So I got Chappell Roan in front of me for the very first time when I decided to follow an impulse to check out the fashion getups at Sunday night’s Grammy Awards show. One never knows what might appear there as “clothes,” however scanty, billowing, or seemingly fitted for extraterrestrial giants they might be. Landing on the page, I beheld Ms. Roan’s utterly ridiculous looking “gown” (THIS IS THE GRAMMYS, after all!), which the “New York Times” described thusly:
“Ms. Roan arrived in a burgundy, opaque chiffon cape, a custom design by Mugler, that perfectly matched the color of her hair. When she walked onto the red carpet, she shed her cape to reveal a barely there, opaque floor-length skirt that hung in place from nipple piercings. Skin was in, but compared with Ms. Roan, other artists who also attempted a naked look on Sunday night came across as almost prudish.”
Well.
My next move as a faithful and enterprising reporter was to head straight to You Tube to scratch my natural itch on what kind of award-winning singer would deign to wear an “opaque floor-length skirt that hung in place from nipple piercings.”
I have to fight a certain amount of knee-jerk revulsion that snaps into place when beholding modern pop music culture. The curmudgeonly old man in danger of totally missing the point of the pure campy theater of the whole enterprise.
I was suspecting, as you might guess, that she’d turn out to be just another breathy post-teen queen singing indistinguishably from scores of others who compensate for their lack of actual music-making by dressing outrageously, cursing bawdily, writhing uncontrollably, and “singing” so vapidly as to make one’s heart long for the halcyon days when “Up With People” stirred the souls of America with a record four Super Bowl half-time appearances through the 1970s-80s. (Take that, Bad Bunny!)
And then I clicked on “Pink Pony Club,” and in about three seconds I heard myself exclaiming to the walls of my living room: “Whoa—a singer!”
Followed by: “That girl is having the time of her life!”
And finally: “Brilliant Song!”
So here it is, along with some background and discussion after your viewing.
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Roan’s is one of those unlikely and inspiring success stories that fuel the dreams of millions of children who grow up entranced by music and its heavily accessorized media machine backdrop in this age. As ever, only a relative few of them wind up with both the talent and requisite, relentless drive (and luck!) to finally make it in showbiz.
Born to conservative Christian parents as Kayleigh Rose Amstutz in the small Missouri town of Willard (2020 population: 6,344) in February, 1998, she has been living the high life of a pop music phenom only since late 2023. That’s when more than a decade’s studious work and artistic struggle beginning with piano lessons at age 12 finally paid off with the massive success of her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” which peaked at
No. 2 on the US Billboard200,
Previously, she’d exhibited the pluck to audition for “America’s Got Talent” at age 14, and rather than have a rejection there derail her, she started uploading self-produced covers (one of them below) and later her own songs to You Tube, where she developed a sizable following that also came to include record labels. She signed at age 17 with Atlantic Records, for whom she produced several singles and an extended play record.
Though she achieved notable acclaim with “Pink Pony Club” in May 2020, it apparently brought neither sufficient returns nor future hopes for Atlantic, who dropped her from the label by August.
Come December, “USA Today” proclaimed it No. 3 on its list of “10 Best Songs of 2020,” which led to a jump in sales and name recognition, along with more singles in association with her producer and co-writer on “Pink Pony Club,” Daniel Nigro. She eventually signed with him when he created his own record label to collaborate with her on the “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.”
Amidst all that: backup singing, touring and opening for other more accomplished-at-the-time acts, including previous “Brilliant Song” artist Olivia Rodrigo (“Driver’s License”). And, of course, the almost traditional struggling artist’s multiple moves back-and-forth between Missouri to Los Angeles, spiced up with various jobs (donut shop, fast-food drive-through) before the break-through that made her a star.
And for the Atlantic execs who thought Roan just wasn’t up to the task: She won Best New Artist honors at last year’s Grammys, scored two nominations and a spot on the music program at this year’s, and perhaps most sweetly: “Pink Pony Club” has now been streamed 99 million times on Spotify.
