Chappell Roan is a Missouri-born 24-year-old singer-songwriter who began uploading songs online as a teenager, was discovered and released an album on Atlantic when she was just 18.
Now an independent artist, she’s been releasing a string of strong singles in collaboration with Olivia Rodrigo’s chief collaborator, Daniel Nigro, and the latest one is the most irresistible to date: “Casual,” a graphic paen to, as the press release calls it, “modern dating and young lust” that pairs explicit lyrics with a stately, Lana Del Rey-esque delivery towering chorus that dares radio not to play it.
“I’ve heard so many rumors/ That I’m just a girl that you bang on your couch/ I thought you thought of me better…
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“Knee deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out/ Is it casual now?,” the chorus goes. “Baby, get me off again/ If it’s casual, it’s casual now.”
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Semi-explicit lyrics are nothing new for Roan — her “Pink Pony Club” is about a girl who moves to L.A. and becomes a stripper, others are called “Naked in Manhattan” and “My Kink Is Karma” (co-written with Nigro and Selena Gomez/ Justin Bieber hitmaker Justin Tranter). But this is something else.
Considering her top-shelf collaborators, her media buzz and popularity on TikTok — not to mention an opening slot of Rodrigo’s “Sour” tour — it’s no surprise that there’s a bidding war over the singer, but that happens every day for artists with less talent and less-promising catalogs. She’s currently on tour in the U.S. with Fletcher and will be headlining her own dates early next year — we have a feeling that five years after her debut album, Chappell Roan’s real story is just getting started.