Do you like vapid Hollywood indulgence? If so, this new Slayyyter record might be the album of your dreams. To describe Starfucker in mainstream pop terms, imagine Due Lipa meets Ava Max, but turn the sensuality and sexuality up to eleven. Luxurious electropop, tight dance floor ready baselines, and lyrics that delve headfirst into glitzy Hollywood stardom.
I’m not denying it’s a good formula, it absolutely is evidenced by how this album has hooks for days, but its also one that lacks dimensionality Slayyyter is certainly a convincing presence behind the mic, but whether she’s able to keep your attention for the full album will be largely dependent on how invested you are in her singular blueprint that she reproduces: bragging about how attractive she is, flaunting her sexuality, and stealing guys from their current girlfriends. On songs like ‘Dramatic’ and ‘My Body’ these fleeting romances are framed not as wants, but as needs. On the former song she’s even urging the guy to cheat on his girlfriend with her, as well as being completely ready to cheat on her current partner herself. The vibes might be impeccable, but the content is rarely aspirational.
For me, the lows are obvious. The grating synth on ‘Purrr’ and the mocking delivery paired with the overblown bass on ‘Plastic’ make them the worst songs here. They’re both emblematic of the main weakness of the album: Slayyyter’s sexual indulgences don’t really have an end goal beyond a brief window of dance floor escapism. It might be honest to the Hollywood experience she’s trying to sell, but at some point you’ve got to step back and wonder what the stakes are to all this.
The best songs on the album do exactly that. ‘Girl Like Me’ is the most sensitive, two-sided romance on the whole album as both partners suss each other out to understand what they want (also the hook is luscious), and ‘Out Of Time’ implies the very real possibility that Slayyyter’s time in the glamours world of pop stardom that she sings about might well be fleeting. As a songwriter, Slayyyter can get more interesting and vulnerable when she wants to.
I’d recommend checking this album out, but mostly on the strength of the best songs rather than as a whole. The greater truth might be that Starfucker isn’t an album designed to be listened to as a full cohesive project. Instead it’s made for little snippets at the club, and, if I’m being honest, if I heard this at the club, I’d probably make a beeline straight to the dance floor.
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