There’s a new pop sensation in town, and her name is Chappell Roan. For pop culture enthusiasts, her name needs little introduction given the overnight popularity she has enjoyed in the matter of just a few short months since witnessing viral success with her single, HOTTOGO. However, the truth of the matter is that Roan has been a Hollywood staple a decade, toiling hard to carve a path of her own. With a signature fun and upbeat music signature and lyrics that betray honesty and vulnerability, it’s no wonder why she has been dubbed ‘your favourite artist’s favourite artist. So, join us as we take a look at the journey and best songs of Chappell Roan.
Her new single Good Luck, Babe! is currently soaring high through the charts. She debuted at number eight on Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart and topped the chart for three weeks in May 2024. Roan also managed to top the iTunes albums chart in the United States, surpassing Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. Moreover, in March 2023, she had over 3 million monthly Spotify listeners, and now just over a year later, she has approximately 24 million monthly listeners on the site.
Roan has just performed at Coachella and is now getting ready to perform at the Outside Lands Music Festival and Lollapalooza Chicago this year. So, it’s safe to say that we will see a lot more from her in the near future. So, let’s get to class and learn more about Chappell Roan, her best songs, music career, and more.
The new queer pop icon Chappell Roan, her best songs, rise to fame and more
Childhood
Born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz on February 19 1998 in Willard, Missouri, Roan, 26, is the eldest of four children. She was raised in a Christian household in a conservative trailer park. Her father was a registered nurse and her mother was a veterinarian. Roan began playing the piano at the age of ten, and when she was 14, she auditioned for America’s Got Talent; however, her efforts were unsuccessful.
The singer soon started posting covers on YouTube under her birth name Kayleigh Rose and experimented with songwriting. She graduated a year early to pursue her music career, missing out on numerous school experiences including prom and graduation, for which she has expressed regret.
The start of Kayleigh’s music career, the origins of Chappell Roan, and the exploration of her sexuality
Inspired by a summer camp experience at Interlochen Center for the Arts in 2014, Kayleigh wrote the song Die Young and posted it on her YouTube channel. The song was a major hit, attracting the attention of several record labels and another rising singer of the time, Troye Sivan. The Australian singer-songwriter promoted the song on Twitter (now X), and his YouTuber friend Connor Franta also hyped her up. The trio even met around the time; little did we know that both Troye and Kayleigh (Roan) would go on to become two of the biggest LGBTQ pop sensations of our time.
The singer moved to New York to begin her music career, and after several song showcases, she signed with Atlantic Records in May 2015. Kayleigh took on the stage name Chappell Roan in 2017 to pay tribute to her grandfather Dennis K. Chappell, who died the previous year and whose favourite song was Curley Fletcher’s The Strawberry Roan. In 2017, she released her first single Good Hurt as Chappell Roan, followed by her debut EP, School Nights. The young pop star then went on to support Vance Joy during his Lay It On Me Tour.
In 2018, Roan finally relocated to Los Angeles and mustered the courage to begin living her life openly as a queer woman. She later said in an interview that she wrote several queer songs while dating a guy and was unsure of her sexual orientation.
A bump in the road
In early 2020, she began working with songwriter and producer Dan Nigro, who has famously worked together with Conan Grey, Olivia Rodrigo, Lewis Capaldi, and others. In a departure from her previous melancholy songs, Roan released Pink Pony Club, which was produced by Nigro, in 2020 after visiting a gay bar in West Hollywood. She also released Love Me Anyway and California during the pandemic lockdown. However, her tracks did not offer much revenue to Atlantic this time around, and the label dropped her. During this period, she also ended a four-year relationship with her boyfriend.
For the next two years, she struggled significantly, mostly financially. The singer started to question if music was really meant to be her career. However, she supported herself by working as a barista, nanny, and production assistant. When Pink Pony Club started to gain traction, Roan returned to Missouri for a brief period to work on her music independently, supporting herself by working in a drive-through and a doughnut shop.
The comeback
Even after losing her record deal, Roan continued to make music. She kept working on her passions while juggling a bunch of side hustles. Eventually, she saved up enough to move back to LA. She secured a publishing deal with Sony and resumed working with Nigro. She released Naked in Manhattan as an independent artist, exploring her homosexual desires. The song was an instant hit, and Roan went on to open for Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour Tour and Fletcher’s Girl of My Dreams Tour. Within a few months, she had launched another ecstatic quirky song, Femininomenon. Following the success of her earlier releases, Chappell Roan then went on to release another song, Casual, also produced by Dan Nigro; the song recounted a brief romance with a partner who refused to commit.
In Febuary 2023, for the first time in her career, Roan embarked on her first headlining tour. Each tour stop had a theme, and she performed in various campy ensembles that she fashioned herself. She also encouraged her fans to do the same, and even had drag queens kick off her event. Her drag-inspired performances immediately became her unique selling point. In an interview, Roan mentioned how one of her drag queen openers had referred to her as a drag queen, which led her to recognise that, while she was simply Kayleigh, Chappell Roan was her drag persona. The distinction helped her to navigate the world as she gained more and more clout and influence.
