There aren’t many times when I watch The Macy’s Day Parade and feel like I’m in a fever dream. Usually it’s your typical droll rollout of balloons and celebrities singing holiday tunes in-between color commentary. To put it simply, there’s not a lot that I find tangible in the long run. I’ll get to January and mostly be talking about the Broadway performances and little else. Was there a Snoopy balloon? Probably. I couldn’t tell you what it looked like. What songs did the marching bands play? I couldn’t even tell you the school, dearie. To me, it’s somewhat of an innocuous tradition at this point to just watch and feel the holiday season ushering itself in.
And yet, there was one moment that caused me to freeze up. As the cheerleaders took to the performance section of the parade route, they performed an elaborate number to “Pink Pony Club.” Even in a year where Chappell Roan has been everywhere, there was something about hearing a four-year-old song in such a corporate setting that confused the hell out of me. In 2024 during the post-election season on a day when queer individuals were threatening to cut-off conservative family members from their lives I was hearing a rendition of a song about parents being disappointed that their daughter does drag. I’m happy to hear it, but the context seems so bugnuts that I’m still not sure it was real. I could buy the subsequent marching band playing “Hot To Go” because it was more coy about its sexual politics. In fact, we’re coming off of a period where, despite canceling rainbow capitalism in June, Target used the track to announce a sale as dogs ran around a store.
Had you asked me who the lesbian pop star of choice would be in January, there’s a good chance that I’d say Renee Rapp. Part of it was because I still think Mean Girls (2024) got a bad rap and her first album “Snow Angel” is a solid record. I maybe would’ve even gone with surprise entry Billie Eilish just because of how actively horny she was singing about Charli XCX’s underwear. I’d even go with the longshot favorite-turned-meme Girl In Red (I don’t care, that record’s fun). To put it simply, there are artists who seemed more prime to be the queer female artist of choice for the year. Obviously I’m not in the demographic and even more obviously I have predicted less and less trends when checking annual returns.
The rise of Chappel Roan is surreal for a handful of reasons. In an age where most pop stars have an industry behind them to make sure they don’t flop, it’s interesting to see an outsider climb the ladder month by month. There is often a need for immediate success, and more often than not I’ve seen artists fail to capitalize. Even artists as reliable as Beyonce or Dua Lipa essentially faded after initial press. I suppose in this regard, Roan is refreshing because in an age where everyone is moving too quickly on and off of trends, she made the argument for hard work. Despite opening for Olivia Rodrigo, I would see promos for her own headlining shows in February and think that she could pack middle-sized venues. She’d put out a request for local drag queens to join her on Instagram and I was convinced she was still the scrappy indie artist doing things on her dime. Cut to Austin City Limits in October and she’s putting up Woodstock numbers. Whereas she was a midday performer at Coachella in a side tent, she was now pulling crowds the size of headliners Lana Del Rey, Tyler the Creator, and Doja Cat. If that wasn’t a sign that things were shifting, then nothing was.
I remain personally surprised with how Roan’s career took off so momentously. As I write this, her only actual 2024 song “Good Luck Babe” has hit over a billion streams on Spotify. There’s little reason to doubt her 2025 will be even bigger.
However, there’s a part of me that snickers at the idea of her being considered “Best New Artist” at the Grammy Award. While Sabrina Carpenter is closer to category fraud in theory, I have been doing my best to not become boastful at the idea of Roan being “new.” Sure, by the parameters of releasing a debut album, she is green. Beyond that, it’s taken so much energy to not be seen as the asshole who pulls up their Spotify to show that I had been a fan since she was releasing singles. I first heard her all the way back in February 2022 the week “Naked In Manhattan” came out and felt like I discovered the next big thing.
Even going off that one song, it’s easy to understand what her appeal was. The chorus has a level of camp that immediately makes you smile. You understand her infatuation as the whistles blow and her cries to “touch me” have a longing that a more conservative Top 40 pop star wouldn’t have. Even the way she sings the title has this personality that she’s carried into her other work. By the time you start breaking down the verses, you find someone who really has something to say. The way she details a lesbian relationship (“And we both had a crush on Regina George”) has so many lines that are some of the best songwriting I heard that year. Even if she wasn’t the only artist to use the “We’ll go to hell, but we’ll probably be fine” motif that year (see also: Rina Sawayama’s “This Hell”), the way she used it was playful. Her vocal range was so engaging that I knew from that moment that I wanted to see where things went for her.
I’m grateful that “The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess” eventually came to be. The journey to that day came with more songs that were quickly added to the rotation. Even as I began to notice music critics recognize her talent while placing it on their Best of 2023 lists, I had this theory that she was going to be like most queer pop stars on the level of Rina Sawayama or Remi Wolf. She’d have a following. Maybe she’d have a duet with a bigger artist, but she’d get her time to shine after a few albums. For now, she was the best kept secret.
