Switched on Pop - Chappell Roan is giving country... and hair metal?

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Why was Chappell Roan's band dressed like an 80s hair metal act during her Grammy performance? The answer unlocks the surprising secret behind her #1 country hit "The Giver." This musical detective story connects glam rock aesthetics to modern country through an unexpected lineage involving AC/DC's producer, Shania Twain's revolution, and men who inadvertently dressed in drag. Between fiddle licks and gated reverb drums lies a brilliant subversion of country traditions that proves the genre has always been about musical drag while revealing what "rhinestone cowgirl" really means. MORE Subscribe to our newsletter to receive your own bingo card! Songs Discussed: Chappell Roan – "The Giver" Chappell Roan – "Pink Pony Club" Big & Rich – "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" Bon Jovi – "Living on a Prayer" Guns N' Roses – "Sweet Child of Mine" AC/DC – "Back in Black" Def Leppard – "Pour Some Sugar on Me" Nirvana – "About a Girl" Bryan Adams – "Everything I Do (I Do It for You)" Shania Twain – "Any Man of Mine" Shania Twain – "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" Toby Keith feat. Willie Nelson – "Beer for My Horses" Carrie Underwood – "Before He Cheats" Trace Adkins – "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" Glen Campbell – "Rhinestone Cowboy" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. We've got a brand-new number one hot country song. debuting at the top of the charts. It's Chapel Rones, the giver.

The violin shredding, and then they brought it all home with the delayed chorus. I can't wait to get into this. Last that we saw Chapel, she was accepting the award for Best New Artist at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards. I think this was a long overdue award for her. She's known for her queer, liberatory, electronic pop music,

her drag persona, her fashion, her strong political stances. and she's been at it for a minute, right? She wowed the Grammy stage performing her hit song, Pink Pony Club, a song that she wrote in February of 2019, released in April of 2020, and performed live in February of 2025 at the Grammys.

And it's not country. Pink Bunny Club is not a country song. It's a queer anthem, lionizing the gay bar, the Abbey in West Hollywood, where Chapel Roan found her identity saying it was the first time that she could truly be herself

and not be judged. The thing is there is something about the performance of this song at the Grammys that really got my goat. What on earth are her band wearing? Okay, so we've got backup dancers, stylized, I think like rodeo clowns is kind of what they're giving. Yeah. I've never been to a rodeo, but that's my impression. Chapel herself decked out in this kind of like 80s Tina Turner-esque studded leather cat suit. And her band, I'm going to say they look kind of like.

they're in a 80s hair metal band or something. So what is this? I don't know. There's a lot going on here. That's exactly the question that I had when I first saw this performance. The rodeo clowns, I kind of got because the song, The Giver, had been previewed on SNL. We knew she was going to be putting out a country song. So this is almost like a, watch out.

Here comes a country song real soon. So I got that. But what is up with the hair metal? And what on earth does hair metal have to do with queer pop anthems like Pink Pony Club? I think the Chapel Roan's The Giver, a country song, is the missing link. And we're going to talk about how all three genres are part of Chaparone's musical DNA. Okay, so queer pop anthem plus 80s hair metal equals country hit? That math isn't mathing, so I'm all years to hear your explanation of this.

All right, let's listen back to the Giver and see if we can identify the hallmarks of a country song. We'll start in the verse. Well, there's that violin I mentioned earlier. Or I should say, excuse me, fiddle. I know, I know, fiddle, fiddle, okay. What else do we got? We've got a mix of electric and acoustic guitars that, to me, sound like 90s country, sound like kind of Garth Brooks country to me.

Interesting. We've got a slight nasally twang in chapel's voice that we associate with country music, and then the lyrics. Yeah, you got to have twang. First thing, antlers on the wall. That is not what you expect, like, the start of a chapel room song to be. Right. That's what you expect a frickin, you know, Travis Tritt song to be or something.

This song is full of country cliches that turn into double entendres. And she gives us one right at the very beginning. Ain't got antlers on my walls, but I sure know mating calls from the stalls and the bars on a Friday night. Wooho. Great line. Of course, this whole song is playing with perception of gender. identity and sexuality and country music. And, of course, antlers on the wall code, male in multiple ways.

