The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess turns one this month - What's Changed for Chappell Roan?

Elena Hernandez - Music Editor

        

    Last Sunday marked the year anniversary of Chappell Roan’s sleeper-hit debut record, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Since then, Roan has seen meteoric success in the months after its original release.

In April, she was the opening act for Olivia Rodrigo’s “GUTS World Tour.” Around this time, she appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk. She performed both weekends at Coachella. Including her most recent success with “Good Luck, Babe!” are all reasons for her sudden commercial breakthrough.  In May, her debut record charted on the Billboard 200 for the first time since its release.

The following month Roan performed at the Governors Ball Music Festival in New York City. Wheeled on stage inside of a huge apple, when Roan popped out, our eyes were met with a dragged-out version of Lady Liberty holding a huge joint. Antics like this during performances have become quite routine for Roan, who is largely inspired by drag queens.

After seeing how big a crowd she garnered at the Governors Ball, Bonnaroo moved her set to the headlining stage. Lollapalooza and other music festivals swiftly. As it turned out, this was a good decision. Roan took the main stage in Grant Park, clad in a luchador uniform, backed up by female bodybuilders. With tens of thousands in attendance, the show is now believed to be one of the biggest ever in all of Lollapalooza’s history.

The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess has now spent twenty-five weeks atop the Billboard 200. It currently sits at #3, with a previous peak at #2. Several of its singles, like “HOT TO GO!,” “Feminomenon,” and “My Kink is Karma” currently reside on the Billboard Hot 100.

While she’s found great success, it hasn’t all been easy for Roan since her sudden newly found fame. The singer has detailed in interviews instances of being kissed without consent and stalked. Someone had shown up at her parents’ home and her hotel room. Roan described her experience of getting diagnosed with severe depression, saying: “I think it’s because my whole life has changed. Everything that I really love to do now comes with baggage. If I want to go thrifting, I have to book security and prepare myself that this is not going to be normal. Going to the park, Pilates, yoga–how do I do this in a safe way where I’m not going to be stalked or harassed?”

Ten years ago on September 24th, Tove Lo released her debut studio album Queen of the Clouds. The record is primarily electropop and dance-pop and split into three sections: “The Sex,” “The Love,” and “The Pain.” Her single “Talking Body” is found in the first section. In this track, Lo sings of a consuming passion for her partner. In the chorus, she sings, “Now if we’re talking body / You got a perfect one/So put it on me…If you love me right/We f*** for life/On and on and on.”

Inside the final section of the record, “The Pain,” resides Lo’s international hit “Habits (Stay High).” She sings of self-medicating to cope without her lover: “You’re gone and I gotta stay high/All the time to keep you off my mind…Spend my days locked in a haze/Trynna forget you babe…Gotta stay high all my life to forget I’m missing you”. Its verses are filled with “often strange imagery” like eating dinner in the bathtub, going to sex clubs, and “pick[ing] up daddies at the playground.” The track’s atmosphere has been compared to the effects of morphine. In the final bridge, she sings: “Stayin’ in my play pretend/Where the fun ain’t got no end/Can’t go home alone again/Need someone to numb the pain.”

Lo’s debut record, now ten years old, is certainly a staple in the pop genre, and thanks to the record, she has amassed a cult following.