Wade through the waters of countrified pop music. It is the flavour of the times and has been for a year. Chappell Roan is a strong, catchy songwriter with sincerity in her songs. That may not be clear on The Giver, which feels as though running the gauntlet of pop generalities is the aim, rather than capturing the lived-in experiences or fictionalised charms of country backdrop scenarios. It’s easy to assess The Giver under the guise of empowerment and pop positivity since those are the themes it sounds off with, though the details and line through these stories are devoid of thrills. Fun is the solid point of pop music. Roan is, at the very least, building a world through caricatures, through characters and advertisements. That much has been lost in recent years, revived by the likes of Sloppy Jane and Yard Act. Those extra layers are what make The Giver such fun.
Pursue the country tones with Roan. It is a welcome blur of rock and pop and country. A triple bill like this is both daring but almost inevitable after the Grammy acceptance of Cowboy Carter and the modern audience’s acclimatisation to country tones. Zach Bryan is headlining BST Hyde Park, after all. We are yet to receive a solid country star, one who can sing of more than relationship breakdowns and big red trucks. Roan at least offers the former messages with some sweet lyrical style, some inspired moments which reflect on life as a strip mall rather than a liberated experience. Roan manages to fit those rhinestones and yee-haw suggestions, the very barebones imagery of the genre, and expand on them with a nicely timed, strong-sounding song. Its image and additions made to the wider Roan discography is far more important than the song itself. It is a part of a project, rather than a project itself.
The Giver highlights, more than anything, that Roan has an ear for catchy pop hooks. The “na-na-na” is inevitable, crowd-pleasing fodder but is performed and presented with an earnestness lacking in other routes of pop and country. A sudden end, a demand to get the job done, all of it builds with an earnestness the genre was crying out for. The Giver is the same light and liberated pop noise Roan has made before, and the thrills are delightful. There is little depth to it, but there is a sense of sincerity to these words, of getting the job done despite the odds and the flickers of empowerment throughout are written into country music, where it was desperately needed. The Giver serves not just as a counter to the whiskey-drinking rough edges of country cliche but as a standout single from Roan.
Her limited releases over the last two years are a welcome change of pace. To depend on one song last year is a bold move, but it paid off. Roan is closer still to perfecting the pop sound of the 2020s, and a song like The Giver is crucial as it shows her variety off with stunning results. It may not linger on the mind too long with its writing, but the imagery it conveys and the importance of it, the blur of catchy pop hooks and country essentials, is a showcase of the Grammy winner’s expertise. Roan finds a route between the two which keeps both genres fresh and her identity as an ever-changing artist, the latter benefitting tremendously. At a time where an artist must constantly be in the public eye, evolving the image with stop-off songs like The Giver is a sharp plan. A solid song, no doubt better with the context of what Roan will accomplish in future.
