HOT TO GO! Chappell Roan’s perfect cheerleader pop song
Thus far, 2024 has been an incredibly eventful year for music with new releases from all the biggest names, and yet pop fan circles seem most excited about the relative newcomer Chappell Roan. Her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is currently outcharting Cowboy Carter and Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine on the album charts, and despite her album being released in September of 2023 she has three different songs that are becoming hits on billboard’s hot 100. The main novelty Chappell Roan brings to mainstream pop is her down-to-earth unabashed experience as a queer woman, best shown on the delightful Red Wine Supernova where she brags about having a “wand and a rabbit” in a way that’s impossibly fun and sexy. In an age where women in pop are mostly aiming for downtempo vibe-y music, Roan’s commitment to playing songs “with a fucking beat” is incredibly refreshing. Behind the scenes, Roan has a great producer and songwriter helping her in Dan Nigro, who also co-wrote and produced most of Olivia Rodrigo’s solo career, but when Rodrigo aims for an uptempo track she looks to hip indie rock. Chappel Roan’s taste is far less cool, but combining Nigro’s sound with influence from early Kesha, Lady Gaga, and indie-darling era Carly Rae Jepsen creates some incredible music.
While I haven’t revisited many of the deep cuts of the album, the highlights are going to be in heavy rotation for the forseeable future (and only a little bit because the video for Red Wine Supernova is ripped straight from my fantasies), and none more than HOT TO GO! So often when pop artists want to evoke a cheerleader aesthetic their immediate idea is to start with a bare drum beat (for example, Tony Basil’s Hey Mickey or The Ting Ting’s That’s Not My Name) but instead Roan counts off the song and gets right into it’s retro synths. That’s the key reason why this song doesn’t fall into the same traps as many other cheerleader-pop songs that make them annoying, Roan is all charm. Yes, the cheerleader is the high school supermodel, the top of the feminine hierarchy, but just being a cheerleader doesn’t make you hot, being a cheerleader into YOU is hot. And in the same way I use the pronoun ‘you’, Roan uses gender neutral language so the listener can imagine the scenario however they want.
More than anything, what makes the song work is Roan’s charisma. The prechorus where she first asks “baby, don’t you like this beat? (na na na-na)/ I made it so you’d dance with me (na na na-na)” and changes it in the second chorus to “sleep with me” is perfect escalation. But the playfully mocking na-na-na’s keep the song fun and flirty instead of raunchy. In this era of hip-hop influenced pop, it’s so refreshing to hear a singer put everything into their verses alongside the chorus the way Roan does when she sings “You don’t have to stare, come here get with it!” Lastly, Roan has a perfect presence for video. She can just stare into the camera and I’m hooked. She seems to love the camera as much as it loves her, and she just works it.
In all honesty, I might just think that because Roan is my exact type, a queer red-headed, curly-haired woman with more talent than I’ll ever have. But then again, that make me your dream girl, because after all, Chappell Roan is both your favorite artist’s favorite artist and your dream girl’s dream girl.
