Early August of this year, 26-year-old pop musician Chappell Roan created waves at Chicago’s annual Lollapalooza music festival by performing for the grandest crowd of any daytime show in the event’s history. The musician’s crowd size at over 110,000 people exceeded several of this year’s Lollapalooza headliners. Several days later, Roan performed at Outside Lands music festival in California and again stole the show with a whopping 80,000 people in the audience for her performance. Currently entertaining over three million monthly listeners, people may assume that she has basked in stardom for a considerable amount of time. However, her rise to fame occurred relatively recently.
Roan began writing music at the age of 14 and released her first single entitled “School Nights” in 2017 at only 19 years old. She continued to produce music with Atlantic Records until the company stopped working with her in August 2020. Shortly after Atlantic Records dropped her, Roan returned to her hometown of Willard, Missouri and began working at a coffee and donut shop along with multiple other jobs to support herself. Although Roan uses a stage name, her parents named her Kayleigh Rose Amstutz at birth. She came up with the name Chappell Roan as a way to honor her grandfather Dennis K. Chappell, who passed away in 2016. The name Roan originated from her grandfather’s favorite song “The Strawberry Roan” by Curley Fletcher.
After three years as an independent artist with moderate success, Roan signed with Island Records in 2023, by music producer Dan Nigro. In addition to Roan, Island Records records for several famous pop stars including Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo. Because of their shared record label, Rodrigo approached Roan to open for her “Guts” World Tour and to sing backing vocals for several of her songs, including “Lacy” and “Obsessed.” The two artists even collaborated and sang Roan’s song “HOT TO GO!” together at Rodrigo’s most recent “Guts” World Tour performance August 20 of this year. Because of her collaboration with Rodrigo and the release of her album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” in September 2023, Roan’s fame skyrocketed. With the release of her music videos for the songs “Pink Pony Club,” “HOT TO GO!” and “Casual,” Roan’s fanbase grew and began reaching ever-expanding audiences. Additionally, her latest single entitled “Good Luck, Babe!” reached the Billboard Top 10 and boosted her fame exponentially, drawing in a broader crowd of people to her music.
One notable factor of Roan’s rise to fame includes her incredible live performances, which include high-energy dances and movements, wild outfits and bold makeup looks. The result was unparalleled performances, drawing in fans from across the globe and selling out nearly all of her shows.
“She’s such a big performer, it adds to the appeal, the charisma, it really just adds to her general essence. It adds to her art. Instead of just serving great music, she also serves absolute looks. It’s absolutely iconic and her energy and her interactions with the audience are also really good,” magnet junior Mary Washburn said.
Several of Roan’s influential performances include the 2024 Lollapalooza, 2024 Governor’s Ball, 2024 Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, 2024 Coachella and 2024 Boston Calling. All of Roan’s upcoming performances in August and September of this year will take place in various venues in Europe and the U.S.
“Nowadays, I feel that a lot of artists, specifically in pop, are focused on making hits and contemporary earworms in order to achieve commercial success, but it doesn’t feel like that with Chappell Roan. Her vocal technique and lyrics really just convey her emotions to the fullest extent, making you feel as if you know her on a personal level. Even though you’ve never met her, you can feel her anger, her sadness, and her passion all through her music. To me, that’s not only something that’s been missing in the industry, but it’s something powerful and it feels so authentic with Chappell Roan,” magnet junior Bryce Nichols said.
Additionally, Roan identifies as an openly queer artist, making her music relatable and representative to members of the LGBTQ+ community. However, her music provides widespread relatability to a large variety of listeners, making it possible for her diverse fans of all backgrounds to resonate with her music in different ways. In addition to producing extremely catchy songs, her music proves extremely relatable and emotionally speaks to a wide variety of different people. The star’s success derives from her unique style and her distinctiveness from the rest of the pop world today.
“To me, Chappell Roan’s music is what pop has been missing. It’s raw, it’s fun, it’s raunchy sometimes but in a good way, and it’s emotional. Listening to it truly feels like you’re getting to know Chappell and her life experiences due to the sheer amount of emotion in her voice and the specific yet relatable lyricism she uses,” Nichols said.
