Maddie Nash breaks down the femininomenon of the rise (no fall) of Midwest princess Chappell Roan and how her meteoric takeover of pop music has catapulted queer representation in the mainstream media.

In recent weeks, the pop and mainstream music landscape has been dominated by a rogue: an outrageous, outspoken, lesbian drag queen from the rural Midwest. Chappell Roan’s supersonic boom into popularity that reached a speed never seen before, shifting from underground artist into superstar in a matter of months. Each time you check her Spotify listeners, the number so far stands at 45 million, compared to her humble beginnings of only 1 million. She attracted the biggest crowd Lollapalooza has ever seen, has made a guest appearance on the tour of reigning pop queen Olivia Rodrigo, and blazed into the mainstream stratosphere with a track being hailed as our generation’s ‘Y.M.C.A’.

Her rise has been completely unprecedented, especially due to the brazen lesbian content of her music. Lesbianism in pop music has exploded within the last few years, but its popularity has remained within the pretty niche confines of a queer audience. girl in red, possibly the most successful postergirl for lesbian pop thus-far, has reached great success, headlining world tours, but even she has not garnered the level of mainstream appeal enjoyed by the femininomenal Ms. Roan.

Chappell’s debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, released on the 22 September 2023, features some of her biggest hits, such as ‘Red Wine Supernova’, ‘HOT TO GO!’, and ‘Pink Pony Club’. In the eleven months since its release, many of these have gone viral online, massively boosting her popularity of her songs to 100m+ streams. Her newest single, ‘Good Luck, Babe!’, peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 2024.

Music catering to the queer community has dipped its toes into the mainstream since the advent of gaypop around the birth of disco in the 70s. The discographies of the likes of Queen, George Michael, and David Bowie all held allusions to queer lifestyles, though such references had to be (however thinly) veiled rather than spoken outright. A famous example of the censorship of queer experience from popular music was the BBC’s refusal to play ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood on the radio in 1983, given it referred to gay sex.

Despite this, gay icons such as Freddie Mercury have since been adopted and cherished by heteronormative audiences, too, fawned upon for their campy quirks while simultaneously having their sexual identities ignored, censored, or blacklisted. Whilst with the aforementioned artists their identity and music could often be separated and thus cleansed of queerness by audiences, the unapologetic nature of Chappell Roan’s work makes that disassociation virtually impossible, as her lesbian identity is such a pillar of her art.

Up until now, there has been a glass ceiling on queer music. Despite being fervently and widely enjoyed within niche gay audiences, queer music has never competed with artists of such great mass appeal as Taylor Swift. As the experience can’t be claimed or truly understood by a heterosexual audience, it can never be truly accepted by wider, mainstream, heteronormative culture. In my opinion, Chappell Roan is the first artist to kick this ceiling in, and take explicitly lesbian music to the popularity we are currently seeing. Lesbianism historically has always been alienated, fetishised, shunned and distanced. Even when gay men become more societally digestible, lesbianism has remained taboo and beleaguered by disgust. Now, we are seeing straight girls post their boyfriends to songs about women being in love.

Seeing this was especially weird to me; an inverse of everything I am used to. These songs and lyrics spanning the highs and lows of love between women are being used as an accessible romantic symbol, one to be related to by the everyday listener. It is such an alien and exciting (femini)nomenon, that music that celebrates lesbian relationships is receiving such praise and popularity. It may signal a change in society, a willingness to listen to and resonate with music and experiences that have before been outcast, and an example for what’s to come in the future of queer artists. On the other hand, the immense speed of her climb may indicate a dangerous commercialisation of lesbian music, in which the appetite of heteronormative audiences for sapphic pop may dilute its intrinsically alternative core and accuracy to lesbian lived experiences. Regardless, this is a historic moment in music history, headlined by one of the most exciting new artists out there today!

Words by Maddie Nash