songs on chappell roan's 'The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess' ranked by a former midwest princess
i kinda wanna kiss your girlfriend if you don’t mind
As a lesbian who was born and spent the first nine years of her life in the Midwest, I’m uniquely qualified to rank the songs on Chappell Roan’s album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. I recently learned that she’s a Pisces, so I thought I would write this in honor of Pisces season. The three metrics I came up with are each rated from 1 to 5, and there are two additional score modifiers. My criteria:
Song: My ranking of the song itself
Dance: How dancy the song is and/or how much I want to dance to it
Gay: Okay, I don’t intend to start any discourse here — obviously all of her songs are queer because she’s queer, but how gay is the song? Gay as in lesbian, dyke, sapphic, etc. I’m giving all of the songs a 3 out of 5 to start with because they’re all at least an average amount of gay, and the score goes up or down from there based on how gay I think they are specifically and compared to her other songs. I should also note that the use of he/him pronouns or the mention of a boyfriend in a song does not make it less gay in my scoring — the world is full of butch, trans, and nonbinary dykes who use those pronouns and labels. We are for an inclusive lesbianism here at pink heart emoji!
Yodel: I’ll be honest — I don’t like the yodeling. For songs with a yodel moment, I subtract .25 points from the total score.
Spotify wrapped: I was surprised to see that only three of these songs made it into my Spotify wrapped last year despite how much I listened to the album. So those three songs get an additional .75 points added on.
I had to do so much math for this piece! You should give it a like for that alone. Consider subscribing below if you haven’t already. Alright, let’s get it hot like Papa John.
#14: Kaleidoscope: 4 /15
Song: 1 | Dance: 1 | Gay: 2
This ballad comes in as the lowest ranked song on the album for me. It’s my least favorite song, I don’t even want to sadly sway to it, and it’s not anywhere near as gay as her other songs. Falling for your best friend is a gay canon event though. Overall, I don’t love her ballads and I think her album should’ve just been bops and bangers from start to finish because those are the songs that work better for her. “Kaleidoscope” could’ve been cut altogether in my opinion. Moving on!
#13: California: 5 /15
Song: 2 | Dance: 1 | Gay: 2
Not a big fan of this song, it’s not dancy, and besides being about moving to the golden state, it’s not very gay. This must be the “fall” that the album title refers to. She wants to get out of California because things aren’t working out there, and she misses “the seasons in Missouri / my dying town.” Thankfully, how much I like the rest of her songs — as well as the scores in this ranking — rises from here.
#12: Coffee: 6.5 /15
Song: 2.5 | Dance: 1 | Gay: 3
Okay, we’re getting a little gayer! Yes, the classic experience of meeting up with an ex who you may or may not still have feelings for — been there again and again. What’s behind a dyke’s desire to be friends with their exes? I’m not asking this rhetorically — I really want to know why so many of us do it. The answer I would give is that I’ve dated some great people, many of whom I want to keep in my life in some way. I think a lot of lesbians would probably say something similar. There’s also something to be said about how there’s just fewer gay folks overall, so it’s less practical to totally cut out all the people we’re no longer dating if we want to still have gay people in our lives. There are definitely some exes who we need to cut off contact with though, and Chappell has a song for that too (see “My Kink is Karma”). Regarding meeting up with exes, I can vouch for coffee as a safer option — sometimes when you hang out with an ex at your place, you end up scissoring. Oops!
#11: Picture You: 6.75 /15
Song: 2 | Dance: 2 | Gay: 3 (-.25 yodel)
I have never waltzed around my bedroom holding a little picture of a crush, but “Picture You” makes me want to do that. It’s a song that’s full of yearning, which is, of course, quite gay. Something I like about Chappell Roan’s songs overall though is how bold and assertive so many of them are. There’s yearning in them, but she writes about moving past that wistful wlw state and acting on her desires. That’s great because the tops and the direct communicators among us, myself doubly included, need lesbian anthems of our own! Speaking of anthems, dykes have another solid song about horny fantasizing, but as a bop not a ballad, in MUNA’s “No Idea.” We are blessed. “Do you picture me like I picture you? / Am I in the frame from your point of view?” - these questions have been on my mind recently because I have a couple of crushes, none of which I think are mutual. Please respect my privacy at this time. The yodel in this song is less yodelly than in others, but I’m still subtracting from the total score.