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It’s impossible not to see strains of the playful vamping and designer-gone-wild getups of Cyndi Lauper and Lady Gaga in Roan’s stage presence. Her’s is anchored firmly in her identity as a lesbian with a great fondness for drag queens and gay bars—one who has made it out of the cloistered milieu of small town Missouri without becoming embittered by the struggle.
She sings her way through that transition in “Pink Pony Club,” the oldest of four children surely addressing her parents but also the three siblings (a sister, two brothers) and the Kayleigh identity she left behind in fleeing to California to become, of all things, the flamboyant, campy alter ego of Chappell Roan.
I know you wanted me to stay
But I can’t ignore the crazy visions of me in LA
And I heard that there’s a special place
Where boys and girls can all be queens every single day
One can only imagine the complex family dynamics at play in a conservative Christian household as Kayleigh set her sights on that “special place.” She alluded to as much in a podcast last spring when discussing whether the young Kayleigh could have anticipated Chappell Roan:
“I don’t even know if my younger self would be able to register that is a part of me. Like that’s how removed I was, so so so like opposite of me now. Like it just wasn’t awoken. It just felt so restricted because I was so, I was a very problem child and so angry and so like depressed and just felt like no one understood me. And now that part of me is so alive and I always did want to dress up and be super girly or be really like a tomboy or I just wanted to be free. But I didn’t ever think that it would actually happen. And now that it has, I don’t think she would believe that at all. I don’t think she would, could ever believe that like, this is what I do.”
To her parents’ and her own great credit, whatever that struggle entailed seems to have ultimately brought out the best in everyone. The evidence is there in the jocular tones Roan uses in “Pink Pony Club,” which was originally inspired by her visit to a lively gay bar in West Hollywood, where she went weak in the knees when beholding the go-go dancers.
She describes her mother’s’ faux horror and the daughter’s simple explanation of what might, in other situations, with other parents, have been grounds for permanent rupture:
I’m having wicked dreams of leaving Tennessee
Hear Santa Monica, I swear it’s calling me
Won’t make my mama proud, it’s gonna cause a scene
She sees her baby girl, I know she’s gonna scream
God, what have you done?
You’re a pink pony girl
And you dance at the club
Oh mama, I’m just having fun
That, in a nutshell, is the whole of it—her baby girl is “just having fun.” (Even if she’s shifted the venue from Missouri to Tennessee.)
The huge wigs, the over-wrought makeup, the outlandish gowns—I have to fight a certain amount of knee-jerk revulsion that snaps into place when beholding Roan and modern pop music culture. The curmudgeonly old man in danger of totally missing the point of the pure campy theater of the whole enterprise, underneath which some good catchy tunes and clever lyrics break out just as they always have, genres and eras be damned.
Thankfully for all parties, her parents seem to get the picture. Whatever griefs they may have endured as their daughter fled their home, openly refuted their religion, and embraced a life generally at odds with much they hold dear, parental love and acceptance seem to have won the day. Unless her parents are as good performers as she is, this recent clip of playful family banter below would seem to indicate as much.
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I don’t know how long Chappell Roan’s run will last. There are some real musical instincts and talent behind all the over-the-top costumery and purely performative mannerisms she has worked into her persona. (Please do check the Elton John cover from five years ago—yes, it’s the same human being.)
She has alluded in interviews to being knocked off balance by the trappings of fame, including criticism of what some regard as her sometimes flip and dismissive tone toward fans. Considering where she’s come from and finally gotten to, it seems almost a wonder she hasn’t done far worse to cope with the strangeness of sudden wealth, hard-earned career success, and the unremitting glare of cameras, klieg lights and worshipful fans.
Maybe because this?…
Don’t think I’ve left you all behindStill love you and TennesseeYou’re always on my mind
And, of course, this—always this…
I’m gonna keep on dancingI’m gonna keep on dancing
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In another galaxy and time, far, far away and long, long ago…
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Finally, with her all-woman band in one of NPR’s much-beloved Tiny Desk concerts from early 2024…
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Complete lyrics to “Pink Pony Club” can be found here.
