| Femininomenon | |
| Cover: | Chappell Roan - Femininomenon.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Chappell Roan |
| Album: | The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess |
| Released: | August 12, 2022 |
| Genre: | |
| Length: | 3:39 |
| Label: |
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| Producer: |
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| Prev Title: | The Hardest Part |
| Prev Year: | 2022 |
| Next Title: | Casual |
| Next Year: | 2022 |
"Femininomenon" is a song by American singer Chappell Roan, released on August 12, 2022 as the fifth single from her debut studio album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (2023). It was produced by Dan Nigro and Mike Wise.
Chappell Roan worked with Dan Nigro on the song, writing sections on different days and piecing them together. In an interview with Earmilk, she stated "I've been dreaming of releasing a song like this my whole career. It took years to build up the confidence to even sing in that style." Roan added, ""I always try to push myself and how I write pop music. I want to see if I can get away with being as ridiculous as I possibly can. I wanted a dance song. Something people could do drag to. A Queer anthem that had a sad undertone of what really happened to me, but with a beat."[1]
Speaking with Cherwell, Roan described the song as "slumber party pop". When asked about the song's meaning, Roan said, "It's about the confusion I have in relation to my sexual relationships with men. Something is not connecting. I feel like every man I've been with is never satisfying. With a woman, it's easy and different and wonderful. It's a phenomenon. It's a queer song – hidden in there...It's a phenomenon that this magical, perfect scenario somewhere out there exists, and it's probably a woman in my case."[2]
The song opens with production consisting of strings[3] [4] and piano,[5] as Chappell Roan reflects on an ex-partner who could not satisfy her.[6] Before each chorus, she gradually increases the melodrama in tone and demands for a song to be played "with a fucking beat".[7] During the chorus, the sound of a dirt bike revving is used in the background, before synthesizers are played. In the spoken-word bridge, Roan encourages women in a similar situation as her ("Ladies, you know what I mean, and you know what you need!").
Emily Treadgold of Earmilk remarked "the song somehow goes in a million different ways but fits together so well" and "It's all so fun and loud but so intricate." Reviewing The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess for AllMusic, Neil Z. Yeung wrote the song "perfectly captures the album's ethos as it transforms from a sweet, string-laden ballad into a pulse-pounding empowerment anthem punctuated by a mid-song pep talk and hilariously escalating adlibs". Hannah Mylrea of NME commented the song as having a "serious earworm of a chorus." Olivia Horn of Pitchfork called it "a Frankenstein's monster that splices stacked vocals à la Lorde, ad libs à la Kesha, a synth that sounds like a groan tube, and the inane lyric 'Get it hot like Papa John!'—perhaps the pizza franchise's biggest pop crossover moment since they plastered Taylor Swift's face on their boxes."[8]
| Peak position | ||
| Canada (Canadian Hot 100)[9] | 69 | |
|---|---|---|
| US Billboard Hot 100[10] | 66 |