Generations of homosexual sadsacks have discovered solace and identification within the melancholy blush of ’80s dream-pop and indie rock, and so it goes for Chappell Roan, who, on her new single, “The Subway,” treats an open wound with the sounds of the Cocteau Twins, the Sundays, and the Cranberries. Roan has an uncommonly good ear: Not like lots of her contemporaries, she’s capable of load her music with references with out it ever feeling like she’s simply slapping on her brand. Such is the case right here—maybe you may hear shades of Robin Guthrie’s skyward-soaring guitar, or Elizabeth Fraser and Dolores O’Riordan’s Celtic lilt, or Patch Hannan’s light rhythmic chug, however no single reference ever threatens to overwhelm.
That’s as a result of, in only a few years, Roan has established herself as one in all pop’s most distinctive writers. All of the hallmarks of her model are right here: the blunt nods to modernity (“I noticed your inexperienced hair”); the frank sexuality (“Until I can break routine throughout foreplay”); the dryly theatrical humor (“I’m movin’ to Saskatchewan”). And, after all, an insistent, driving melody that reveals successive hooks with the fluidity and effectivity of synchronized swimmers. Roan’s actual magic trick is in her means to weaponize familiarity and novelty in such a approach {that a} track like “The Subway” sounds completely contemporary, even when it feels such as you’ve been singing together with Roan’s cry that “she obtained away” to your complete life.