For those who haven’t followed, I’m bad at predicting trends. While I would consider Roan to have released one of the best records of the past five years, I think I was off on how it was received. I assumed “Good Luck Babe” would be a moderate hit. Instead, things slowly rumbled until by the fall she was inescapable. One of my personal regrets is not being lucky enough to attend a local volleyball game where kids had learned how to H-O-T-T-O-G-O. I was fortunate enough to see commercials for the women’s volleyball season on ESPN set to “Femininominon” every half hour on Thanksgiving during football, but that’s far from witnessing the magic in the wild. If anything, I was witnessing the recognition that, yes, Roan knew how to write a hook. The closest I came to experiencing this was at a concert for Ben Platt where the intermission music included “Red Wine Supernova.” I watched impatient patrons wait to enter the venue while singing along and dancing. Given that Platt hosted her as opener on the previous tour, the free marketing made sense.
On the surface, all of this amounts to the notion that good music is good. There’s not that much nuance when you break down how many of her singles have been reworked into marketing and TikTok trends already. She has her own dance on par with “YMCA,” “The Macarena,” or the tragically bad Millennial version by Soulja Boy. Despite not seeing a CD for her music in major retailers just yet, her face is on magazines. Suddenly everything she says is being scrutinized in ways saved for established artists like Taylor Swift. For someone who seems antithetical to the point of appearing grassroots, watching Roan navigate stardom has been both encouraging and unfortunate in equal measure. Even by the time of Coachella, I assumed she was “small.” When I saw her strut onto the stage in a trench coat to a packed room, the notion was changing. You could feel it. While I think Renee Rapp had a bigger turnout the same day, it was clear that the audience was on the verge of something grander.
To put it simply, the world needs more artists like Roan. In an age where conservatives are threatening to remove LGBTQIA+ rights and many corporations have rescinded their clear support, there is this sense of regression. Socially we are at a crossroads where bigotry could win favor with the general public. Her music reflects an explicit longing that few queer pop stars have been allowed to have. She also has a personality that is winking and fun. Some compare her to Lady Gaga, though it wouldn’t be wrong to assume there’s a little Cyndi Lauper there as well. Every concert outfit goes viral for its bawdiness. The colors are loud. The make-up is over-exaggerated. She’s flirting with the back-up band. She’s the performer Gen-Z needs in a time when the pandemic has zapped our souls of any enthusiasm. Even when appearing on Saturday Night Live in November, she wore outfits designed by actual drag designers. There is honesty to her that transcends the usual pandering audiences are used to.
Which is why it's unfortunate that a large part of her discourse over the past six months has been about how she’s not assimilating to expectations. It started off with a discussion around parasocial relationships. As someone who hates paparazzi culture, I tend to side with Roan on the matter of being treated as a basic human being in public. While she suggests that doing it at concerts is more tolerated because it’s her job, the idea of being bombarded on the streets is overwhelming. The level of transparency is welcomed, if just because the conversation needed to be had. Despite being in the room of several celebrities this past year (including a potential photo-op with Sabrina Ionescu), I chose to mind my space. I go to artists to see their art. There’s few I’m dying to meet. I don’t get the need to clamor over people like obsessive pop fans tend to. If they stop listening to Roan because they lack consent, then the fan base is better for it.
The conversation gets more perplexing when realizing that Roan got roped into election talk in ways that contradict her expectations even more. While people wanted a diva, her independent thinking bothered many. The assumption that queer equaled liberal meant that she’d vote for Kamala Harris. However, her rejection of endorsing a candidate caused many to call her a betrayer. Again, the real question is why we expect celebrities to be the defining factor in our voting influence. As someone from the Midwest, she probably also has complicated relationships with family and politics that far exceeds my coastal bias. To me, this is another thing that shouldn’t have been a controversy but was because of how monolithic culture was. There needed to be a binary of us vs. them. It was easier to “cancel” over one agreement than notice that the human race is a flawed concept. Roan having her own independent thought is something that should’ve been celebrated or, at very least, not made into more than recognition of an opinion.
It's difficult for me to write about the past 12 months without acknowledging Roan. In a time where I worry LGBTQIA+ rights are at risk, there is a need to have celebrities who are loud and proud. There is a need for independent thought that doesn’t assimilate to the larger discourse no matter how “inconvenient” some may find it. That’s how she came to make such infectious pop melodies in the first place. I fell in love with her because lyrically she was clever and symbolized a performer full of confidence and singularity. For as much as I think we could expect the public to react the way they did, I really hope the bigger discussion is how can we start evolving out of it. We can still do H-O-T-T-O-G-O at live events. We can still tack “Femininominon” onto women’s sports to make it cooler. There are ways we can keep Roan vital to our larger culture.
Part of it starts with recognizing that “Pink Pony Club” was a song not only about self-discovery, but rebellion against the norms. It’s admitting that you don’t fit into the conventional image that tradition wants. You’re unique and not going to be shamed for dancing at the club. Fans need to realize the value of this message and not feel boxed into groupthink. It’s okay to disagree, but Roan is not a worse person because she wants boundaries or her political views private. If anything, it makes it more interesting to see what she wants to share. In an age of too much information, where everything comes and goes with the flick of a screen, Roan being able to stay relevant is a gift unto itself. Like the cheerleaders at the Macy’s Day Parade, I’m really hoping everybody knows how to stick the landing.
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