and glossy production. Slayyyter’s genre of music has been referred to as hyperpop, a rising movement characterised as a maximalist take on pop music, which has been popularised in recent years by artists such as 100 Gecs, Charli XCX and SOPHIE. When we ask Slayyyter if this is the style of music that she’s always wanted to create, she responds: “I’ve always loved experimental, fast-sounding pop. SOPHIE was always a big influence on my music, and I think a lot of early Gaga stuff was borderline hyperpop. People look at hyperpop as such a dirty word, like a cringe thing, but I don’t mind it. I wouldn’t say all of my songs are in the hyperpop category, but there is definitely some influence in there with the experimental production. It’s not straightforward pop, but it has an edge to it.” 

While hyperpop is yet to make a considerable dent in the charts, the genre’s fanbase, which largely consists of LGBTQ+ listeners, are passionate. You can often see these fans on Twitter in the comments section of PopCrave and ChartData’s posts, where they’ll tell other fanbases that their “fave” outsold or received more critical acclaim from metrics such as Metacritic. As we discuss the pros (and cons) of Stan Twitter, Slayyyter’s face lights up. As a pop music fanatic and prominent Twitter user, she enjoys the interactions between the Swifties, the Monsters, the Barbz and the Beyhive (honestly, we could go on), due to their hilarious quips and comebacks, as well as their loyalty. “People will come to your shows. They want to hear from you. They’re actually interested in what you’re doing! They want to buy your merch. It’s not just like, ‘Oh, this is an artist on my Spotify playlist.’ They want to hear from me and they care about how I’m doing,” she says. 

But like we said above, there are cons. There are a select few fans who cross the line and become personal, from attacking the appearance or weight of a pop star they’re not fond of, or even sending death threats. “I feel like some people cross the boundaries of privacy,” she says, as the conversation turns slightly more serious. “I’ve gotten weird DMs that include information about my family, their addresses and other stuff they shouldn’t know about. It gets past the borderline of what makes me comfortable sometimes. I tried to use a fake last name because I didn’t want people to find my mom and sister, but it gets to a certain point where there’s nothing you can do.”

She explains further: “I think people now feel more entitled to the music and artists they stan. They look at us like Barbie dolls and less than human. It’s in the culture now. ‘Your fave is a flop, they had a fucked up haircut this month and yours gained weight, blah blah blah.’ It gets really nasty and makes you feel bad about yourself. I’ve definitely struggled with body image because of the things people say about my body or face. It’s over the top, more so than it used to be. But, I feel like it’s just the price you pay for putting yourself out there on the internet. At the end of the day, music is my job. So, all the hate and negativity that comes with that, I have to just bite the bullet and make my way.”

Slayyyter is speaking to us from the confines of her bed in LA. She keeps insisting that she doesn’t look “too great” or enough like a popstar, but she still looks immaculate. It’s a vulnerable side that we don’t often see from the star, who accompanies her uptempo – yes, we’re gonna say it again – hyperpop sound with a fierce and sexually-liberated aesthetic. When we ask if there’s any separation between her industry persona and Catherine, she hesitates before responding. “Urm, I would say there is… a bit. I think every artist puts on a persona to make music, and Slayyyter is fully done up with makeup and is more of a sexual, bimbo character. There’s pieces of both personalities that kind of overlap.” With this aesthetic, which she says was inspired by reality stars turned musicians such as Heidi Montag and Paris Hilton, Slayyyter earned legions of fans across the world who celebrated her image, rather than slut-shame her. Daddy AF, from her mixtape, features lyrics such as “He wanna get in my guts, lickin’ my clut ‘til I nut,” while she sings on Candy, “Want you to taste it, cause it’s tasty baby, make it drip. I’m gonna scream your name ‘til all your neighbours hear it. My pussy tastes sweet like candy.”