A few months ago I interviewed Charli XCX, one of several alt pop stars who’ve made a sudden leap from the internet to the mainstream in 2024. She fantasised about a new kind of artist who fought back against their fans; people like XCX have found themselves enslaved by the superfandom of stan culture, taking endless advice about production techniques and single choices online, then retreating periodically from social media when the abuse gets too much. Chappell Roan, the 26-year-old from Missouri who at a recent gig had the balcony at the Brixton Academy shaking so hard I thought it would collapse, has already begun this cultural disentanglement, saying recently on TikTok, “I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s selfish of me to say no for a photo… That’s not normal. That’s weird. It’s weird how people think that you know a person just because you see them online… I’m allowed to say no to creepy behaviour, OK?”
Roan, real name Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, frequently refers to pop as just a job – “I’m so lucky to be able to clock in in THIS,” she says, gesturing to her red basque and cowboy boots. Yet she must also employ the rhetoric, popularised by Lady Gaga ten years ago, that tells her audience that shows are a safe haven for the neurodiverse and the genderqueer, that she herself was once such a misfit. She is not yet free of the codependent relationship with her fans. “I’m so close to cutting this out of my set,” she says, of one song. “Nooooo!” they all scream.
For the last ten years our female pop stars have been musical Boudicas; they are more powerful than politicians, and are ahead of the game in every way. We are used to the idea that they’re breaking new ground – culturally, creatively – and now that the ground has been broken, expectations are lowering. This year’s crop has been around for years (Roan was signed to Atlantic at 17), with grass-roots fanbases already in place. Roan’s fame has rocketed since she supported Olivia Rodrigo, just as Sabrina Carpenter’s did while supporting Taylor Swift. They seem like ordinary women, at home in front of smaller audiences. The obsessive behaviour they inspire – tickets to Roan’s Brixton gig were fetching £400 – says far more about the audience than the music itself. Perhaps, as a previous generation lived under the threat of a nuclear bomb, this one has lived with the fear of what the internet is doing to their youth, so they’ve carved out a vivid IRL musical life in response. It could be 1984 in Brixton tonight, apart from the mobile phones in the air, and there aren’t actually that many mobile phones. Most fans are young women in drag. There’s the most synchronised handclapping I’ve seen since footage of Queen at Live Aid.
Roan has a faintly Taylorish look, but burlesque and am-dram, with her long red locks in a high ponytail and makeup so characteristically strong she would look at home in the court of Charles II. There is a wind machine blowing her hair, producing a Diana Ross-like effect. Roan is not a dancer. Instead, she strides up and down the front of the stage in a way that never breaks contact with the audience. My favourite thing about her act is these organic, rock-singer moves – smashing one boot heel down hard with the sound of the bass drum, or jerking her elbows out in time with cymbal crashes.
Her band is all female (the vibe would be so different were it male) and her drummer, Lucy Ritter, is an old-school powerhouse. During “Picture You”, she sings to a wig on a stand, an obscure moment that brings to mind the studenty art project air of Christine and the Queens. Christine has a rock-star quality too, but Roan is warmer. Her voice is a big creature, slowly rising in ballads like Lana Del Rey’s. The in-between chat is very gauche: with a faltering girlish shyness, Roan is a little like the modern Disney princess who is more likeable because she’s a bit goofy and trips over things.
What of the music? The focus is on good songwriting – storytelling – which, like Carpenter’s, feels like it comes from just one person rather than a team of co-writers. (The trick is to team up with just one, who can blend into the background – in this case Dan Nigro, who worked with Rodrigo and Kylie Minogue.) Roan is fantastic at giving the kind of kiss-off to uncommitted lovers that each generation needs. More angry than mournful, there’s an Alanis Morissette energy to her: “Casual” is her “You Oughta Know”. The chorus goes “Knee deep in the passenger seat, and you’re eating me out/Is it casual now?” That sounds really strange roared by a crowd. Other songs (“Coffee”) are smart little portraits of the drudgery of life after a big love. But some of the hits are nothing special: “Hot to Go!” is basically the “Macarena”. Halfway through her set, Roan announces new material (“The Subway”, which rhymes “gone” with “Saskatchewan”) and two interesting things happen: 1) the crowd go wild at the idea of a new song, which rarely happens at gigs, and 2) they already know every word of it. Of course they do – because they get first dibs on Chappell Roan.
[See also: Fred Again, EDM’s everybro]
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This article appears in the 25 Sep 2024 issue of the New Statesman, All-out war