Chappell Roan has achieved her first UK Number One single with ‘Pink Pony Club’, five years after it was first released.
The track was initially released through Atlantic Records in 2020, before Roan was later dropped from the label. In 2023, it was included on her debut album ‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess‘, and has slowly grown a cult following in the years since.
Now, it’s finally reached the coveted Number One spot on the UK Official Singles Chart with 658,424 total UK sales. In response, Roan told Official Charts: “The UK has truly been there for me since day one and this is such an incredible honor!!!”
In August last year, ‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess’ reached the Number One spot in the album charts almost a year after its official release. The album has now surpassed 374,206 UK sales and is officially Platinum-certified.
Around the time of its release, Roan’s debut album was given a glowing four-star review by NME, with Hannah Mylrea describing it as laden with “unabashedly fun anthems”.
“Sharp pop moments shine brighter than some of the weaker ballads that pad out the lengthy tracklist,” it read. “Yet ‘The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess’ is a display of Roan’s bold and brazen pen, where she places searing revelations alongside some deliciously cheeky choruses.”
In other Roan news, she’s recently been teasing her upcoming single ‘The Giver’, after first performing the track during an appearance on Saturday Night Live last November. Last month, Roan unveiled vinyl pre-orders for two variants of ‘The Giver’, dubbed ‘The Plumber edition’ and ‘The Lawyer edition’ – those vinyl orders are expected to ship in August.
The track is due for release on March 13, and earlier this week she the song would be her first take on country. “We’ve never done a country song and I have such a special place in my heart for country music,” she wrote on Instagram. “I grew up listening to it every morning and afternoon on my school bus and had it swirling around me at bon fires, grocery stores and karaoke bars.”
Speaking about ‘The Giver’ last July, producer Dan Nigro told The New York Times that fans could expect a “fun, up-tempo country song” that featured a fiddle, and would show “a new version” of the singer. Then, as highlighted by Uproxx, in November the pop star explained that the track is a country-inspired single that recalls how women “get the job done”.
Roan’s ‘The Giver’ announcement comes shortly after she had performed a duet of ‘Pink Pony Club’ with Elton John at his Oscars viewing party. Elsewhere at Elton John’s fundraising event, she took the stage for a full set that included more duets with John for ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’ and ‘Your Song’, which she covered on YouTube five years ago before finding mainstream fame. She also sang ‘Naked in Manhattan’, ‘Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl’, ‘Femininomenon’, ‘Hot To Go’ and ‘Good Luck, Babe!’.
Just the night before the performance, Roan had used her voice to dedicate her BRIT Award win “to trans artists, to drag queens, to fashion students, sex workers, and Sinead O’Connor,” and prior to that made headlines after using her Best New Artist speech at the 67th Grammy Awards to take aim at record labels and share her past experience as a struggling new artist.