You have not experienced the pop divas of the 2020s if you have not at least heard of Chappell Roan. To me, she is the definition of a pop princess, and someone revolutionizing the culture. I heard about Chappell Roan before The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess was released, and I loved the infectious sound that made me want to just get up and dance around my room. I want to go through some of my favorite Midwest Princess songs and discuss why they are so empowering, and I included some testimonies from some amazing people here too!
- Femininomenon
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“Get it hot like Papa John, make a b*tch go on an on, it’s a femininomenon”! Be honest, I hear you screaming those lyrics right now. The opening track to Midwest Princess is such a fun song, and it makes you feel like a boss! Especially that bridge: “Ladies….you know what you need.” You know what you need. You take the wheel, and spin it wherever life will take you!
- Red Wine Supernova
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My first ever Chappell Roan song, and a song that I hold so dear to my heart. A theme you’re gonna see here is that this album is so fun. And for me, Roan is so empowering because she encourages you to embrace you. As a queer woman, she encourages not only every queer person, but every woman, every person of color, no matter who it is, embrace you, embrace who you are, what you love, and what you want to do. “Red Wine Supernova,” a fantasization of a queer romance, is a beautiful example, and it is so encouraging and uplifting.
- Casual
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This is another song where I can just hear all of you screaming, “Knee deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out, is it casual now”? Something empowering about Roan that I haven’t seen talked about until recently is her brutal honesty. Her honesty to me is one of the most amazing things about her because we shouldn’t be afraid to say what we want to say without a filter. Not only does this song show her versatility, but it also shows her honesty. Even in the bridge when she sings, “It’s hard being casual when my favorite bra lives in your dresser,” it just goes to show that honesty is a huge part of what it means to be empowering.
- My Kink is Karma
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Oh how I love everything about this song. Although it details a breakup, once she says the lines, “People say I’m jealous, but my kink is watching / You ruin your life,” not only am I sent to heaven, but it just shows that true empowerment is allowing yourself to let go. A close friend of mine, who went through a breakup very similar to the one Roan describes, said that this song allowed them to not only see how amazing they were doing now, but connected it to the rage they felt at the time, especially with the line “Who knew that we’d let it / Get this bad when it ended?” They acknowledge that cursing them out and breaking up with them was awful, but they overcame that.
- Kaleidoscope
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This song to me is so overlooked. It’s a story of the uncertainty of love that drove me to tears the first time I heard it. Catalina Velasco, a second year student at USF, put it so eloquently when she said, “Love is a two way road no matter how hard we want it to work out.” She highlighted the line “Even upside down it’s beautiful somehow,” which showed how love is both beauty and pain. It goes back to that gut-wrenching honesty Roan has about love and life, and it is so refreshing to hear.
- Pink Pony CLub
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I would not be writing this article if it was not for this song. This song actually changed my life. It makes me so proud of her because it took her close to a decade and being dropped by a major label to get where she is today, and her journey is so inspiring because it shows that you can have big dreams and go to the place “where boys and girls can all be queens every single day.” Her vocals and the music are magical, and this song is easily my favorite.
- California
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This song made me cry on first listen because it is so gorgeous. Yet another example of her honesty; even with her fame and inspiration, she never forgets where she came from, and acknowledges that moving on is hard. My friend Areesh connected it to his own experience, and how if he ever had to leave his high school or his friends, he would very much feel a lot of what Roan is describing here. Moving on sucks sometimes, and Roan isn’t afraid to tackle it head on.
- Good Luck, Babe!
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The song that changed everything for her. A song about compulsory heterosexuality and moving on that peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and became a global phenomenon. My good friend Maggie Fallon, a student at St. Petersburg College, put the effect of this song beautifully, saying she “captures the bittersweet feeling of letting go with such an infectious, carefree energy,” and that this celebration feels like “dancing away heartbreak on your own terms.” I just couldn’t agree more with this, this song was a perfect follow up in every sense of the word.
If you have not listened to this album yet, this is the best debut I’ve listened to in years, and she has not only inspired me, but millions of other people to work towards their dreams and goals, be brutally honest, and just be.