It’s hard to single out any one song as the “secret weapon” of Chappell Roan‘s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess”; as the best pop debut of the 2020s, the entire album was pretty weaponized. But the ballad “Coffee” certainly counts as a sleeper — and Roan was not sleeping on it when she used her set Wednesday night at L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium to turn it into a duet with one of the most celebrated ballad singers of the generation immediately preceding hers, Christina Aguilera. It’s funny, in a way, thinking about two of the powerhouse singers of the century teaming up to dial it down some for a song about… tentativeness.
Did they collectively nail the assignment? Of course they did, giving this quiet instant classic of a song its full due. Roan clearly has had lots of opportunity to bring out a vocal partner for this showcase before, so it’s nice she saved the slot for one of her heroines, and even nicer to hear two bravura singers join forces on a song that is inherently about restraint.
Roan also awarded Aguilera her own solo spotlight moment in the show, to sing “Beautiful,” so there was no danger of the audience feeling her talents were underused. But these are two singers who can share a hushed song about the mere threat of romantic escalation and make it feel like the biggest song of the night. Musical aspects aside, the eternally gay-friendly Aguilera also made for a good choice on a night that was a benefit for Roan’s Midwest Princess Project, a charity that supports LGBTQIA+ organizations across the country, with a stated emphasis on providing resources for trans youth.
Wednesday’s show was the first of two put on by Roan at the Shrine under the banner of “The Super Graphic Spectacular,” which was meant to have a festival-like appeal, with multiple opening acts (albeit all brief ones) and a preceding outdoor street fair (albeit a damp one). In the end, it was fairly close to being a typical Roan headlining show that just happened to have “spectacular” bells and whistles attached — like Tinashe and Lola Young guest slots — but you could appreciate the more communal feel that Roan is trying to foster in putting on these charity gigs. After turning “Coffee” into a duet, Roan also did exactly the opposite: She turned “Expectations,” her newly released recorded duet with Olivia Rodrigo, into a solo number for herself.
That might have been the biggest surprise of the night, or at least as much as Aguilera’s appearance. After all, “Expectations” is still primarily Rodrigo’s song, even if she drafted Roan to write a new verse for herself as part of joining in the remix and video. So it was a happy kick to have Roan not treat it as someone else’s tune but one of her own now.
Probably half the audience had had their joint effort stuck in their heads as an earworm all week, so there was cause for joyful eruption when the newly bisexual song fit right in amid the rockier selections from “Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” (with the common DNA of Dan Nigro as their mutual collaborator helping make that seamless). Stylistically, Roan has been setting aside some of her harder or more regal imagery lately. (On Instagram, she actually declared herself as feeling “cute,” and her look at Rodrigo’s recent Daisy Chain Fields festival was an almost shocking departure.) But the production design and costuming for Wednesday’s show indicated that she’s not done conjuring up a palatial vibe just yet. The stage was filled with voluminous amounts of drapery and chandeliers, and Roan’s own corset-flavored gown could have been described as “leggy Versailles.” Probably the main brief for anyone designing an ankle-length dress for Roan is that she’s still gonna have to need to be able to do the high kicks.
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