In 2023, she signed with Amusement Records (Nigro’s Island Records imprint), and released another single titled Kaleidoscope. The singer went on to release Red Wine Supernova and Hot to Go!. Finally, in September 2023, Chappell Roan released her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, followed by the Midwest Princess Tour.
The next chapter
From February to April 2024, Roan opened for Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour in the United States and Canada. That’s not all; she also sang backing vocals for four songs on Rodrigo’s album GUTS, and the two pop sensations remain close friends today. In April 2024, Roan released the single Good Luck, Babe!, marking the beginning of her next chapter. The song became a major hit, debuting at number 77 on the Billboard Hot 100. Later that month, Roan appeared at Coachella. Following the GUTS World Tour, the singer’s Spotify listeners soared dramatically. In June 2024, her debut album entered the top ten of the Billboard 200 and the top ten of Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart for the first time at number eight.
Roan recently performed at the Governors’ Ball Music Festival in front of a huge crowd, and she will also be performing at the Lollapalooza Chicago 2024 and Outside Lands Festival 2024.
Beyond music
Chappell Roan recently turned down an invitation to perform at The White House for pride. pic.twitter.com/zlJymlUwmW
— 🏁 (@concertleaks) June 9, 2024
Beyond her songs and music, Chappell Roan is also one to speak her mind unapologetically, a quality that has endeared her to admiring fans.
Even during interviews, she’s not afraid to voice her truth. She talks about her sexuality, the dark nature of the music industry, how it can take a toll on someone’s physical and mental health, and how she tries her best to protect herself from it. In an interview with Q with Tom Power on YouTube, she shared, “In this industry, you really flourish if you don’t protect yourself.”
There’s a rumour that Chappell Roan was invited to the White House to perform at Pride celebrations 2024. However, while the POTUS has not indicated whether this is true or false, Roan appeared to hint at the invitation during her Gov Ball performance, saying, “We want liberty, justice and freedom for all. When you do that, that’s when I’ll come.”
The artist has also spoken about her unique stage outfits with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. Explaining her aesthetic, she said, “We pull from drag. We pull from horror movies, we pull from burlesque, we pull from theatre.”
Is Chappell Roan really “Your favorite artist’s favorite artist”?
If you search “Chappell Roan” on Google, you get a prompt that says “Did You mean: Your favorite artist’s favorite artist”. It all started when she introduced herself at Coachella, saying, “I’m Chappell Roan, and I’m your favorite artist’s favorite artist”. She later explained during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon that she had said it in reference to her favourite drag queen, Sasha Colby, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 who had said, “I’m your favorite drag queen’s favorite drag queen”.
When Jimmy asked her about the Google prompt, she said, “I didn’t do that.” “No, it’s this random twink that works at Google. It’s some assistant who’s like, ‘We love her.’”
Still, the comment may not entirely be too farfetched, as many acclaimed artists have expressed their love for Chappell Roan and her music. The young artist is praised by audiences and critics for her authenticity, performing style and expression of homosexuality. Elton John has praised her talent and invited her to his Rocket Hour podcast. Olivia Rodrigo shared that Chappell Roan was her top artist of 2023 on Spotify Wrapped. Artists like Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Sabrina Carpenter have all sung her praises, with Carpenter even covering her song Good Luck, Babe! on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge.
Best songs of Chappell Roan
While Chappell Roan does not have a huge discography at present, there are still some songs we love more than the others. Here’s the list of our favourite tracks:
- Good Luck, Babe!
- Femininomenon
- My Kink Is Karma
- After Midnight
- Naked In Manhattan
- Casual
- Pink Pony Club
- Red Wine Supernova
- HOT TO GO!
- Love Me Anyway
- Die Young
- Guilty Pleasure
Personal Life
The singer was diagnosed with bipolar II disease at the age of 22, but she has admitted to struggling with her mental health since childhood. Therapy and medication have both helped her in her mental health battle.
As for her dating history, Chappell Roan has done an excellent job of keeping her personal life private. She mentioned dating a boy for four years whom she broke up with during the Pink Pony Club era. She later shared that she is no longer interested in dating boys, saying, “[Dating a dude] is literally not fun. It isn’t fun, it is not hot, it is not fascinating. It is boring.” Roan then revealed that she was dating a girl. “I feel scared kissing her in public,” she said. “Even though I’m in L.A., homophobia is in the back of my head. It’s liberating, but there’s a new set of problems that I didn’t know existed.”
Her current relationship status is not confirmed.
(Main and featured image: chappellroan/Instagram)
This article first appeared here.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Chappell Roan is a stage name of the drag persona of Kayleigh Rose Amstutz. IShe coined the name in honour of her grandfather Dennis K. Chappell, who died the previous year and whose favourite song was Curley Fletcher's "The Strawberry Roan".
No, Chappell Roan uses the name as an imagery.
Chappell Roan is represented by Wasserman Music.
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After graduating from Calcutta University, Pallabi started her writing career as a freelancer. "She's so pieces" is the phrase that describes her the best. Pallabi is another typical introvert who loves to hide behind written words. Music is her comfort language. Binge-watching and eating delicious foods is her favourite pastime.
