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Good Luck, Babe!

Credits

Release Date

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Performance

Reviewer

Adam R. Holz

Album Review

You might accuse me of being lazy with what I’m about to write. But, honestly, cliched or not, I think Chappell Roan is going to be a big deal. (And for many fans, she already is.) Like, Madonna or Lady Gaga big. Or at the very least, Miley Cyrus or Billie Eilish big.

If, that is, the pressure of her supernova fame doesn’t prove to be her undoing—and the jury is still out on that question. (More on that in a moment.)

Chappell Roan (real name: Kayleigh Rose Amstutz) has erupted like a volcano into the music mainstream this year. Her smash hit, “Hot To Go,” comes complete with a dance and addictive earworm appeal paired with an infectious ‘80s vibe. Think Toni Basil’s 1982 classic “Mickey” fused with Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” and set on fire with a pop-punk flamethrower. Yes, it’s been floating around for a year or so. But in early September, the song was featured in a Target commercial. That’s next level stuff for any musical act, and it’s indicative of Roan’s sudden ubiquity in the musical realm.

We’ll get to Roan’s latest hit, “Good Luck, Babe!” in just a minute. But there are a couple more details we need to hit before we do.

Roan grew up in a conservative Christian home in Willard, Missouri, one that emphasized virtues such as modesty and chastity. But since 2018, she’s embraced being gay and a public persona that draws heavily from drag culture and imagery—so much so that The Washington Post dubbed her a “queer pop powerhouse” in a 2023 profile piece titled “Chappell Roan doesn’t care if she’s going to hell.” She told the Post, “There’s a special place in my heart for queer kids in the Midwest because I know how they’re feeling and I know how isolating it can feel.”

The Missouri singer has also had a deeply ambivalent relationship with social media. In the same article quoted above, Roan said, “I have a pretty toxic relationship to it [social media] because I feel like I’m a slave to it. And if I stop, then I’m missing out on my career. I feel really horrible about it, honestly.” She’s also been very open about her mental health struggles, including being diagnosed as bipolar.

But in the last few weeks alone (late September to early October), the combined pressures of fame, social media and an exponentially expanding fan base have become more than she can handle, leading to cancellations of shows in Paris, Amsterdam, Washington, D.C., and New York City. This has left fans disappointed and frustrated.

Roan has taken to social media to explain, hoping for a sympathetic response. “I apologize to people who have been waiting to see me in NYC & DC this weekend at All Things Go, but I am unable to perform,” Roan said on Instagram September 28, a day before one of the shows she cancelled. “Things have gotten overwhelming over the past few weeks and I am really feeling it. … I feel pressures to prioritize a lot of things right now and I need a few days to prioritize my health.”

We’ll see if Chappell Roan’s meteoric rise leads ever higher into the stratosphere of pop culture, or whether she metaphorically flames out under the pressures of fame.

As for her latest hit, “Good Luck, Babe!” it’s a breezy-but-bitter synth-pop breakup song about a former female lover whom she imagines will probably end up trapped in a disappointing marriage to a man.

POSITIVE CONTENT

There’s little that could be construed as positive as Roan processes her anger and disappointment over a breakup with another woman. About the best one could say of it is that she’s honest about how broken she is, albeit with a big dose of bitterness.

CONTENT CONCERNS

Roan clearly longs for a deeper relationship with this woman than is being reciprocated: “I don’t wanna call it off/But you don’t wanna call it love.” And she perhaps hints that the issue is her partner’s denial of her attraction to women and/or a willingness to commit to a long-term, same-sex relationship: “You can kiss a hundred boys in bars/Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling/You can say it’s just the way you are.”

Later, Roan speculates that this woman will likely end up married to a man … and miserable: “When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night/With your head in your hands, you’re nothing more than his wife/And when you think about me, all of those years ago/ … You’re standing face to face with ‘I told you so.’”

And after all of that, Roan repeatedly—albeit sarcastically—tells her ex, “Good luck, babe (well, good luck) … /You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.” The implication, it would seem, is that Roan’s ex has never come to terms with her attraction to women and now is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man instead of just being truthful about who she really is.

As for the failed relationship itself, Roan primarily talks about it in terms of her physical intimacy with the other woman: “It’s a sexually explicit kind of love affair.”  

TRACK SUMMARY

Chappel Roan has, by her own admission, left behind the conservative Midwestern and Christian values she grew up with. In their place is an enthusiastic embrace of LGBT culture.

That part of her story might not be immediately evident upon a casual, uncritical listen to this song, or “Hot To Go.” You might think what you’re hearing is a really catchy, deliberately retro breakup song. “Good Luck, Babe!” is that—but the breakup in question is between two women, one of whom longs for more and the other of whom apparently can’t quite commit to being openly gay.

In a mainstream culture where sexual identity is increasingly seen as a fluid part of our identity, the rise of an artist such as Chappell Roan is hardly as shocking as it would have been a generation ago. She both reflects that cultural norm and reinforces it.

But if your kids have casually become fans due to this song’s (or others’) undeniably catchy sound, you should know that there are deeper messages about sexuality here that need to be critically unpacked from the Christian point of view that Chappell Roan herself has rejected.

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adam-holz
Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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