Both Roan and Carpenter have managed to deliver solidly drafted songs with great hooks when it’s increasingly becoming hard to get the right mix. They are both creating pop that bends and blends. Interestingly, they have also paid tribute to the 1980s: the musicians as well as the music of the time. And both have brought some spark and spunk back to pop, which had become a space for complaints and seething anger about one’s ex.
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Chappell Roan: Rise and rise of a midwest girl
Roan was born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz in the tiny town of Ozarks in Willard, Missouri, and had a tough time growing up in a conservative Christian family in the Republican midwest. She began writing songs at 12 in her bedroom as a creative vent for her feelings, as well as an attempt to understand her sexuality while reeling from an undiagnosed bipolar disorder.
In an interview with The Guardian last year, she spoke about “feeling suicidal for years” and “not medicated, because that’s just not a part of midwest culture. It’s not: ‘Maybe we should get you a psychiatrist.’ It’s: ‘You need God. You need to pray about that.’”
Kayleigh Rose became Chapell Roan as a tribute to her grandfather and created her first original song in 2014. ‘Die Young’ was a gloomy ditty from her idol and singer Lana Del Rey’s playbook, and even got Atlantic Records to sign her sometime later. She moved to LA in 2018 and wrote ‘Pink Pony Club’, a dance-pop number that was her love letter to LA, the city she felt most free in, with record producer and songwriter Daniel Nigro.
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The song is back in the limelight of late, but back then it wasn’t enough to keep Atlantic interested. She was dropped from the record label in 2020 and had to move back to Missouri with her parents. Once back, she longed to go back to the world she’d tasted. She worked at a doughnut shop in Highland Park and began writing again with Nigro, who was working with Olivia Rodrigo then. She shot videos with friends, styling herself from thrift stores, and sang of her life, love and not finding the right partner.
The result is her album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, one that is audacious, with a drag-queen aesthetic, and completely uninterested in being polished and sophisticated.
It is her earnestness that has had the audience wanting more. Fun and flamboyant, Roan has 4.8 million followers on Spotify and has been credited with leading a sort of lesbian pop renaissance.
Then there have been Roan’s political choices. She supports LGBTQ+ rights charities, besides sending some of her earnings to Palestine. She speaks freely about what she wants from her government and invites drag artistes to her shows.
The Grammy nod to her work is the cherry on top for a pop star wanting to now venture into country music. In her winning speech, she highlighted how labels didn’t treat developing artistes well and how they needed to help younger artistes with the basics such as healthcare. “Labels, we’ve got ya, but have you got us?” she asked during her acceptance speech.
Sabrina Carpenter: An espresso long in the making
Who would have thought that a summer disco song about a girl comparing herself to coffee and coining the term ‘me espresso’ would just be the fun and frolic pop needed? Carpenter’s breezy song, which she wrote on a holiday in France and which headlined her sixth album, is a chartbuster hit. It became one of the most streamed songs on Spotify; even prompting conspiracy theories that Carpenter’s label, Island Records, was paying Spotify to boost her song.
However, Espresso — and success — came to Carpenter after a decade. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Carpenter started out as a child actor with Disney when she was 11. There was an actor in the family — she is the niece of Emmy Award-winner Nancy Cartwright.
From a young age, Carpenter would sing songs of Adele and Christina Aguilera and post them on YouTube. Looking at her daughter’s interest, her father built her a music studio at home. In 2014, Carpenter came out with her debut single ‘Can’t Blame a Girl for Trying’, with an EP of the same name. Her first album, ‘Eyes Wide Open’, came out when she was 15. But even though she kept singing and acting, she was written off.
In 2021, there was a buzz around her, though not the good kind. Olivia Rodrigo’s breakout single ‘Drivers License’ mentioned an ex moving on with a blonde girl, and the internet decided actor Joshua Bassett and Carpenter were the people being talked about, with Carpenter getting a lot of hate.
Bassett and Carpenter later broke up, and Carpenter turned her heartbreak into Emails I Can’t Send, her fifth album that found attention due to its innuendo-laden lyrics. She followed by touring with Swift on her Eras tour. Espresso became last summer’s hit that topped the charts. She followed it up with ‘Please please please’, an amalgamation of rock and country.
Grammy in hand, she is now all set to embark on her album tour, besides starring in the film Into the Deep Blue, where she will play a woman with anxiety.