See and hit the Follow button at https://www.facebook.com/andrew.hidas/ for regular 1-minute or less dispatches from the world’s great thinkers, artists and musers, accompanied always by lovely photography.
Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing
Homepage rotating banner photos (except for library books) by Elizabeth Haslam https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/
Library books by Larry Rose, Redlands, California, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com
For brief previews of all songs in this series, most recent first, see https://andrewhidas.com/?s=Brilliant+songs
Pink pony by Sue Thompson, southern Ontario, Canada https://www.flickr.com/photos/sue90ca/
Roan at the Hollywood Palladium by Justin Higuchi, Los Angeles, California https://www.flickr.com/photos/jus10h/
You’re forgiven for your initial pearl clutching!! Glad you persevered…there’s a lesson in that, all by itself.
Indeed there is, Mary. I think a lot of my somewhat tortured openness to younger musicians is having spent goodly amounts of time in the car listening to the radio with my then-teen daughter just to try to get a better sense of her world. It was instructive then, and remains so.
I really love this. I came to know of Chappell Roan maybe a year ago. Can’t recall how. But I approached with my own straight-old-white-guy-who knows-about-music bias. I soon realized she was the real deal for all the reasons you cite. Digging in a little, I realized there is a huge category of queer country artists. Orville Peck may be one of the best known. “Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other,” a duet with Willie “don’t give a shit no more” Nelson, will make you chuckle. And, I found this gem just last week: Cassandra Lewis’s video “Hold the Door,” proves she’s the real deal too. If old dogs can’t always learn new tricks, perhaps they can at least appreciate them.
Really glad to read this, Dennis. I kind of tip-toed into this the past week, wasn’t sure to run with it, but that tune kept bouncing around in my head, along with the image of her being hoisted and passed along like a precious princess in that raucous gay bar, the world’s biggest smile on her face, me thinking, “How could this possibly be a bad thing?”
And many thanks for the tips on these others; keep ’em comin’!
A big curmudgeon here, but my spouse is truly and sincerely open minded, keeping me (actually dragging me) into the 21rst century. She put on Pink Pony Club a couple of years ago, and I was ” 180ed” about the state of music, at least for a bit. I won’t be listening to top 40 radio (even if there is such a thing these days), but I do recognize fresh talent when I hear it.
Plus, the song becomes one of those “ear worms” that stays with you.
As usual, great description and narrative on your part. An outside observer would be hard pressed to believe you are approaching your 75th birthday!
Once again I’m late to the party, Moon; glad your wife is keeping you up to speed! A little hard to believe I could have completely missed this song and artist until now, given the monster hits they became, but that speaks to the power of “silos,” I suppose—and how beneficial it can be to come out from them now & again.
Thanks for dropping in to share your experience, and yeah, man, the ear worm of this song is a real thing, bouncing around inside me this week almost without letup, though it has on a few occasions given way to John Prine’s “Pink Cadillac” (album title, but still…). Which brings up the natural question of how many songs with “Pink” in the title, and which color is most honored by history’s songwriters. “Black”or “Blue,” maybe? I’m thinking someone’s surely done the requisite cultural anthropology field work on that matter!
One of my granddaughter’s sends me videos of her monthly singing recitals. As I recall her first four songs, all standard classics, were “At Last”, “Memory”, “Yesterday” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love”. However, her last selection was one I never heard before. It was Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe.” It certainly strayed from her usual picks but nonetheless interesting. Your “Brilliant Songs” entries work well for me because they cover a wide range of genres and often are new to my ears.
Sounds like your granddaughter has a pretty wide range herself there, Robert—happy to see she’s learning a few classics, too! Probably mentioned this before, but my stock answer these days regarding what kind of music I prefer is, “I prefer good music…” Sometimes that means the likes of Chappell Roan, other times Beethoven or Charley Parker…