Hot 100 First-Timer: Chappell Roan Arrives With New Single ‘Good Luck, Babe!’
Written by Xander Zellner on April 16, 2024
Seven years after releasing her first string of songs on streaming services, Chappell Roan is now officially a Billboard Hot 100-charting artist.
The pop singer-songwriter earns her first entry on the April 20-dated Hot 100 with “Good Luck, Babe!” The song, released April 5 via KRA International/Amusement/Island/Republic, opens at No. 77 with 6.6 million official streams, 67,000 in radio airplay audience and 1,000 downloads sold in the U.S. through April 11, according to Luminate. Chappell co-wrote the song with Justin Tranter and Dan Nigro, who also produced it. She performed it live for the first time Friday (April 12) during her Coachella set.
Chappell Roan (real name Kayleigh Amstutz; her artist name is a tribute to her late grandfather, Dennis Chappell, and the song “The Strawberry Roan”), from Willard, Mo., first reached Billboard’s charts in October 2023 with her debut full-length album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. The set debuted at No. 3 on Heatseekers Albums. It debuted at No. 127 on the Billboard 200 dated April 6 and jumps to a new No. 66 high on the latest list.
Chappell Roan initially signed to Atlantic Records in 2015 and released a five-track EP, School Nights, before she left the label in 2020. She subsequently teamed up with songwriter-producer Nigro – the chart-topping hitmaker who has collaborated with Olivia Rodrigo, Conan Gray and Caroline Polachek – for her breakout songs “Pink Pony Club” and “Naked in Manhattan.”
“My music [at that time] reflected the feelings of my first time in a gay club, my first time falling in love with a woman, my first time feeling homesick,” she told Billboard last year. “I had to go through all those experiences, that pain and suffering, to rebirth myself into where I am now.”
Chappell Roan maintained a cult following ahead of her Hot 100 arrival. Her music draws from ‘80s disco and early-2000s pop hits. On tour, she invites local drag queens to open for her and donates a portion of ticket sales to For the Gworls, an organization that raises money to aid Black transgender people.
“Especially as a queer person who has the privilege of making money off the queer community to support myself, it’s important to redistribute funds,” she told Billboard.
Chappell Roan is currently on her Midwest Princess Tour. Later this month, she’ll join Rodrigo on the European leg of the latter’s Guts World Tour. Along with the second weekend of Coachella, she is also slated to perform at Boston Calling, Governors Ball and Bonnaroo.
