‘This Year Is About Pushing Through’

In a crowd of emerging young music artists today, all of them bringing their own unique flair to the industry lately, Chappell Roan is quickly paving a special path that is all her own.

When asked what it means to Roan to be a music artist in 2024, from her own perspective, Roan, 26, said during a Grammys after party last February, “Big question. I would say, I mean – this year is about pushing through.”

Born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, Roan, 26, is an American singer and songwriter, born and raised in Missouri, who has catapulted herself into stardom, being a fresh face and sound within modern music, with a 1980s synth-pop vibe with hit songs like “Pink Pony Club,” but from her own original spin.

Roan’s debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, which released back in September 2023, has become a certified hit. She currently has three songs that have been on the Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks, including “Good Luck, Babe!” at number 16 with more than 230 million streams on Spotify. Also, in just a few months, she went from 2 million Spotify listeners to now nearly 25 million listeners and her album went to number one on the U.S. iTunes chart.

When it comes to her memorable stage looks, Roan credits her collaboration with her stylist Genesis Webb, as they pull from drag, horror movies, burlesque and theatre.

The road to success has been anything but simple for Roan, revealing last week on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that she almost took a break from music, when things were not working out the way she had hoped, with plans to return home to Missouri, go back to school and seek out a job as either an esthetician or something in the field of genetics.

Fortunately, Roan has had a breakout career in recent months, performing to huge crowds at Coachella, Boston Calling, the 2024 Governors Ball, Bonnaroo and the Kentuckiana Pride Festival, as well as on other popular television shows, including her singing her hit song “Red Wine Supernova” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert back in February.

Coming up, Roan can be seen in August at Lollapalooza in Chicago, Illinois and at the Osheaga Music and Arts Festival in Montreal, Canada, before she takes her tour across Europe through September.

Roan has also grabbed the favorable attention of music legends like Elton John, with the “Rocket Man” singer posting on his Instagram just days ago a photo of him beside Roan, saying, “The BEST evening of pizza and outrageous laughter with the fiercely fabulous @chappellroan. Love her, love her, love her.”

With plenty of chatter of Roan being a frontrunner in the “Best New Artist” category at the Grammys in 2025, she recently shared her thoughts with me on her generation of music storytellers in the industry right now.

“I feel like the new wave of artists are just so focused on making big, bold moves, and I think that’s the only way to move forward in music. Bold. Go boldly.”