What do lipstick-stained teeth, sparkles, and pink cowgirl hats have in common? Chappell Roan, that’s who.
The increasingly popular singer-songwriter, who’s the vivid alter-ego of Willard, Missouri’s Kaleigh Rose Amstutz, has garnered mass amounts of media attention due to her catchy songs and striking performances.
The origins of Chappell Roan are derived from her late grandfather, Dennis Chapell, and his favorite song “The Strawberry Roan.” The artist writes songs inspired by her upbringing in a highly religious, conservative Midwest town where being gay was seen as a sin — and her subsequent move to Los Angeles, where she felt comfortable to live openly as a queer woman.
Long before the release of her hit 2023 album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” teenage Roan got her start by uploading cover songs to YouTube. A few original songs and performances later, her talent was recognized and signed by Atlantic Records. In 2017, she released her first single “Good Hurt,” which would eventually become a part of her first EP, “School Nights.”
After moving to L.A., she released her 2020 single: “Pink Pony Club,” inspired by an actual gay bar called The Abbey. Universal Music commented on her single, believing it set the tone for Roan’s evolution into her own version of pop stardom: a small town rhinestone cowgirl delivering euphoric, heartfelt bangers, and a queer icon for a generation.
Despite the success of the single, the lack of profits caused Atlantic Records to drop her from the label. She moved back to Missouri and worked as a production assistant, barista and nanny to support herself.
“I felt like a failure, but I knew deep down I wasn’t,” Roan said.
Moving back to L.A., Roan told herself that if noting happened in a year, she would have to move back to the midwest once again. She resumed her work with producer Dan Nigro (Grammy-winning producer of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour”) to create her widely popular album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.”
The album, named after her Midwest origins and personal tattoo that reads “princess,” is an incredibly fun, synth-heavy assembly of what I can only describe as exhilaratingly campy, peppy queer girl anthems and heart-wrenching ballads. Reminiscent of pop from both the 80s and the early 2000s, the (mostly) upbeat tunes are highly danceable and delightfully effervescent.
But perhaps it’s Roan’s tender, relatable, angry, and at times, very comedic lyrics that make her particularly stand out from the crowd. The mix of emotional hard-hitters like “But I’d rather feel something than nothing at all,” and “Could go to hell but we’ll probably be fine” juxtaposed with the silliness that is “Get it hot like Papa John” and “No need to be hateful in your fake Gucci sweater” leads to a jumble of thoughtful, relatable, and belt-worthy lines. There’s a bucketful of other lyrics I’d love to include, but due to her unabashedly raunchy lyrics, I think I’ll omit those for now.
“I think that a lot of the songs are from daydreams, and a lot of that daydreaming happened from Missouri, from this repressed state of not having a queer community growing up and feeling really weird,” Roan said, explaining the album.
Furthermore, in Roan’s album trailer, she hinted, “This album is about the birth of my queerness. Accepting it, at least. Where I grew up here, is in me no matter what… I will forever be from Willard, Missouri.”
While this album is such a deeply personal telling of Chappell’s experiences, its relatability means heaps to her fanbase. It’s incredibly refreshing to hear such a confident queer woman sing unapologetically about other women — a perspective that can sometimes be buried in the flurry of pop music releases today. Although there are several notable exceptions to this, Roan’s “championing (of) open and honest expression of identity and unapologetic sexuality” is a very distinguishing mark.
On top of just her music, Roan’s impact on the queer community extends far off-stage as well. For example, during her “Naked in North America” Tour for “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” she hired three local drag queens from each location to be her opening act.
“It’s just your duty as an artist to…do your part. Especially if you’re profiting off queer people, you best be giving back, they are loyal,” Roan said.
In addition to highlighting local drag performers, she has donated profits from her tour to For the Gworls, a charity supporting Black transgender individuals. Not to mention, she provided a scholarship program for tickets at the start of her tour.
“I didn’t want queer kids in the Midwest who can’t afford to join the safe space for them [to miss out], just because they don’t make enough,” Roan said.
In addition to her own tour, Chappell has been signed on to be the opening act for Olivia Rodrigo’s “Guts World Tour” in the US and Canada. She has also performed on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in February and NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concert” in March.
More recently, however, she performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, increasing her popularity substantially as she went viral on social media for her captivating performances.
“To be playing Coachella as my first festival is surreal. I can’t believe it. I’ve always heard of it growing up, but I genuinely have no idea what to expect…except to have fun,” Roan said.
Sometime between all of these performances, Roan released her latest single “Good Luck, Babe!” — described as the song for kicking off her “next chapter” of music. The song, which is about someone still coming to terms with their sexuality, has not yet been confirmed to be a part of an album. However, she explains, “I’m sure I’ll come to an album but, for now, I’m just writing songs that I love and putting them out.”
With the help of the now-viral single “Good Luck, Babe!” Chappell Roan is now a Billboard Hot 100 charting artist. She is becoming more and more well-known; according to Billboard, the song has 6.6 million official streams, 67,000 in radio airplay audience and 1,000 downloads sold in the U.S. through April 11.
As I’m writing this on April 26th, “Good Luck, Babe!” is Spotify’s 27th most-listened-to song in the USA, as well as the 2nd song on the Viral 50 Global and USA playlists. Not to mention, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is number 17 on the Top Albums USA playlist.
So, it seems as though Chappell Roan has finally received the attention, the spotlight, and the recognition she has worked so hard for. The recognition she deserves.
As Jem Aswad writes for Variety, “A superstar is born?… Chappell Roan already was one — it’s just taken the world a minute to catch up.”
Thus, the rise of the girl from Willard, Missouri, the rise of a confident queer artist, is the rise of Chappell Roan, the Midwest Princess.
