The best genre, obviously.
Today, pop sensation Chappell Roan released her new “country” song “The Giver,” which will be part of a forthcoming (unofficially announced) album she’s working on. If you follow music even from afar, you’ve probably heard of her 2023 breakout album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, which featured hits like “Pink Pony Club” and “Good Luck, Babe!” She was nominated for several Grammy’s this year, and ended up taking home the coveted Best New Artist trophy at the show in February.
She’s been doing quite a bit of press with country music media in the lead-up to today, and previously said she’s not trying to “bait people” into listening to her by putting out a country song, she just loves the genre and still drives around West Hollywood listening to Jason Aldean and Alan Jackson, so it comes across as very authentic. She has said multiple times how much she loved country music and was exposed to it a ton growing up in rural Missouri.
Obviously, “The Giver” is super pop and has a little country twang in the production, heavy on the fiddle, and definitely gives me a Shania Twain feel in that way. Chappell shared on Instagram earlier that it was “scary” to release a “full a** country song” after only putting out one single last year, but she just wants to keep it light and have fun being a pop star, as she should.
She added that she knows a lot of her fans might be new to the country scene, and have likely never listened to a song with fiddle and banjo before, but “country music is fire” and she encouraged them all to give it, and country in general, a real chance. Chappell also thanked “all the country divas who came before me,” and while I know a ton of country fans will absolutely hate this, and that’s totally fine, it definitely feels genuine to me in terms of her real love for country… it doesn’t mean you have to like the song, but still, I can appreciate that:
“‘The Giver’ OUT NOW. Yeehawwww. I love this song so much and it’s been such a fun rollout to see the bus benches and billboards and posters and tear-offs wow I am so excited for all of it to come to life ! Eeeee!!!! It is def a bold and scary move to release a full a** country song after only releasing one song last year and it having such a success in the pop genre… (like I am very scared as I type this lol) but I think that’s the entire point of Chappell Roan.
Be bold and scary and have fun. Be pop star girl then pop an edible +watch YouTube vibes. The whole point of this is to be silly !!! Country music is fire. It’s the campiest of camp. Some of you may be new to the country scene and not quite sure what to make of me having a fiddle and banjo in my song. Understandable boo ¨̮
It is something different and sometimes different can feel bad because it’s unfamiliar, but I encourage you to give her another shot ;) Thank you to all the country divas who came before me <3.”
The Midwest princess clearly has a lot of country in her, and while she said in another interview she wasn’t totally closed off to making a full-blown country album, I don’t think that’s where she’s taking this next project in terms of pop star going full country artist à la Beyoncé and Post Malone last year.
While it’s not a love song about a boy or former flame from her hometown, it’s a “lesbian country anthem,” as some of her fans have put it, in speaking with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country, Chappell says she did poke a little fun at “country” boys in her new song, and that she’s dated a few in her day:
“I wonder if people are going to revolt against me making a very clearly lesbian song, where I poke fun at country boys… I’ve dated a few. I love a country boy. I love them. I love a man who can shovel horse manure. I love that. I love a man who will sit in grass. I’ve dated a farm boy. I’ve dated someone who worked on a dairy farm.
But I’ve also dated someone who will literally not sit on grass, and not touch a bug. I appreciate the country way. But also, you will find me making fun of them all… Why do we keep having songs about women not being satisfied?”
She went on to explain that “country boys,” as she put it, have treated her the “best and the worst” in her life, and that has influenced her in many ways, both in music and in life:
“I’m about to say something so controversial, but do you know who has treated me the best and the worst? Country boys. They treated me the nicest and they’ve also treated me the worst because… this is in high school and that’s what I grew up around. Those are the boys I grew up around and that’s how I learned to stand up for myself, because you’re not going to look at me and be like, ‘Shh, shh, shh.’ That’s how I learned that I am never going to have this done to me ever again.
I’m never going to have someone put their hand up and say, ‘Stop talking.’ I learned from a lot of the boys that I grew up around who were influenced by their fathers and how these roles as, like, ‘I’m a man, so you speak after me.’ I began my confidence in feeling kind of inferior to a lot of the boys around me growing up. And so whenever I pointed out at that photographer on the red carpet at the VMAs, I heard boys at my freaking high school telling girls to shut the… up.
And I know that’s not exclusive to country. That’s not exclusive to southern culture. That’s not exclusive to any culture. It’s universal. But I didn’t hear just slurs around gay people. I’ve heard a lot of women-hating comments growing up and a lot of women-uplifting comments, but it’s different where we grew up. And I don’t care that I was raised to be ladylike. I don’t care. I don’t care about being trashy. I don’t care about looking sexy.”
Of course, she also cited Dolly Parton as an artist who means a lot to her and had the rare ability to cross genres and bring people together through her timeless country music:
“I mean that’s the beauty of Dolly and what she has created across literally all genres. She is an artist that has embraced all of everyone. And no matter how we try to put music in certain genres and, ‘I’m a country artist, I’m a pop artist,’ it’s like people can be fans of all of it and can go to all the concerts. There are a lot of gay people and trans people at country concerts and they love country music.
The girls are at my concerts and they’re at Megan Thee Stallion and Doechii. That is the beauty of music nowadays. You have access to all of this. And country is something that… it is so specific to a feeling that I miss, that I don’t feel here in LA or New York or Seattle. It’s really, really special.”
In terms of Chappell’s sentiment, it’s true that country music is universal, and even if you don’t prefer the pop stylings of Chappell Roan, I think we can all agree that it is special, and I think it’s actually kind of cool to see so many artists and people who you would think don’t care at all about country embrace it and promote it.
You can listen to “The Giver” here:
The full interview:
