The album at UK No 1 this week is titled The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess – though for its creator, breakthrough pop star Chappell Roan, the past year has been all rise and no fall.
When the Missouri-born 26-year-old released her debut album last September, it marked the beginning of a slow-burning second act in pop. In her late teens, she had been signed as a downbeat songwriter by Atlantic and subsequently dropped. The experience prompted her to cultivate an outre persona that allowed the queer musician born Kayleigh Amstutz to express everything she had once repressed, growing up in a Christian community. “I grew up thinking being gay was bad and a sin,” she told the Guardian last year. “I went to the gay club once and it was so impactful, like magic. It was the opposite of everything I was taught.” She then hustled her way – via stints back home working in a drive-thru doughnut shop – to a deal with Island.
