Chappell Roan: The Sapphic Supernova Posterchild Behind The Rise of Lesbian Pop

Maddie Nash on 11 September 2024

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

Girls Don’t Be Shy, Aim High

Jessica Mount on 13 November 2021

Have you ever been told you that you are not good at something because of your sex? Or that it is ‘unusual’ that someone of your sex is doing your degree or has your hobbies? Most likely, you are a woman.

Things like this can make us question ourselves and doubt our abilities, causing us to think twice about putting ourselves forward or aiming for the top. It’s easy to feel like you’re just pretending to know what you’re doing, waiting all the time for someone to come along and expose you; that you don’t actually deserve your accomplishments. You shouldn’t feel alone if you have these thoughts, as it is so common it has a name: imposter syndrome. It was first identified in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Susanne Imes, in their paper identifying that women are more predominantly hit with this inability to internalise and own their successes. When you experience systematic oppression or grow up being directly or indirectly told that you are less than or undeserving of your achievements then imposter syndrome occurs.

When you were in school, were you ever too shy to put your hand up in class or answer a question out of fear of being called out by one of the ‘class clown’ boys? We teach girls from a young age that it is cute to seem incompetent and have to ask for men’s help, whereas boys are taught that it is cool to throw their weight around and act like they know what they are doing. It’s simple, girls, we need to fake a little confidence too.

I don’t mean bullshit, just be confident. Don’t make things up or fake qualifications, just be a bit more assertive and positive about things. When it comes to careers, studies have shown that how confident we feel about our own abilities can have a major impact from entry level like the chances of actually applying for a job to how likely we are to ask for promotions. One study in particular by Hewlett Packard found that women only apply to jobs that they meet 100% of the requirements for, whereas men apply for those they only meet 60% of the requirements. In fact, one university advertised a job that was for females only and THIRTY men applied.

You will always come across people that may criticise you and try to put you down, so you need to believe in your own talents and be kind to yourself. One main reason that girls don’t feel ‘qualified’ enough to take certain career routes is because they don’t hear about women doing those jobs.

“We are more likely to experience imposter syndrome if we don’t see many examples of people who look like us or share our background who are clearly succeeding in our field” – Emily Hu.

This is why it is important to remember that not succeeding, for example at an interview, doesn’t mean you are a failure, you are just one step closer to where you are going. You just have to remember that there is no prize giving at the end, so you can ignore what everyone else is doing, nobody claims first prize!