How Do We Grade Chappell Roan’s Rollout for ‘The Subway’?
It’s been 14 months since we first heard “The Subway,” as debuted by Chappell Roan as part of her set at New York’s Governors Ball festival in June 2024. Since that performance — which she repeated at a number of other festivals and live dates over the subsequent year-plus — fans have been clamoring for an official studio version. And after about a week of teasing, on last Thursday (July 31) at 8:00 p.m. ET, they finally got it, along with a new music video that followed the next morning, thus marking the fullest rollout we’ve gotten for a new Chappell Roan single since she became a superstar early last year.
To mark the occasion, we’re bringing back the Rollout Report Card — which we first debuted back in March to discuss the full release of Lady Gaga’s Mayhem album — to talk both about “The Subway” as a song and as the center for an enter promotional era. Host Andrew Unterberger and Billboard Pride editor Stephen Daw return from that episode, and we’re joined by Billboard writer Hannah Dailey, who was in attendance for Roan’s Gov Ball “Subway” debut (and has been watching the video she took of it for the last 14 months while anxiously awaiting the studio version).
Over the course of our discussion, we give Roan letter grades for everything from the timing of the “Subway” rollout to the coherence of the entire promo push, while also debating many of the most pressing questions around the official song: Did it need to take so long? Did it improve on the live version? Does the video live up to our expectations of what we’d always hoped for a big-budget Roan visual? Should the song’s outro have actually been a bridge? What are our expectations for the song’s chart performance? Is it really going to be another five years until we get Chappell Roan’s sophomore album?
Check it out above, and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!
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