Yesterday, a friend of mine from the US who happens to be a Chappell fan, sent me an instagram reel of a white girl dancing at Pink Pony Club in some kind of bar over a table, which was funny since no one in the video gave two shits about her.
He told me like always, to give her a chance, so I finally listened and paid attention to one of her songs (Pink Pony Club) and since it’s been two months since she was cancelled for what happened in Brazil, I wanted to give another opinion but no in a different angle (this is going to be a large rant).
In this sub we’ve already discussed about Kayleigh's horrible persona, like the fact she’s a closeted republican, how privileged she was, the fact that she’s a culture vulture of the LGBT community and how much of an asshole she’s with everyone around her, but I noticed most of these posts come from the English speaking community, for me (Young dude from Mexico) these things are not my only problem about her but just the tip of the iceberg.
After listening and reading the lyrics of her song I ended up having this nasty culture shock about how performative and attention seeking most of these artists like Chappell in the US are. Chappell disguised Pink Pony Club as a song of liberation and auto discovery of a sexual orientation, however, lyrics like “On the stage in my heels, it's where I belong” or “I'm up and jaws are on the floor
Lovers in the bathroom and a line outside the door” are very clear of how much Chappell is needy for attention.
We all know her statement is “I hate fame” even if it is the thing she seeks the most. In that moment I tried to do a non correlational comparison with a Mexican pop song from the early 2000's (because both are pop, but in a different time and perspective). Belanova's “Arena” had lyrics like this “Day by day another story will be written, and it will be a grain of sand, just another star in this universe I’m spinning with” (it’s already translated).
It was such a cultural shock how different are the perspectives from so-called commercial songs, Chappell's instrumental was loud, noisy, like if it’s yelling at everyone “Look at me!” while Belanova's instrumental and lyrics feels lounge/acid cabaret-ey, like if the sound is suspended in the air, and the narrator is not the center of the universe but instead is contemplating it.
My point here is, American pop performative wave just like Chappell it’s so off-putting, her songs are the mirror of the person she really is, someone who wants to be “relevant”, someone who wants to have always the spotlight, but she’s not able to show vulnerable or honest about she thinks of feels.
Kayleigh's songs feel empty because of all her greed to maintain her numbers up, while the one I compared her song to feels raw somehow. One is intrinsical, it is what is, like the wind or the sunset, is beautiful because it doesn’t need the approval of something or someone, while Roan's is the constant “If I am not seen, or approved and praised by someone else, then I am nothing.”
The worst part of all this shit, is that, even if Chobble is a douchebag and has superficial music, she’s a nice singer and has a good vocal range which is being wasted by her delusions of being a famous and relevant pop star, which is just pathetic.
I really wish music industry had more artists like SZA, the kind of artists who allows themselves to be open and honest with their fans. In the very end, music industry just want to sell, although, is important to have musicians who can produce songs about they have highs and lows, how amazing they could be, but at the same time how human they are.