The world’s favorite Midwest princess, Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, professionally known as Chappell Roan, returned with new music on March 13 with her first endeavor into the country genre — “The Giver.”
Roan’s latest release marks her first in nearly a year following the drop of her synth-pop mega-hit “Good Luck, Babe!” last April.
“The Giver” originally debuted when Roan performed the track during her appearance as the musical guest for the Nov. 2 episode of “Saturday Night Live.” In an astonishingly gutsy move, Roan not only launched an entirely new song to a massive audience, but she also introduced herself to the often exclusionary world of country music.
From the beginning, Roan has distanced “The Giver” from the traditional country music genre. The marketing campaign for “The Giver” is a strong visual antithesis to the country music scene. Gone is the country music industry’s standard imagery of golden fields, acoustic guitars, cowboy hats and boots. Instead, Roan heads straight for symbols of the metropolis and leans heavily into the sentiment of the chorus’s “I get the job done” lyric, branding “The Giver” with a retro corporate aesthetic.
In promotional billboards, posters and social media posts, Roan unveiled the five characters of the song’s branding and official lyric video: the lawyer, the detective, the plumber, the dentist and the construction worker. A tongue-in-cheek innuendo accompanies each profession, making this marketing campaign an entertaining and provocative experience for audiences.
Thematically, “The Giver” is somewhat in line with common strands of country music but with one key twist. On an episode of Apple Music’s “Today’s Country Radio” podcast, Roan said that she drew on the sentiment of songs like Big & Rich’s 2004 hit “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy).” This explanation characterizes “The Giver” as an unequivocally flirtatious song.
However, Roan’s role in the recent surge of lesbian pop music makes the song an undoubtedly gay anthem. Thus, “The Giver” is an exciting addition to a genre whose mainstream success has historically ignored its queer scene. Through “The Giver,” Roan — one of the loudest and proudest queer artists in our current pop culture — is making significant strides in the world of country music.
This venture into country music also marks a homecoming for Roan, who relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a music career but grew up in the small rural town of Willard, Mo. In the aforementioned podcast episode, Roan described her attraction to country music as being deeply rooted in her geographic upbringing. Making a country song is part of honoring the place that shaped her. She emphasized that, despite being a gay drag queen with an ultra-pop sound, she can still belong in the country space.
“The Giver” proves that queer artists and listeners are not just a tolerable subgroup in the country music space — they are actively excelling in the genre. “The Giver” utilizes common motifs of classic country culture in the South — including lifted pickup trucks and taxidermied hunting trophies — but cleverly flips them around to fit her flirtatious narrative.
It is because of this narrative that “The Giver” is still unapologetically a Chappell Roan track, despite its stark departure from Roan’s typical pop sound. The song effortlessly blends the defining elements of pop from Roan’s previous work while still being firmly planted in the conventions of the country genre. “The Giver” is equally as danceable as Roan’s upbeat hits like “HOT TO GO!” and “Pink Pony Club,” but the inclusion of the staple country fiddle and banjo adds the perfect folksy flare to a lyric sheet already teeming with gaiety.
On another note, the song’s lyric video isn’t just a fun visual to go with “The Giver” — it also includes some hints about the next chapter in Roan’s career. The opening graphic of a selection menu with four song options includes “Good Luck, Babe!” and “The Giver,” as well as the vinyl-exclusive demo “Read & Make Out” and “The Subway,” an unreleased track that has only been a part of Roan’s live performances.
These four songs are likely to make an appearance in Roan’s highly anticipated next long-form work. Her first studio album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” is sure to be a tough act to follow, but her continued demonstration of ingenuity throughout her rapid rise in fame in the last year is a promising sign.
The lyric video’s infomercial format has also allowed for two calendar-specific easter eggs. Throughout the first verse, the item number 219-198 appears in reference to Roan’s date of birth, Feb. 19, 1998. The second verse features another item number, 920-025, which seems to indicate a date later this year, Sept. 20. Given that the limited edition vinyl pressings for “The Giver” are not set to ship until this August, it would not be surprising to see Roan roll out a project around that time. Fans might want to keep their eyes peeled and their ears open for a late summer or early autumn with even more new Chappell Roan tunes.
“The Giver” is an incredibly well-rounded musical homecoming from Chappell Roan. The song is defined by an unexpectedly harmonious juxtaposition of country and pop music cultures, from its lyrical themes to its sounds to its rollout.
In the Apple Music podcast, Roan spoke on the feeling of coming back to the country genre and its roots in the Midwest. She expressed her hesitance to break into the genre due to growing up ridiculed for being gay in a small Midwestern town, but she reflected positively on the full-circle journey she took to get here.
“I can move to LA, have a revelation and write a country song to kind of wrap it all up and be like … I love myself so much that I took a leap into a pretty painful part of my past in the Midwest and made a song of joy.”
Camille Robinson is an Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer. She can be reached at camilllr@uci.edu.
Edited by Lillian Dunn and Jaheem Conley.