#10: Guilty Pleasure: 9.25 /15
Song: 3 | Dance: 3 | Gay: 3.5 (-.25 yodel)
The biggest increase in scores comes as we move past the ballads. Not sorry about it! I don’t love this song, but I do think it fits after “California” and it works as an ending to the album, making “pleasure” the last word you hear before the music fades out. I initially considered Horny as one of the scoring criteria instead of Gay, and it doesn’t even change the order that much. “I fantasize what we would do / and how would it taste / and the way you move” - this is me with my unreciprocated crushes rn :( “Feels like pornography / watching you try on jeans” - I felt this gay feeling in a thrift store dressing room with a friend on one of my fall trips, watching her try on pairs of vintage jeans the day after we hooked up for the first time. “Guilty Pleasure” — the song and the idea itself — is giving repressive Christian upbringing, which many gays can definitely relate to. Also the opening line, “Learned it on the internet,” being about queerness is so Gen Z of her. This song’s yodeling is the most painful to me, but I’m going to be consistent and only take off a quarter of a point.
#9: Femininomenon: 10.5 /15
Song: 3.5 | Dance: 4 | Gay: 3
The album opener is this campy and honestly goofy bop that really sets the tone for the rest of Midwest Princess: fun, flashy, flirty, and femme. Here, Chappell Roan expresses her frustration with online dating and her dissatisfaction with men. “I’m so sick of online love,” she sings — a sentiment shared by so many queer people, including me. The song starts with a swell of strings and some piano to back its slow first verse, and then a minute later it revs into double time with the literal rev of a dirt bike. She wastes no time turning this song into the bop that it is. And that chorus! A little nonsensical, a lot of fun. “Make a bitch go on and on!” Hell yeah. In the call-and-response bridge, she shouts to the ladies: “You know what you need / and so does he / but does it happen?” “No!” is the response, and while there was a time when I only felt sympathy for people who aren’t getting off with the men they’re having sex with, I now also feel empathy because it’s been too long since someone’s actually gotten me off. Anyway! I can’t say I fully understand what a femininomenon is, but I do know, as she calls out in the bridge, that it’s what we really need.
#8: Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl: 11.5 /15
Song: 3.5 | Dance: 4.5 | Gay: 3.5
Okay, here’s a song that’s about men for sure, and Chappell is through with “all these hyper mega bummer boys like you.” What does she need, you’re wondering? “A super graphic ultra modern girl like me.” Me too, girl. Disappointment with men, as opposed to her connections and sex with women, shows up in several songs on this album. This song and “Naked in Manhattan,” for example, both contrast her relationships with men and women, and both songs express a level of pleasure and excitement that she seems to only be experiencing with other girls. Gay! “This man wouldn’t dance / he didn’t ask a single question / and he was wearing these fugly jeans.” (It’s a treat to hear “fugly” in the year 2024.) The guy can’t even give her the bare minimum on this first date. Meanwhile, she describes this hot scene with a woman: “Trading secrets there on the mattress / wearing nothing but glitter and lashes.” Me and who! In the music video, she rides and dances around LA in a kind of space-themed costume — “go off space girl,” reads one of the Snapchat captions. She sings that she’s “leaving the planet,” and I want her to take me with.
#7: Naked In Manhattan: 11.75 /15
Song: 3.5 | Dance: 3.5 | Gay: 5 (-.25 yodel)
“The rush of slumber party kissing,” the Mulholland Drive sex scene reference, the crush on Regina George — and of course the chorus where Chappell sings “touch me” twelve times: this is the gayest song yet. This song brings to mind my earliest crushes, and sadly, none of those were reciprocated either. In this song she’s infatuated with a new crush, and the intensity of it is making her feel like she’s back in high school. She’s “an inch away from more than just friends” with this girl, and she wants to know “baby, what is it like?” This song maintains that “inch away” tension throughout, as she’s excitedly anticipating her first time having gay sex (“girls I’ve never tried”). She’s both undressed and emotionally vulnerable in Manhattan in this dancy, ecstatic track, and her naked desire for this girl is a feeling so many queers have felt before. As for those who are just starting to feel it, I’m a little jealous of the baby dykes who get to have a gay awakening to Chappell Roan’s songs!
