‘This means she’s going to be a one-album wonder,’ one X user writes of Chappell Roan revealing she’s not releasing her follow-up record any time soon.
‘Take your time, queen,’ comments another, showing the stark divide growing in music culture right now.
Is it better to allow artists to breathe and work at their own pace – or will doing so risk them falling into obscurity?
Our overconsumption-driven mindset certainly points to the latter, but Chappell’s announcement should only be seen as a good thing.
‘The second project doesn’t exist yet,’ she confirmed to Vogue days after dropping highly anticipated single, The Subway.
‘There is no album. There is no collection of songs. It took me five years to write the first one, and it’s probably going to take at least five to write the next.’
At first, this feels like a devastating blow for (sometimes overly) enthusiastic fans and a confusing one at that, given her recent releases.
Chappell appeared to be following the well-worn hallmarks of an album rollout, dropping Good Luck, Babe last year before newer tracks The Giver and The Subway.
She also performed live on talk shows and on tour and is headlining multiple festivals this summer, including Budapest’s Sziget and Reading and Leeds this month.
With three singles out, surely her sophomore album announcement was on the way?
It’s not surprising fans are feeling a little baffled as the 27-year-old singer declared that’s not the case, but their reaction has been to dismiss her future entirely.
‘5 years is kind of a lot…’ wrote sanatozaki1111 on X as RetroDiscoFreak warned: ‘She will be forgotten by then.’
‘Five more years?! Girl just broke our hearts and vanished 😭💔,’ added 2lastvibes while Scoby20 asked: ‘5 years? You’re joking.’
Her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, was only released in late 2023 – so why are we demanding more already?
Are artists under pressure to release music constantly?
There has always been pressure on artists to stay relevant, particularly on young popstars who are put on gruelling tour and release schedules to their own detriment.
Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato have both spoken out against the endless album-movie-tour cycle they were expected to undertake while at Disney.
One Direction faced a similar regime, releasing five studio albums with four tours between 2011 and 2016 – and that’s not including their run on X Factor with a post-show tour.
We’ve seen only too brutally the impact these schedules have had on artists’ mental health, time and time again.
With her unwillingness to churn out new tunes, Chappell is one of many artists fighting back against this unsustainable demand in music.
The Casual hitmaker explained: ‘I don’t think I make good music whenever I force myself to do anything. I see some comments sometimes, like, “She’s everywhere except that damn studio.” Even if I was in the studio 12 hours a day, every single day, that does not mean that you would get an album any faster.’
Pop contemporary Reneé Rapp expressed a similar sentiment in her single Leave Me Alone, singing: ‘Manager called me, said “Where’s the single?”/ Oh, you’re breaking up, babe, I don’t got no signal.’
While speaking to Hits Radio, the Mean Girls star, 25, explained: ‘I wrote this song when I was super super super overworked and really tired.’
Reneé had just finished an epic worldwide festival run as well as a tour, which followed the release of her debut album, Snow Angel, in 2023.
‘Everyone was like “what would you like to do now?”,’ she shared. ‘And I was like “Nothing! Stop speaking to me.” It just made me a really angry person.’
While Reneé did record and release a new album, it was done at her own pace after a break and cutting down her workload with her (controversial) Sex Lives of College Girls exit.
How regularly do artists release music?
Despite what complaining fans online would have you think, Chappell’s five-year gap – which is only a prediction – is not really that unusual.
Billie Eilish regularly waits two to three years between albums, Ariana Grande had four years between Positions and Eternal Sunshine, and Beyonce took six years from Lemonade to Renaissance – with another two for Cowboy Carter.
Potentially, the rate of releases from none other than Taylor Swift may have impacted expectations in pop genre more than she’d anticipated (as she so often does).
In the last five years, Taylor, 35, has released four re-recorded albums and four new albums – including 32-track offering, The Tortured Poets Department Anthology.
And yet, before she had even finished her 149-gig Eras Tour, ravenous fans were demanding more from the August hitmaker.
From the final two re-recordings (one of which Taylor revealed she hadn’t even begun to look at) to a brand new album, the pressure to release was mounting.
Instead, she simply stepped away, disappearing into a much-needed break and spending time with her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, her friends and her family.
However you feel about pop music, any artist taking time to live rather than chaining themselves to a studio can only be a good thing – for them and us.
How can a musician be inspired if they are locked away from experiences, endlessly churning out songs?
Chappell’s vocal resistance to becoming part of the music machine proves that she is striving to make art, not consumable content.
In the age of AI and ‘industry plants’, waiting longer for an album – or a film, TV show, or any piece of art – should be a symbol that this is authentic work.
We should be thankful she’s making us wait; who knows when (if) she returns, she could be even better than before – after all, Sabrina Carpenter’s post-Singular rebrand has paid off.
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