Sure. Right. Yeah. A buck has antlers. A male deer has antlers and stereotypically hunting and mounting antlers on the wall. Codes masculine. Going through the stalls and the bars on a Friday night kind of sounds like a bro country line. And she continues these bro country cliches in her second verse where she says,

Girl, I don't need no lifted truck. We're having loud to pick you up because how I look is how. I touch. Can't have a country song without a truck. It's necessary. Right? Got to have a truck. Ideally driving down a dirt road. For sure. But then I look the way I touch, we're not in Kansas anymore with that line. Or we're not in Nashville anymore, I should say. For real. One of the things that really cues us up that we're not in Nashville is my absolute favorite stanza in the song. All right, we got to peel this one apart. And in this strip mall town of dreams, Where is Chapel Rowan reporting from?

Where is she reporting from? Well, I don't know, the back room of the abbey in West Hollywood, perhaps. Yes, I actually did a case study on this song with my students this week, and they're like, you know, strip mall town, town of dreams, like every town is a strip mall. It could be any small town. You know, she's from a small town of Missouri. She grew up on Christian and country, and she is native to country music. She knows it in her bones.

But when she says this strip mall town of dreams, anyone from Los Angeles knows that, L.A. is the land of dreams that is riddled with strip malls. Oh, yeah. And she's saying, good luck finding a man who has the means to Rhinestone Cowgirl all night long. If you're hanging out in West Hollywood, you're probably not going to find the guy who's looking to

Rhinestone Cowgirl all night long. So she's reporting, it seems like, from the same place that Pink Pony Club took place, West Hollywood. And that line to Rhinestone Cowgirl all night long, oh, does this have layers? Okay, because Rhinestone Cowboy, that's a classic country song by an artist that I can't think of right now.

Glenn Campbell. Glenn Campbell. Thank you. All right. Let's peel that line back even further because a rhinestone cowboy is, of course, a cowboy wearing a beautiful rhinestone suit, usually a bright colored suit, bedazzled with all kinds of jewels made by the famous Ukrainian designer nudie cone. And these suits would have been worn by Glenn Campbell.

So some of the fashion choices of Chaparone's bedazzled leather. suit may be inspired by the Rhinestone Cowboy. But of course, the line is doing much more than commenting on fashion. It is just a hilarious double entendre, maybe to keep the song a little bit more radio-friendly. She's not talking about some Rhinestone Cowgirl. I'm not sure I understand the question. Nate, she's using a euphemism for Ride Cowgirl all night long. Oh, yeah.

Okay. Sorry, I'm too innocent to understand these lascivious. double entendres. Good luck finding a man who has the means to ride cowgirl all night long is basically what she's saying. But instead, rhinestone cowboy, rhinestone cowgirl, putting herself in the long lineage of country music with a very funny sexual double entendre. And boy, does she ride like a cowgirl. I mean, just check out this outro where you get banjo, you get vocal twang, and you get wonderful bluesy runs that you would never hear in a pop song, but you might in a country song.

Cowboy can't satisfy a girl. Chalperon can. So there is banjo in there. I wasn't sure. Now I hear it in the mix. That's nice. It's subtle. It's in the background.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So your take? Country song? I mean, once we've got banjo in the mix, I feel like we're way past the world of pop. Yeah. Find me a pop song with a banjo. Taylor.

No, but those are her country songs, dude. That's not, no, no, no. Is mean a country song or is that a pop song? Mean is a country song, definitely. Okay, okay. Venus at Country song. Okay. Any other questions?

No, no. But I mean, maybe the drums with their kind of 80s gated reverb are the one thing that push this like into the world of pop. But I'm firmly in the country camp with this one. You're getting ahead of me. Okay. Okay. I had a feeling. I know you love a gated reverb.

So I do. I definitely flagged that. But just to prove your point that she knows country, we got to take it to the bridge. Love a chapel bridge. We got a wordless sing along. And we get female and male voices. And then who is that? Is that a familiar voice?

Who on earth? She gets the job done. I don't know, the ghost of Toby Keith. Rest and peace. No, I actually don't know who's singing back up, but I know who it sounds like. Writing in from the distance are two voices in harmony, a baritone and a tenor named Big Kenny and John Ritt.

They go as big and rich. No way. The 90s and 2000s country duo who were made famous for their song, Save a Horse, ride a cowboy. Now, I'm not saying that's big and rich. I'm saying that it is an impersonation. And I know I'm at least partially right because Chappell did an interview with Apple Music, saying that she explicitly wanted to make a song in this style. I love Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy.

I was like, how can I? I want to feel that way on stage. I want to feel that because that's how I write. I'm like, how do I want to walk around on stage and sing? And I was like, I want to write that song, but like Chapel's version. I mean, I never thought I would say this, but I do hear how big and riches, Save a Horse, ride a Cowboy is the spiritual predecessor to Chapel Roan's the Giver. That actually makes a lot of sense now.

Yes. Chapel Roan has written basically a response song to Save a Horse, ride a Cowboy. Let's see if we can find some of these commonalities between the two, please. It's just in my nature, so take it like to take it. And then to Big and Rich. So what they have in common is this little riff played by the drums, the bassing of the tart. right at the sort of climactic moment of the chorus.

And Chapel, it's because you ain't got to, bum, bomb, tell me. And we hear the same thing in Big and Rich when they say, and the girls say, bum, bum, save a horse, ride a cowboy. I think we could call this a tip of the cowboy hat, if you will, this little rhythmic nod to Big and Rich. Not infringable, to be clear. No, no, anybody can make that little. No, no, no, it's that.

And I think it's appropriate, because, you know, as much as country music is nostalgic, built on one of the great American genres, from the roots of blues and folk and storytelling and themes about memory and tradition, country music is also constantly absorbing popular influences and referencing the recent past. I mean, big and rich are even doing it in their song. You can hear the sort of bling, bling rap cadence in their verse. and bling blinging while the girls are drinking long necks down.

They're singing about bling bling bling. This is peak bling rap. The style of hip hop born out of the cash money crew largely associated with BG's 1999 hit, Bling Bling Bling. Bling rap was all about showing off your wealth, your luxury jewelry. We heard it in other songs like Nellie's Grills,

Lil Wayne's Get Money, 50 cents into club, even considered part of the bling rap era. And here's Big and Rich, absorbing that culture into country music. Country music is constantly co-opting and borrowing from sounds of the recent past. Okay, Charles, I think there's at least one other thing here that's sort of cribbing from another genre besides country, and that's the drums. They're like big, spacey, echoy. They sound like Phil Collins' drums to me.

Okay, we've got some heavy drums in Big and Rich, and I definitely. I definitely hear the same thing in Chapel Rount, but I think your Phil Collins reference is entirely off. Yes, they've got that big gated snare, that giant sound. But I think if we want to unravel the mystery of all these references, we have to go to Hair Metal right after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions.

I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no.

We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Back in the 1980s, rock rolled the airwaves.

We're talking Bon Jovi, living on a prayer, guns and roses, sweet child mine, and ACDCs Back in Black. Nate, you said that in country, we were hearing some gated reverb. Man, listen to those gated reverbs. That's that snare drum with that huge cavernous sound

that suddenly gets cut off. And the drums in Back and Black are just enormous. Can you recreate that for us with your voice, Charles? Uh, boom. No, at least more.

Cow. Cow. No, no, but it's cow, cow, cow. That was good. That was good. Not bad. Not bad. What work on be boxing.

I think the sound of the drums on back and black are so enticing. And the world agrees. Back in Black is one of the best selling albums of all time. And it helped Shepard in a whole new sound of hard rock production made by the South African producer, Mutt Lang. We owe so much of modern music production to Mutt Lang's sounds. Huge drums that are meticulously mixed and produced. We hear that on Back in Black, but we hear even more of it on his later work with Def Leopard,

like, pour some sugar on me. Yeah. In every style of music we listen to today, drums are enhanced with samples. Even organic music will have a kick drum with a sampled kick drum underneath it to give it more weight or more snap. But it all got started really with Mutt Lang, who would take these hard rock songs and enhance them with bigger over-the-top drum samples. And working with Def Leppard, he had more opportunity to do so because tragically, their drummer Rick Allen lost one of his arms in an accident. And that required leaning even more into drum samples in their performance and in their productions. And that gave Mutt the opportunity to just make bigger, unrealistic, over-the-top drums that became such a signature of 1980s hard rock.

You can hear how those drums just cut through the mix on pour some sugar on me. Mutt Lang was meticulous. Everything was purposeful. He layered harmonies on harmonies. He had hooks on hooks. The guitars were wide and double, triple, quadrupled track. And those drums were just the centerpiece. and so many hard rock bands followed in this same tradition. Poison, Motley crew, Bon Jovi, Warren, you know, the big hair metal acts of their day.

That is, until Rock took a turn. Because in the 1990s, grunge comes along and completely changes the sound of rock. That's Nirvana's 1989 about a girl that is going to launch the grunge scene that will take over the 90s where if you're from Seattle, you're wearing flannel and you could swing a guitar. hard at your knees. You could have a record deal. In was grunge. Out was hair metal. Grunge was to hair metal as mumble rap was to bling rap. It just completely changed the sound. And a big part of it was those drums. If you liked those big hard-hitting, muttling drums, sorry, hair metal was off the charts. It almost sounds like a jazz drum set. It's like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, pop-p-p-p-p-p. Gone is that massive gate. It's just like,

And so if you're a producer like Mutt Lang known for coming up in the hard rock and sort of hair-metally thing, what are you going to do? You got a U-turn. You got to go from hard rock to soft rock. So in 1991, Mutt-Lang starts working with Brian Adams, sort of soft rock power ballad connoisseur. And Mutt-Lang co-writes the song, Everything I Do, I Do It for you, for Kevin Costner's Robin Hood Prince of Thieves performed by Brian Adams. Oh, yeah. Mut-Lang has this great set of skills, this capacity to program these perfect drums over-the-top, 80s sound. But he's making soft rock.

And yet, I think you can still hear the remnants of what he had done with ACDC and everything I do, I do it for you. You've got a soft rock song that is secretly a hard rock song. It's got the same drums. It's got that same pristine production techniques. This is the Mutt-Lang sound. You can hear him experimenting with. How can I make this sound work if Hard Rock doesn't have a future? Ah, okay.

Now I think I understand where we're headed. Because while I enjoyed every minute of our Mutt Lang side quest, I'm like, where's chapel? Where's the giver? What is happening? But I see where you're going with this. Uh-huh. Okay.

May I make a prediction? Go ahead. Mut-Lang is going to take this 80s hair metal sound and inject it into country music. And he's going to do that with his partner, Shanaya Twain. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You were absolutely correct. Mutt Lang in 1993 here's the commercial failure of Shania Twain's debut album.

But he hears an artist with huge potential. And he says, could I produce your follow-up album? And by the way, could we get married? And both things happened. And in 1995, they put out the woman and me. with the hit song, Any Man of Mine that in any other world

would have been what ACDC would have done if they went country. Any man who love me, even when I'm ugly still better love me and I can be late for a date that's fine,

but you better be on time. Oh, yeah. So what do you notice? This song is such a sterling example of what made Chenaya such a force in pop country. It's like taking ownership of her role in this.

genre through these lyrics that are like if you want to be with me you got to just bow down to me basically you gotta I mean that maybe that's a little overstated but it's like she's claiming her space in this world in a way that's striking even now what like 30 years later you're like damn this is radical and you know what else is striking about this song?

The gated reverb in the drums those drums might as well be pour some sugar on me hell I'll say it back in black ACDC He's saying it. Stand back, everyone. That simple, hard-hitting, rock-backbeat, slow tempo, confident, perfectly timed.

That's the thing. And it's the combination of this female country message in these hard-hitting drums and mut-laying production that find their apex in man, I feel like a woman. Let's go, girls. The song begins with this driving drum sound, mut-laying. over the top, perfectly programmed. It's got synthesizers. It's got fiddle.

It's got a guitar line that's somewhere out of like Spirit in the Sky or LaGrange. Zizi top. Yeah, I was going to say totally. But most of all, it's a feminist anthem about being a woman in a man's world that upends the role of women in country music. I mean, let's acknowledge this is like on the bleeding edge of country

and arguably more of a rock song in many ways. Right. But there's plenty of country elements as well, and that's what made Chenaya such a kind of fascinating figure. Yeah, I mean, to start with a synth, these big rock drums, a blues guitar riff.

Totally. What are the things that identified as this country for you? Well, the fiddle, for sure. Yeah, it's got the fiddle. What's the most important signifier in country music? I mean, it's got to be the twang, right? It's that twang.

