About a month and a half after its initial release, Slayyyter’s STARF*CKER is getting a deluxe treatment: three additional tracks tacked onto the start of the project. With two solo cuts and one bearing a feature from a fellow pop princess, here’s everything you need to know about Slayyyter’s STARF*CKER deluxe.
Slayyyter’s STARF*CKER Deluxe Adds Three New Tracks
The Los Angeles-based popstar diverged greatly from her hyper-pop home base with the original version of the album, instead driving her sound in a much more electronic direction. And that bore fruit immediately, with the album becoming her first to hit the Billboard charts in its first week. At least on the production side, the LP shared more makeup with the ’80s revivalism from the likes of The Weeknd and Carly Rae Jepsen. In the new offerings, that remains constant. A three-pack of tracks that lead off the project in the new formulation, “Starf*cker,” “Makeup” and “James Dean” all carry retro synth work and overall instrumentation, a gritty and grimy contrast to some sleek vocal performances from Slayyyter herself.
On a more granular level, “Starf*cker” is a classic “lover scorned” kind of narrative, but both expertly produced and expertly structured. Some hard-hitting digital sections break up the song’s verse and hook sections, each a sleek piece of electro-pop that fans heard plenty of on the LP’s original release. “Makeup” gets a stellar assist from Lolo Zouaï and shows off another Slayyyter hallmark. It’s as sex-positive as they come, and both singers lean into that direction heavily in the track’s lyrics.
“James Dean” Is The Furthest Divergence In Sound
Finally, “James Dean” takes things up a notch on multiple fronts. While the previous two songs were largely accessible and ethereal in their makeup, the third track’s foundation is heavy, grinding synth sections that push it into techno or hardcore territory. Though it focused largely on nightlife, there’s also an eyebrow-raising lyrical moment towards the end, when the singer takes aim at a yet-unnamed fellow musician. “She wanna sound like Slayyyter but it’s not hitting / It’s my track that the DJ’s be spinning / It’s not you wh**** that keep on, keep winnin’ / I heard your new song and, b****, it’s not giving.”
Per Out Now magazine, Slayyyter said ahead of the release, “I wanted to do a deluxe of new songs fans haven’t heard and things that haven’t leaked. I think it’s a nice continuation of this era, everything fits into the album and tells more of the story. The visuals and sonic direction for the music has been so much fun to play with, I want to keep this era going for a while.” In that application, this new batch of songs is executed perfectly, further developing on the original album’s biggest strengths. You can find the deluxe version now on streaming platforms everywhere.
