#Instagram Photo
25
JUL
2024
Chappell Roan Shines in 2024 with Viral Hit and Nostalgic, Queer-Inspired Album
Chappell Roan has emerged as a prominent pop star in 2024, especially following the viral success of her song "Good Luck Babe." Her album "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess" combines 80s and 2000s nostalgia with a queer aesthetic, establishing her as a central figure in contemporary pop music.
By Elena Pampliega - Gorilaspain Magazine
In the midst of the sad girls’ dominance of the music industry, listeners have made a silent claim to find fun in daily listening. It could be sensed in TikTok’s speed-up versions, in the rise of English hyper pop, and in the international obsession with figures such as Sabrina Carpenter. But it is (and increasingly) an established fact that nostalgia is what truly makes the world go around, and that without references to tie themselves up to, pop culture is progressively becoming stagnant. One of its virtues is that its population is made up (almost entirely) of women who for a minimum period of two years rule an industry (usually the music one) and who are characterized by constituting a concept themselves: their songs, their aesthetics, their personality...
Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna or Selena Gomez are basic examples of what one day back in the first half of the 2010s meant to monopolize all stares and, in the eyes of young pre-teens, "being flawless". However, it is difficult to remember when the last pop phenomenon aroused a hysteria similar to that cultivated by Hannah Montana at the time; which is, in fact, the reason why most women born in the early 2000s long for the spotlight. In addition to the reason why they had not appeared until recently: they were growing.
Trends always find their way back. And someone had to show up. Amidst the hubbub and the search process, Chappell Roan’s name (Kayleigh Rose Amstutz) appeared: an American artist who has officially skipped the emerging process to become the epicenter of 2024’s female singers. And Elton John’s. Her pop girl degree was formalized over two months ago due to the viralization of her latest song Good Luck Babe, an instant indie-pop classic that navigates compulsive heterosexuality, and that has managed to officialy enter the Billboard Hot 100 list’s Top 10.
CAREER Chappell Roan's career has been plotting for nearly a decade through a literary classic of pop culture: a premature discovery on Youtube, followed by a signing with a record label and an EP entitled "School Nighst" that tried to see the light of day in 2017. However, an uprising indie singer’s low recognition to begin with, mixed with an album that she herself described as "witchy, dark, serious", was a shot in the dark that made her step aside from professional music for a while when she was still a teenager.
After an challenging starting point, she was fired by her label and began her path as an independent artist while working in a donut shop. Classic.
However her stroke of luck came shortly after when she met Daniel Nigro, one of the highest requested music producers at the moment who (in addition to working hand-tohand with artists such as Olivia Rodrigo) discovered Roan, offered to engage in the production of two of her singles, and introduced her into the industry with opportunities such as becoming the opening act of a few Olivia Rodrigo’s “SOUR Tour” shows.
She later on began her own tour based on her previous EP and loosen singles, while still maintaining her job as a waitress; but the uprising notoriety she was gaining on social media prompted her to start her sophomore album; a project that came outin September 2023 under the title "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess". Which has, after all, become her new starting point.
THE RISE AND FALL OF A MIDWEST PRINCESS "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess" is a synth-pop album based on the 80s and early 2000s’ beat, with a classic but bulletproof formula: good vocals, impeccable harmonies, personal but fun lyrics, and a maximum of five ballads for every fifteen songs.
But "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess"’s success, and, more specifically,Chappell Roan’s, is that it serves as a reflection of her life and professional career’s personality so far. It is not an author's work in the shape of a personal diary in disguise, but it is the narration of daily contexts full of sarcasm that manage to build a person through love, sex, confusion, and self-discovery. And impecable storytelling skills.
And just like a more than consummated artist, Chappell Roan has already managed to be considered a concept herself thanks to the scenic ensemble that surrounds her. In addition to showing an overwhelming personality in front of the press, she portrays a full theatrical stage presence, based on a constant drag performance that the audience claims as the definitive comeback of camp fashion.
She is the “feminomenon”. Not only that, but she is the result of decades of pop culture references that the public had been long yearning. Not only is her stage name inspired by Marty Robin’s Strawberry Roan (a western 1954 song adored by her late grandfather), but she also makes continious references to RuPaul’s Drag Race and 2000’s fun desings. The public shamelessly joins the choruses because it represents a moment of teenage nostalgia together with the desire for a promising future.
She brings back the acclaimed "2014 fun pop girl" concept that was on the verge of becoming vintage, and blends it together through queer aesthetics and a new YMCA that she has personally come up with. If nostalgia were an American pop girl, it would most definitely be Chappell Roan. But we must not take for granted the essential role that the “person behind the persona” plays.
Chappell Roan is famous not only for having released an album full of lighthearted music, but because that’s exactly how she presents herself to the audience. Admiration for public figures usually includes parasocial relationships with them that are difficult for the audience to bear; but more indeed for the artist itself.
Roan’s concept isn’t limited in her music, but it rather adds to a set of characteristics that, one way or another, would have captured the public’s attention sooner rather than later.
Chappell Roan is still Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, a teenager with a dream and a story to tell; with a history hindered by chance and a process of queer self-discovery that brought her to where she is now and that she prooudly carries as a flag. That is how an "It Girl" is created; That's how a star is born.
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