I Listened to Chappell Roan Before She was Cool

The evolutionary drive to “find it first”

Maybe you have heard the new hit song ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ on your Apple Music recommendations or Sirius XM radio’s “Today’s Top 50” station.

If you have not heard it or have never heard of Chappell Roan before, I can provide some history.

Born as Kayleigh Amstutz, Chappell Roan uploaded her first public facing song to YouTube in 2014 at the ripe age of 17. She, like many artists today, would find her way to fame almost purely through the power of social media hype and internet popularity.

Her first single, ‘Good Hurt’ was released in 2017 to some moderate praise, and she ditched the chains of landlocked Missouri and moved out to LA to see if she could shine amongst the stars. After spending time touring and songwriting, she released ‘Pink Pony Club’ in 2020, which USA Today ranked third on a list of the "10 best songs of its release year 2020.”

This is when I entered the picture as a big fan. ‘Pink Pony Club’ showed off Roan’s writing talents and was a lyrically clever song to listen to with a killer guitar riff for a finale.

The song is every bit as rebellious as what you might expect from someone who picked up from their small hometown living and “ran away” to follow their dreams.

God, what have you done?
You're a pink pony girl
And you dance at the club
Oh mama, I'm just having fun
On the stage in my heels
It's where I belong down at the
Pink Pony Club

I can clearly relate to these lyrics, working my 9 to 5 corporate job since the moment I graduated from college and all that.

Following the release of ‘Pink Pony Club,’ Roan did not immediately blow-up across the Billboard charts. However, after a few short years of what I can only imagine being the standard, but still noteworthy struggle from small-town artist to signed record-label success, she is now one of the hottest artists in the country.

Specifically, in the last few months, she’s gone completely mainstream. Even if you haven’t heard of her, you can’t deny that being the 127th top streamed artist in the world on Spotify isn’t an impressive feat.

‘Good Luck, Babe!’ at the top of Spotify’s Hot Hits USA, with Chappell Roan featured as the playlist cover artist.

Her shows rapidly sold out and she is all over the radio (I was inspired to write this letter when I heard her being played at a brewery in Richmond, VA).

So what happened ? Well one big factor was that she started opening for Olivia Rodrigo’s tour which started in February of 2024 (Again, if you haven’t heard of Olivia Rodrigo, she is the 50th most streamed artist on Spotify, and has her own rocket-to-rapid-stardom story). I’d say the other major factor is that she released some catchy, upbeat, unique and addictive songs that people can’t help but love.

I’m happy she is getting the recognition deserved by talented artists, and hopefully this means she will kickoff a more robust tour schedule so that I’ll be able to see her. But at the same time, I have a primal feeling of possession and jealousy because I FOUND HER FIRST.

I first listened to Chapelle Roan in 2018. I really started to listen to her regularly in 2020, FOUR years before all the mouth-breathers that are obsessed with two songs that came out in the last six months.

However anyone can claim to find something first (much like infamous explorer Frederick Cook did for the North Pole; more on that in the story below), but the proof is in the pudding. My pudding is stats.fm, which tracks all my historical listening data back to the beginning of my account creation. As you can see, I first listened to Roan back in 2018.

You know what else I found first (or was at least a very early fan of) ?

• Imagine Dragons

• Twenty One Pilots

Did before it was cool ?

• Liked superheroes (I read Marvel Comics before the Tobey McGuire Spider Man came out)

• Worked remote (pre-pandemic flipping everything on its head)

Knew about before the internet ruined everything ?

• Buying stocks off Robinhood

• Who King of the North was (read GOT before the show dropped)

Was wearing before they sold out?

• Birddog Shorts

• Allbirds Shoes

I’ll be the first to admit that my natural reaction to hearing “I found it first” in any conversation is to slap that person in the face and scream “WHO CARES?” Hence me planting my flag in all these discoveries safely from behind my keyboard and monitor.

But enough with my aimless bragging, and on a more serious note, advanced algorithms are recommending more than enough content across books, news, podcasts, music, movies and television. I find myself finding less and less “undiscovered” works because everyone else is coming to them at the same time as me. The internet is indiscreetly shoving content down our throats, and I wonder if it is still possible to live on the edge of the mainstream.

Taking an even bigger step back, sometimes I fantasize about what the world was like when there were still stones unturned, mountains unclimbed, regions untouched by humanity and intersections without McDonald’s franchises. Perhaps this is why one of my favorite genres to read is the self-titled “Legendary Real Life Quest,” which I wrote about in a few letters ago. I enjoy reading stories that take place during a time when the world was still not fully mapped, and brave men and women had to go out and find those borders to draw.

