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

A night with Prince Andrew

Duncan Wheeler on 3 May 2022

Duncan Wheeler, Lecturer and Chair of Spanish Studies at the University of Leeds, recounts a weird and wild evening spent among royalty.

I can’t recall if he sweat on the sole occasion our paths crossed. Virtually all human beings in his position would have done so on a hot August night in Sotogrande, the enclave in Andalusia popular with millionaire Brits and polo players of all nationalities. Prince Andrew wore a suit as I inelegantly perspired in jeans and cheap shirt, a more appropriate combo for the season but not the setting. His Royal Highness amiably boasted of earning a summer break after working at the coalface, courting Chinese elites in Windsor Castle. My attempts at polite chit chat with a younger Russian accompanying him fell flat. She purported to be an authority on caviar. Either my amateur questions made no sense to an expert, or she was far less knowledgeable than she claimed to be. In either case, we were out of our comfort zone.

Truth be told, I had no idea what to expect from my first trip to an area of Spain worlds away from my regular haunts. I had rocked up at a wealthy friend’s beach house to spend a few days after a week at an indie music festival not in my wildest dreams anticipating an invitation to attend a dinner party at the house Prince Andrew had rented out for summer 2015 with his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, and their daughter. This evening engagement couldn’t, I figured, be any more unsettling than daytime encounters at the private beach club. 

A seventy-year old British ex-pat married to a minor Spanish aristocrat whose business had seen better days cornered me to volunteer her experience and expertise for the book I was writing on Spain’s Transition to democracy. In between ranting against the dangers of Islamic terrorism brewing just across the Gibraltar straits, and referring to Latin American immigrant workers as “panchos”, she offered spurious details about murders purportedly committed by Santiago Carrillo, the former leader of the Spanish Communist party. She asked my thoughts on rumours that Emilio Botín, the director of the Santander Bank, had been assassinated on the orders of his daughter and successor after he discovered her Colombian lover laundering bank money. Me responding that, to the best of my knowledge, the seventy-nine-year old had died of natural causes exposed me as a nobody.

Funnily enough, her testimony didn’t figure amongst the sources cited in my book. Mildly more informative was a conversation with some polo players about an investor who found himself in negative equity after taking out a sizeable loan out to buy a prize winning horse, which promptly had a fatal heart attack during its debut march. Such daytime escapades brought to mind J.G. Ballard’s 1997 novel Cocaine Nights, set on Andalusia’s Costa del Sol, in which the comfortable life becomes a living death to an extent that narcotics, rape and murder become chosen leisure pursuits. The mood for my Mexican themed evening was much lighter, closer to Miguel de Cervantes than the dystopian Ballard.

It was as if a magic potion had transported me back to Barataria, the fictional island in which Don Quixote’s plebeian sidekick, Sancho Panza, is made to believe he is governor but is in fact providing entertainment for shallow aristocrats with a hereditary but not moral right to exercise authority. The food at Casa Ferguson-Windsor was nothing special, more Taco Bell than fine Mexican dining but the former Duchess of York went beyond the call of duty in welcoming a newcomer such as myself, happy to banter away about everything from bullfighting (she doesn’t approve, especially when it involves dwarf toreros, as it sometimes does in neighbouring San Roque) or appearing alongside the singer Meat Loaf in the ill-fated “It’s a royal knock out” television program back in the 1980s. Fergie, as the people’s duchess was popularly known, personally wrote name tags for all of the twenty or so guests at the table. There was a drink aplenty and, whilst not sober, I made sure to excuse myself volunteering to join any of the groups charged with providing the evening’s entertainment. 

Not wanting to be outdone by a group of lads stripping down to their waists, the former Duchess of York produced an ostrich costume seemingly out of nowhere and donned it alongside a fake woollen vagina to dance to the Backstreet Boys. The fun and games didn’t end there. As news arrives that a member of the Goldsmith crew notorious for mixing their dates up was running late, lights were dimmed and we were instructed to climb under the table to give the illusion nobody was home. Locking eyes with an aristocratic pensioner crouched down next to me, I couldn’t help but wonder in what parallel universe this was all considered par for the course. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether Andrew is guilty as charged, but he seems as disorientated by his forced encounter with the real world as I was by my excursion into his natural habitat, a place I enjoyed visiting but I’d hate to be imprisoned.

Do biopics romanticise the lives of real people?

Hannah Spruce on 10 February 2021

Over the last few years biopics have dominated the cinema scene, with high budgets and eager audiences, the genre has seen continued box office success. Biopics of musicians have seen a particular rise in popularity, spurred by the success of Bohemian Rhapsody about the eccentric Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, which became the highest-grossing biographical film of all time.

By focusing on a real-life subject, the film has a guaranteed audience and established plotline. Alongside this, a musical biopic has the marketability of a successful soundtrack. However, despite their commercial success biopics have been criticised for being motivated by profit and lacking substance. Quentin Tarantino has stated that biopics were ‘just big excuses for actors to win Oscars’ in response to their increasing prevalence. Even beyond a directorial perspective, the genre is often criticised by the devoted fans who have followed the lives and careers of these celebrities. When condensing the lives of such well-known figures, there is a tendency to underplay or overemphasise certain elements to produce the most engaging storyline.

The allure of stars like Freddie Mercury and John Lennon is not always enough to guarantee a captivating sequence of events, therefore drama often needs to be cultivated for the sake of viewership. Nowhere Boy, a biopic detailing the teenage years of John Lennon, suggests a complicated and uncomfortably intimate relationship between Lennon and his mother Julia. Similarly, Bohemian Rhapsody has been criticised for its flexible chronology and convoluted depictions of Mercury’s relationship with Jim Hutton, Paul Prenter and Mary Austin.

A recent source of controversy is the upcoming film Stardust, which details the life of David Bowie. The film was not approved by Bowie’s estate and does not contain any of his music, which resulted in many fans not supporting the film’s production. Although David Bowie is a celebrity, his life is not guaranteed personal property, which raises questions surrounding the integrity of these films. In comparison, Queen band members Brian May and Roger Taylor served as consultants on Bohemian Rhapsody and for Rocketman Elton John and his husband David Furnish were producers. It could be argued that such direct involvement encourages a level of self-indulgence or bias in the way events are depicted, but it ensures that any significant changes were approved.

Consultation seems necessary when dealing with recent celebrities, however, when exploring the lives of historical figures, it becomes more complicated. The audience is less likely to recognise historical inconsistencies, meaning the film could perpetuate false ideas or assumptions. With historical biopics, there is a desire to romanticise a forgotten era of history and humanize previously elusive figures. Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette combines these factors, by merging modern features with a historical landscape. The lavish colours and set design deviates from historical accuracy. Depictions of historical figures such as Marie Antoinette can be more flexible to a higher extent than modern musicians due to the lack of personal claim over their stories. However, the people in biopics can easily become caricatures, which should be considered when evaluating their role and actions within these films

Ultimately, biopics should not be constrained to follow a specific timeline unless claiming to be historically accurate. Most biopics use a level of creative licencing to meet time constraints, without detriment to the person or the story that is being conveyed. However, when using unsubstantiated or fabricated events, it is the duty of the filmmaker to ensure a divide between the authentic and genuine.