#6: HOT TO GO!: 12.25 /15
Song: 4 | Dance: 5 | Gay: 3.5 (-.25 yodel)
This song’s yodeling did me in. I had my carefully-calculated ranking all finalized and this piece was half-written, but when I was listening back through the album on a drive I realized I’d forgotten to take off points for this song and I groaned because of all the extra math I’d have to do. Anyway, what a fun, girlypop song! I like the concept of girl as takeout, and the relationship between femme performance (“dance it out…”) and femme availability (“…you’re hot to go”). Also, the power bottom energy of “HOT TO GO!” is off the charts. Like, “you don’t have to stare, come here, get with it / no one’s touched me there in a damn hot minute” is saying I know what I want, and I want you to give it to me. The chorus line, “you can take me hot to go,” is too. Chappell gets to live out her cheerleader fantasy in this song, with the fun dance that she teaches a part of to her grandparents at the start of the music video. The lines “baby do you like this beat? / I made it so you’d dance with me,” and where it’s repeated with changed lyrics, are some of my faves melodically on this album. “Call me hot, not pretty!” - I identify with this and I think it could be a femme thing: wanting to be admired, as well as wanting to be wanted. Don’t just compliment me — want me. This song itself is hot, not pretty.
#5: Pink Pony Club: 12.5 /15
Song: 4 | Dance: 4.5 | Gay: 4
“God, what have you done” is such an iconic first line for a chorus. In this song, Chappell has come a long way from her hometown and her old life, and now she dances at the titular club in West Hollywood — which naturally earns this song a high Dance score from me. She’s living how she wants to live, she’s doing it for herself, and she’s having a good time. “Every night’s another reason why I left it all” - she’s a long way from the feelings of homesickness and regret she expresses in “California” (which actually comes later on the album). The song is also about falling in love with the new place you’ve chosen to land, and feeling like you made the right decision in leaving a life behind. Or maybe I’m just projecting because I’ve been wondering if I should move. Every time someone I know moves away, it makes me question my decision to stay put and keep putting down roots here. During the 2+ years of my Saturn return that ended last March, it seemed like every aspect of my life changed in some big or small way, except for the city I live in. I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that that I should’ve changed that too. In “Pink Pony Club,” Chappell is thanking her “wicked dreams” for getting her out of the Midwest and to a place where she belongs (“on the stage in my heels”). I and so many other dykes are thanking those dreams of hers too.
#4: My Kink is Karma: 12.75 /15
Song: 5 | Dance: 4 | Gay: 3 (+.75 Spotify wrapped)
Chappell Roan has gifted us with the sexy schadenfreude banger we didn’t know we needed. If listening to “My Kink is Karma” brings to mind an ex of yours like it does for me, you (and I) may be entitled to compensation. Miss Roan herself admits that this song is toxic, but I think girls get to be a little toxic every now and then. And honestly, if our ex was toxic towards us then our own toxic behavior is just… karma, right? Kinky! ;) I really like this song, as evidenced by its appearance in my Spotify wrapped. Thankfully though, on top of everything else last year I didn’t actually have a breakup that warranted all of that listening. I kept the Gay score at 3 because the song could be about any of one’s exes, not specifically a lesbian one. If anything, the ex dating “girls who’re eighteen” is straight man behavior. But it may not be news to you, dear reader, that lesbians can be bad to their partners too. So, an average amount of gayness in my rating to represent the fact that a toxic ex can, unfortunately, be of any gender. Dykes, however, have the distinct pleasure of getting fucked over by people who can wield therapy language. Your ex can say they “““did the best they could with what they had at the time””” or blame their avoidant attachment style, but that doesn’t have to excuse the harm they caused. We can wish them the best, “in the worst way.”