Yeah. Man, I feel like a woman. Like a woman. woman. It's twangy. It's a little less twangy than her earlier stuff, but it's, it's there. Country music is, of course, full of imports of artists who might not naturally speak in a twang, who sing in a twang. We've got our Keith Irbins. I don't know about Shania Twain. She's from Ontario, probably a slightly different kind of twang than your typical Nashville twang. But I think she delivers maybe in a half measure because this song is somewhere between pop,

rock, country. It's its own thing. But this mutt-laying sound that he's working on with Shania Twain, incredibly influential in the world of country music. I mean, just listen to where country music goes in the 2000s after Muttling and Chenaya Twain's collaboration. We could listen to 2003's Beer for My Horses with Toby Keith and Willie Nelson. Or how about before he cheats by Carrie Underwood? And we got to hear a little bit of this verse. Here we go. We've got a hard rock country song, citing Shania Karioke. Here we go. We've got a hard rock country song citing Shania Twain. How about, like, Trace Atkins, Honky Tonk, Adon, 2005.

How she even gets and ridges on that honky tongue? And of course, save a horse ride a cowboy. These are all hard rock hair metal songs in country clothing. They have the sounds of Mutt Lang that takes us back to Def Leppard, ACDC, and all the big sounds of that era. And so, what does this have to do with Chaparone's band dressing up as an 80s hair metal act? It's not just the Sonics that I think we have established. It's also about how those bands dress. Sure. I mean, come on, Nate, just take a look at this.

I have some pictures that I want to show you. Here's Def Leppard. I mean, I'm looking at this band and the amount of hair products they must use every morning is staggering. We've got curly perms. we've got layers, we've got kind of fluffed out hair. It is a masterclass. Not to mention all the studded leather, but let's take it a step further. Sure. Let's take a look at the hair metal act, poison. Oh, wow. Now we're adding some color to the mix, some dye, some headband, some dangley earrings, more leather. One of them's almost got like a boy George kind of thing going on. I mean, it's blinding,

honestly, to stare directly. It's like staring at Zeus and all his glories, like looking into the sun, looking at this hair metal. And some really lovely lipstick as well. Gender bending. Speaking of which, finally, let's take it to Twisted Sister. Twisted Sister, looking straight up like American Gladiator contestants, like colored fringe, a lot of, you know, sleeveless leather ensembles, massive updues, and yeah, more makeup.

And it's kind of clowny, I would say. It is. It looks almost like clowns. The thing is, in the MTV era, all of these hard rock acts now needed to not just sound cool. They had to look cool. And they did that by wearing leather, by putting on makeup. They weren't intentionally dressing in drag, but they looked like they're dressed in drag. This was an era when having long, luscious hair, bright red lipstick, and tons of eye shadow and mascara, was the most masculine thing you could do in a rock band.

Yes. It was all one big, completely unconscious gender performance. And that brings us back to the giver. A song which is a performance about gender on multiple levels. It's a queer woman singing a sexually explicit country song that is a response to big and rich in the style of Shania Twain, with production techniques that stretch back to the era of 80s hair metal when men inadvertently dressed in drag and her band intentionally dresses in drag in that style. Rona is recontextualizing country traditions while honoring her musical influences. There's nothing more.

than reclaiming country. And I think what Chapel Rhone is showing us is that country music has been dressing up in other people's clothing for decades. Switch on Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz, edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Our theme music is by Zach Tenario and Jossi Adams of Arc Iris. Remember of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is a part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod. Find more episodes of Switch on Pop anywhere you listen to podcasts. And hit us up on social media at Switch on Pop. Tell us what else you're hearing in Chapel Rones, The Giver. Also, I want to give a shout out to my students, Mac and Corbyn. Thank you for your insights on The Giver. Check out our

website, switchonpop.com. Go there, plug in your email address and sign up for weekly newsletters. It's a little blast of musicalological insight arriving hot and fresh to your inbox. We'll be back again next Tuesday. What are you doing next Tuesday, Nate? We're doing Generation Taylor. All right. We're going to talk about the artists who have been influenced by Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, Maisie Peters, and maybe some other surprises. All right. Sounds cool. Until that, thanks for listening.