By AJ Mun
Correspondent
The pop genre has dominated the music industry for many years now, but a soulful and vulnerable pop-star is a diamond that has become all too rare in 2025. With the ongoing stream of interviews and live performances, it's hard to tell whether a star is creating from a place of artistic substance or simply putting on a facade for views and attention.
While her music is great, one of the newest pop divas, Chappell Roan, is someone who is often not represented in the best light. The overall consensus about Roan online is that she lacks media training and, in my personal opinion, does not yet know how to clearly verbalize her thoughts without sending the wrong message.
Topics such as respecting boundaries in public and showing respect on red carpets are not unheard of among celebrities — but the way Roan addresses these issues often gives audiences the impression that she is ungrateful or simply rude.
My personal take on Roan is that it isn’t so terrible to want a more normalized relationship with the public. However, one must understand that with the velocity at which she catapulted to fame, and the level of popularity she has reached, a normal life is no longer a luxury she can afford. Time and time again, we see celebrities torn apart by tabloids and gossip blogs online, but it’s the way you handle it that earns respect.
While we all know that Roan has no problem sharing what’s on her mind, I find that she doesn’t exactly know what to say or how to feel. If you are going to go on stage dressed as Lady Liberty and make political demands and statements in front of a record-breaking crowd, you must understand that you have willingly associated yourself with that side of your personality and, therefore, must stand behind what you said. While she has authenticity, she lacks guidance and grace — thus making her seem artistically lost, in my view.
An additional quality that just establishes substance for me is the music in itself. To understand my point of view on modern day music, we must first go backwards.
Listening to music in the 90s, we notice a number of ballads that are emotional and well written, balancing both catchy melodies with the feelings of the artist singing them. During the 90s, the music industry gave us classics like Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” and Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
Both are powerful ballads that have secured their spots as iconic pieces of music history, but when looking at the charting hits in recent years, can we truly say the same?
Despite knowing where we came from, pop songs today lack that sort of emotion and truth that I personally appreciate within music. Songs today can still have an emotional substance to them, but I believe the music industry just doesn't have the same standards that it once had.
An artist I feel exemplifies the kind of raw talent and vulnerability that I’ve come to associate with artistic substance is Adele. While she’s currently on a break from music, Adele’s songs possessed that authentic quality that artists before her had paved the way for. That’s not to say the pop girls of today lack that sense of truth — it’s just less common in the average song.
While there is definitely some bias in this next opinion, I find that Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine Deluxe” is a perfect example of music made purely for the art, rather than simply for the charts. Grande has expressed that this album truly encapsulates her authenticity and holds deep personal significance.
By debuting a different musical style, writing most of the album herself and releasing her first concept album, I personally feel she has demonstrated a genuine appreciation for the craft of music-making — something many other pop performers seem to have strayed away from in recent years.
Every artist has their own way of telling their stories. Some of their truths lie in the lyrics, some in the music videos and some in their moments of dialogue during live performances or interviews.
At the end of the day, art is meant to be shared, and it’s always beautiful in its own way. However, I believe that if each artist were just a bit more vulnerable in their music, without the constant need for theatrics, we could better understand what they truly feel and, in turn, appreciate it more deeply.
But for us to get there, we must stop putting them under a microscope and strive to better understand the art itself. Ironic for an opinion article, huh?