They take me out of the here and now, where I question if there is really, truly anything left to upturn on behalf of my fellow man, or even to discover in my own right?

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Discovery for Discovery’s Sake (and a bit of bragging rights)

The “Legendary Real Life Quest” stories almost always center around some grand expedition taken on by a bold leader and pack of faithful followers to explore the uncharted or stake claim over the unexplored.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed a fervent period known as the "Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration." During this time, several explorers raced to claim parts of the vast, barren wasteland of Antartica, looking to be the first to plant their country’s flag in some unmarked block of snow and ice. These grand adventures were funded under the guise of scientific learnings, but at their core was the deep draw to speak the age old words “I found it first.”

During this time, several countries and explorers raced to explore and claim parts of Antarctica, driven by national pride, scientific curiosity, and the allure of being the first to reach the most remote and uncharted territories on Earth.

Let’s revisit one of the most emblematic races of polar exploration, and vaguely tie it back to my daring discovery of Chappell Roan.

The South Pole remained one of the last untouched locations on the planet in the early 20th century. But before we can get to who first stepped on that virgin land, we must start with the North Pole (and no, there is not a “Hollow Earth” portal at the North Pole that you can fall through straight to the South Pole like in those Godzilla movies).

Explorer #1; Roald Amundsen of Norway was a respected and ambitious explorer who led the first successful navigation of the Northwest Passage from 1903 to 1906. This man really liked to be first at doing things and wanted to be the person to discover Santa’s workshop.

However, a few other gentlemen from different countries end up beating him to the punch.

Explorer #2; Frederick Cook claims to reach the North Pole in 1908. However, Cook didn’t have the supporting evidence to back this up and the people called B.S.

Right around the same time that Explorer #1 is ramping up an expedition to take a ship to the “top of the world,” Explorer #3, Robert Peary, from the good ‘ole USA swoops in and makes a much stronger (but still largely doubted) claim on reaching the North Pole in 1909.

At this point, the appeal to go north is fading in Amundsen’s mind because, as they say in 20th Century Norway, if you ain’t first, you’re last. So instead he secretly redirects his 1909 expedition’s efforts towards the South Pole, which still remains untouched by man.

Meanwhile, Explorer #4, Robert Falcon Scott representing team Britain, has launched his own widely publicized and well-funded expedition to the South Pole to set sail in 1910.

You can imagine Scott, and the world’s, surprise when in 1911 Amundsen, who was supposed to be well on his way north, announces that he is actually booking it in the opposite direction.

Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole on January 17, 1912, after braving several months of rough seas and extreme Antarctic weather. He and his team were met with the unwelcome sight of the Norwegian flag, which had been left there by Roald Amundsen and his crew. Amundsen had reached the South Pole just over a month earlier, on December 14, 1911.

I can only imagine the fury and frustration Scott must have felt, and the unenthusiastic ceremony that followed to place Britain’s flag next to Norway’s flag. Probably in a spot slightly less iconic and a little bit less “exactly south” than desired.

Amundsen had that dog in him (and the dogs pulling his sled probably helped as well). He will always go down in history as “finding it first,” even if it was through a bit of trickery, combined with cleverness and ambition.

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So why the long tale?

Well, aside from being an absolutely epic story, I think it’s the perfect example to demonstrate that inside each and every one of us is a deep desire to find things first. I’m sure there is some evolutionary explanation to justify this innate drive (the first human to find the waterhole was able to survive by drinking all the water before the next gal came along… hence her kids survive, along with that “find it first” mentality… multiple by 10 million years), but I did not do that research for this letter.

Regardless, we live on a planet that, for the most part, is well documented. Now we begin look to the stars, hence the American flag planted on the moon, which might be the biggest “I was here before you” moment in all of history (which took place during what was essentially a “who can do stuff first” race with the Soviet Union). Or, for those of us who are not astronauts or Elon Musk, we can look to the edges of our taste. To explore the artist that your friends have never heard of. Or indulge in the hobby that appears to be a small niche today, but will be featured as the new “fad” within a year.

I never would have found my new favorite daily tennis shoes from Allbirds if I had kept perpetually buying Nikes. I wouldn’t have first listened to Chappell Roan if I only returned to my “Spotify recommendations” playlist.

You can’t discover the new, or ever claim to “find it first” if you don’t take the first step away from what you are familiar with. Like Amundsen, it might be time to pivot away from the mainstream North Pole, and head south, to explore your very own final frontier.

The Bel