#3: Casual: 13.25 /15
Song: 5 | Dance: 2.5 | Gay: 5 (+.75 Spotify wrapped)
This is the first Chappell Roan song I remember hearing, and I stumbled upon it in a Spotify blend playlist with, appropriately, a woman I was casually hooking up with. It’s funny to me that she was listening to it. I was then and am now just looking for casual connections, but it turns out that regularly having sex with beautiful women whom you really like spending time with can lead to catching feelings. “Is it casual now?” - it can take real work to keep things casual sometimes. It’s not always just a lack of effort or commitment that makes a connection feel that way; if you know you can get attached somewhat easily, you might have to protect your heart and your time by setting some good boundaries with the other person and yourself to help intentionally keep things lowkey. Back to the song though — another 5/5 Gay score because it describes some quintessential lesbian experiences: trying to keep it casual and failing, only one person catching feelings or wanting more, situationships and delusionships, and getting caught up in fantasies, in yearning. I’ve tried to be the chill girl a number of times and have felt the difficulty of the situation you create for yourself in doing so — you get to keep seeing the person or people and that feels better in the moment, but sacrificing your needs has a way of catching up to you. “Casual” has another great chorus line in “knee deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out.” Chappell has shared that some details of this song were fluffed, but I think it’s too good to care. “I fucked you in the bathroom when we went to dinner / your parents at the table, you wonder why I’m bitter” - dinner with their parents, an invite to their mom’s house, a favorite bra in their dresser — it might be time to have a talk.
#2: After Midnight: 14.25 /15
Song: 5 | Dance: 5 | Gay: 4.5 (-.25 yodel)
A theme of Midwest Princess is rejecting a restrictive upbringing — or more specifically, rebelling against your mom. In “After Midnight,” Chappell’s mom is in her head, “saying ‘it’s not attractive / wearing that dress and red lipstick.’” Oh, but it is though, and it’s what she wanted, what she likes. “I’ve been a good, good girl for a long time,” she sings, and I can really relate to that as a gay girl who also grew up in the Midwest. I’m grateful she made it out, too, and that she’s putting out these sapphic songs that us dykes can dance to. This is my favorite song that wasn’t released as a single. It’s well-placed on the album, keeping up the album-opening energy of “Femininomenon” and “Red Wine Supernova” but fading it out into the first of the (too many) ballads. The chorus is so fun: “I kinda wanna kiss your girlfriend if you don’t mind” (yes!) “I love a little drama” (yes!!) “let’s start a bar fight” (yes, let’s!!!). And she wants to kiss your boyfriend too — if you don’t mind. I didn’t mind the yodeling in the background of the last chorus, but I still took off that quarter of a point. This is another song that invites audience participation (“baby put your hands up / be a freak in the club”), and it’s clear that her album is meant to be performed. And her shows seem like such a fun time! Local drag queens open for her headlining shows and she sets themes for each night so the crowd can dress up along with her. With how much sad sapphic music there is out there these days — which is mostly what I listen to, so I’m not complaining — it’s refreshing that there are also some queer musicians who want us to dance around in our Docs instead of cry at their show with the teenagers.
#1: Red Wine Supernova: 15.5 /15
Song: 5 | Dance: 5 | Gay: 5 (-.25 yodel, +.75 Spotify wrapped)
“Let’s make this bed get squeaky!” Here we are at the number one song — fives across the board, and then some. I knew it was going to earn the number one spot, even before I had decided on the criteria. “Red Wine Supernova” is the horny, gay hookup anthem that was one of my top songs last year, and it’s also number 18 in Rolling Stone’s 100 top songs of 2023. They describe it well: “Its glamor is messy and relatable, punctuated with vibrator puns and the most blissed-out, dumbfounded distillation of what wanting to fuck is really like.” Yes! This song brings to mind several people for me. And it’s so gay: “She was a playboy, Brigitte Bardot / she showed me things I didn’t know.” “Long hair (no bra) / it’s my type (that’s right).” It’s very dancy too — it makes you want to move right from the bright, opening guitar strums, and the bouncy synth keeps the beat moving from there. This is probably the song that lets her show off her vocals the most. This pop princess has some serious pipes! The background vocals are fun too and they add a playful energy to this track (that’s right). I did still dock the total score because of the yodel at the end, but it’s one that I sing along with when the song comes on in the car. “I don’t care that you’re a stoner” - looking past your preferences for a sex partner — or their total red flags — when you want to fuck someone is so real. That’s part of the messy, relatable glamor of this song. “Fell in love with the thought of you” - this feels like such a Pisces thing, but I definitely relate as a girl who can get swept away by my fantasies about someone. And so, ever the optimist, I’ll play this bop again, daydreaming about getting to say to one of my crushes: “baby, why don’t you come over.”
If you liked this album ranking, check out the pieces I wrote about Billie Eilish’s HIT ME HARD AND SOFT:
and Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts: