This post is an excuse to talk about Chappell Roan. I have some things to say, ok!!!
Since discovering her approximately one month ago, not a day has passed where I have not thought about Chappell Roan — her aesthetic, her songs, and her potential.
I’d heard her name before, and for some unexplained reason, it had been stuck in my head for the days leading up to that tweet. She was seeping into my brain, subliminally. I’d seen sporadic mentions of her online; I’d later learn it was because people were loving her new song “Good Luck, Babe!” I decided to finally give it a listen, and oh my god. An explicitly bitter sapphic anthem??? I was locked in. After vibing with that song, I remembered that I saw she did an NPR Tiny Desk that people were chattering about. I watched that and thought “Vocals! Okay girl!!”
Then, I decided to peruse her YouTube channel and listen to some other songs. I loved what I was hearing, particularly “Red Wine Supernova.” I saw the title of her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and felt a moral obligation to listen as a Midwest princess myself.
So one Friday night, after putting my child to sleep later than usual1, I listened from start to finish and decided: she. is. IT.
Turns out, my trajectory from stranger to stan was happening to a lot of people at the exact same time. Peaking with her Coachella stint, Miss Roan’s streams have skyrocketed over the last month. She saw a spike in streams while she was the opener on Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour, then saw consistent jumps with new releases and big platform showcases, as shown here:
I, like so many others, see something special in Chappell. The cliche is used a lot, but she is a breath of fresh air to the pop scene. She is nostalgic and forward-thinking. She’s committed to anthemic pop hooks and cheeky lyrics. She can do ballads and ditzy bops in equal measure, without sacrificing vocals. Above all, she is avant garde, and the epitome of what it means to embody burlesque as a verb.
In short, she is Baby Gaga. If Gaga is Pikachu, Chappell is Pichu.\
When Gaga burst onto the scene in 2008, after bubbling underground in NYC clubs for years, people loved the music right away. She helped catapult pop into the EDM/electronica/techno sound that infected the genre in the early 2010s (I’d argue she even pioneered the wave). As she released more singles, her star rose, and as such she became mainstream. The public was perplexed and hypnotized by her costume-y fashion, existential discussion of her music, and chaotic performances. Gaga couldn’t simply be listened to, she had to be seen, experienced with your eyes. She was a full package, and insisted that she was everything all at once.
Gaga, in all of her maximalism, didn’t really care if the public “got” her. She just insisted on executing her vision for herself and her art. This attitude has cemented her in the annals of pop history. She was over-the-top because she saw music as a vessel for other forms of artistic expression like dance, fashion, makeup, and art. To create a bombastic persona like Lady Gaga requires a verve and indifference to being perceived as tacky. Through the dramatic, we can expose; this is what the ideology of “burlesque” is all about.
I feel Chappell approaches her art the same way. Often seen with a painted-white face and literal drag queen makeup, she lives the spirit of burlesque and drag and brings them into her music. I think the best song — and video — to illustrate who Chappell is as an artist is “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl.”
In it, Chappell walks the streets of Hollywood in metallic boots and monologues about the ridiculousness of men — as she looks equally as ridiculous with electric blue powder contouring her cheeks. The visuals cut between grainy, camcorder shots and surreal panoramic views with Chappell being the center of her own universe. And her moxy shines through in the lyrics as well. Like Mother before her, she seeks to grab our attention and challenge our perception of what female pop stars can be.
I think what I like most about her, really, is that she has smashed open the pop girl formula. Like Gaga did for legions of people 15 years ago, Chappell is reminding people that you don’t have to sing in garbled baby voice and saunter showing everything but T&A2 to be sexy or cool. Sure, Gaga did show more skin compared to Chappell, but there was always the sense that being sexy was ancillary to what she set out to do with her music. Sexy for Gaga was never a performance; it was a way of being. Chappell similarly is very sensual in the way she moves, sings, and smolders. It comes from within, but she doesn’t overidentify with the quality of it.
Both women are also openly queer, and bring that queerness to their art. They both embrace a “more is more” approach to the worlds they create as musicians, which aligns with the ethos of queer culture. They are unconcerned about being superfluous, seeming tasteless, or fitting within the paradigms of respectability that cis/straight society adheres to. I know Gaga may have toned herself down in recent years in pursuit of award prestige for her acting, but for those of you that weren’t coming of age during her rise, she was once considered a dangerous pariah to the public.
Time has shown that certain issues will always spark ire among conservatives, but Gaga’s insistence on speaking for and to queer people paved the way for artists like Chappell to both be as peculiar as they are and overtly gay. The latter in particular is one of the key differences between Mother and Daughter. Chappell has taken her bisexuality further in her music than Gaga by actually writing about relationships with women in multiple main release singles. “Good Luck, Babe!” is a song quite literally about comp-het3, in basically capital letters! There is no subtext! No innuendo! By no means am I asserting that Chappell is the first to do this; however, I truly believe she has the potential to be the first superstar to sing! about! loving! girls!
Perhaps the most interesting difference between the two — or even, between Chappell and most artists generally — is how Chappell separates her personhood from her stage persona. She’s explained that there is a difference between Chappell (the artist) and Kayleigh (the person), as well as that she wants to protect her mental health as she climbs the ladder of success. Unlike Gaga, who exhausted herself to obscure the line between self and stage (and I’d argue, thrived in that ambiguity), Chappell is interested in creating distance between the two identities.
She describes Chappell Roan as a “project,” one that she won’t be working on forever. It’s an attitude that is truthfully a little sad to hear as a new fan, but one that more artists could afford to take in an industry becoming more exploitative than ever. By allowing herself to be a person outside of the drag persona she’s invented, she’ll likely be able to create better music and live experiences for her fans, as she’d be working from an emotionally regulated place. This disrupts the story we’ve been told about tortured artists forever, and we should be here for it!
I don’t necessarily see Chappell reaching the heights of her Mother before her. Not because I don’t think she could do it, but because it seems like she doesn’t want to. But, given how quickly she’s gaining new fans, I’m not sure she’ll be able to shake the “indie” status for much longer.
Maybe the funniest similarity between Gaga and Chappell is their rabid fanbases: a bunch of freaks, outcasts, theater kids, art students, and of course, queer people. People who, in one way or another, have felt the sting of rejection for their appearance, sexuality, or interests. It makes sense that when they see one of their own “make it” producing art that speaks to them, they’d be a lil’ obnoxious about singing their praises to just about anyone who will listen.
It will be these motormouth Midwestern princesses like me that uplift her into stardom. Chappell Roan is going places. Metallic knee-high boots and all.
Kids do this funny thing where they know you really want to do something after you put them to sleep, so they insist on staying up later so you either can’t do it or extract the full amount of joy from doing it. It’s a fun lil game! (help)
There is nothing wrong with this FYI!!!! Put down your pitchforks!
Compulsory heterosexuality.