On Aug. 1, American music festival organizers Lollapalooza shared a startling image to their social media – a watercolor mass of bodies, packed like sardines into Chicago’s massive Grant Park. Framed next to the various floodlights and tents, the attendees look like ants, all crammed together in one spot. It was an enormous crowd, thousands of people, all gathered there for a common purpose. In the words of Lollapalooza’s tweet: “It’s Chappell’s world and we’re just living in it.”
This photograph quickly went viral in the weeks after it was shared. A spokesperson interviewed by CNN even stated that “Chappell’s performance was the biggest daytime set we’ve ever seen.” While the true number is unclear, it has been confirmed that over 110,000 people were present at each day of the nearly week-long festival.
Yet, despite this groundbreaking turnout, just last year, Roan was considered a lesser-known artist. In August 2023, according to Spotify Artist Performance, she was averaging about a million listeners. For reference, that’s around the same amount of listeners as niche musical celebrities like rapper Todrick Hall and indie artist Ginger Root. On Aug. 1, however, Spotify recorded her monthly listeners as being just over 36 million. At the time of writing this article, just a month later, she now sits at a comfortable 45 million. Some attribute this impressive rise to luck, or chance. The truth, however, is much less mysterious: Chappell Roan simply just never let up.
Getting her first record deal at age 16, Kayleigh Rose Amstutz (known now by her stage name, Chappell Roan) quickly released her first EP “School Nights,” to very little acclaim. However, this didn’t stop her from making a permanent move to Los Angeles in order to better pursue her career.
Roan often attributes this choice as the push she needed to explore her style: “I feel allowed to be who I want to be here,” she told Rolling Stone in an October 2022 interview.
This new freedom inspired her next single “Pink Pony Club” – which, although later a success, at the time generated almost no profit. Roan, now 22, was dropped from the label that had taken her in nearly five years prior. Severely inhibited by this, Roan decided to briefly release music independently. During this time, she had to work multiple jobs just to afford food, including several nannying and barista positions. Despite barely being able to make ends meet, Roan was able to generate a significant following on social media. All of her music videos from this era were entirely self-funded, and organized by a team of friends – the charm that resulted from this, as well as Roan’s new drag-inspired style, attracted many new listeners to her music.
The big event that would eventually lead to the Lollapalooza photo, however, was Chappell Roan getting invited to open for Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour. Although she had already headlined tours herself by this point, Rodrigo’s massive influence and global following assisted her in reaching a bigger audience. This experience, in combination with the later release of her 2024 single “Good Luck, Babe!”, began what Roan considered the start of the “next chapter” in her career. In April 2024, she performed at Coachella, only further introducing new listeners to her music. Billboard would later report that, by this point, her monthly listeners had risen to nearly twenty times what they were in January.
It’s unclear yet just how long this meteoric rise will continue. As the months go on, Roan seems to only become more and more popular, especially among members of the queer community, whom she very openly advocates for. Having grown up in an environment in which she felt unable to openly live her identity, Roan understands the need for positive spaces for those in the LGBTQ+ community to express themselves. While it’s impossible to know yet just how far she will go, it’s clear that her rise was built on more than just good luck.