Chappell Roan’s ‘Pink Pony Club’ Hits Top 10: 5 Reasons Why

With a huge pink pony in the center of the stage and rodeo clowns surrounding her, Chappell Roan presented “Pink Pony Club” as a neon-colored spectacle on Grammys night, as the performance’s outsized vocals, elaborate choreography and screeching guitar solo all earned Roan a standing ovation. She opted to play the song in full, instead of either doing a hits medley (as artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii and Charli XCX all did at the Grammys), or simply doing “Good Luck, Babe!” — which would have been the more logical choice for the ceremony, since the single was nominated for record of the year and song of the year.

Not every Grammys performance results in a significant streaming spike, but Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” showcase sure did: Prior to the Feb. 2 awards show, the song earned 6.8 million U.S. official on-demand streams during the chart week ending Jan. 30, according to Luminate. That number nearly doubled the following week, to 13.4 million weekly streams. Interestingly, Roan also played “Pink Pony Club” on Saturday Night Live in November, but that performance didn’t yield a noticeable streaming bump — 8.5 million streams for the week before SNL to 8.9 million streams the week after. Yet the Grammys performance was in primetime, on a bigger stage and in front of a bigger audience, and clearly resonated more with viewers.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that when Roan won the Grammy for best new artist, she used her acceptance speech to advocate for artist rights, specifically regarding major label support. “Record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection,” she told millions of viewers. “Labels, we got you, but do you got us?”

The speech resulted in praise from artists, a critical op-ed, and more op-eds critical of the original op-ed. None of that chatter necessarily helped “Pink Pony Club” gain more listeners, but it did keep Roan in the news cycle at a moment when she is not touring or promoting any new music. And in case any casual viewers who caught Roan’s Grammys speech were generally unfamiliar with her oeuvre, her declaration might have been compelling enough to persuade them to check out her catalog — which rose 50% in daily streams following the Grammys, from 5.96 million on the Monday before the ceremony to 8.99 million on the Monday after, according to Luminate.

Several artists, from Beyoncé to Charli XCX, saw significant streaming gains immediately following the Grammys, which began to subside during the following week. The opposite happened for “Pink Pony Club”: After earning 13.4 million streams during the week ending Feb. 6, that total shot up to 20.1 million during the week ending Feb. 13.

For the first four full weeks of 2025, the song averaged a little over 7 million weekly streams — but after the Grammys were in the rearview, “Pink Pony Club” started climbing daily streaming charts, and is now lodged in the top 10 of Spotify’s U.S. top 50 chart. Ultimately, that streaming power helped “Pink Pony Club” make the leap into the top 10 of the Hot 100, after reaching No. 18 on the chart following the Grammys.

Even before the Grammys performance, different radio formats had begun latching on to “Pink Pony Club” as the next Roan track to work to listeners. The song hasn’t particularly burst out in at any format yet, but instead has slowly crept up multiple charts: after landing at No. 22 on the Pop Airplay chart dated Jan. 4, for instance, “Pink Pony Club” has made it to No. 14 on the Feb. 22 tally. Ditto Adult Pop Airplay (No. 30 on the Jan. 4 chart, No. 16 on the current chart) and Dance/Mix Show Airplay, where it debuted at No. 35 on the Jan. 11 chart, and now sits at No. 26.

That multi-format appeal has expanded the audience for “Pink Pony Club,” which debuted at No. 41 on the Radio Songs chart dated Feb. 1, with 15.8 million audience impressions; three weeks later, the song is at No. 29, with 20.7 million audience impressions. Roan’s latest hit might not ever top any of those aforementioned radio charts, but its gradual climb increased its overall chart presence, and helped “Pink Pony Club” push into the top 10 of the Hot 100.

This week, Roan began teasing the long-awaited release of “The Giver,” the country-tinged track that she also performed on SNL back in November, which has still yet to hit streaming services. Although “The Giver” does not have an official release date yet, the song will presumably arrive before Roan’s previous single — the top 10 smash “Good Luck, Babe!” — celebrates its first anniversary n early April.

For an artist as red-hot as Roan, going nearly a year between official song releases is highly uncommon — even as general interest in her music is sky-high, she opted not to rush out the follow-up to Midwest Princess, or release any more stopgap singles following “Good Luck, Babe!,” which fell out of the top 10 of the Hot 100 during the holiday-music rush. That’s how a song like “Pink Pony Club” can find a promotional window, command the attention of casual listeners, and become a belated top 10 hit.

If “The Giver” had hypothetically been released at the top of 2025, the entirety of Roan’s promotional might would likely have been focused on her new single; if “Good Luck, Babe!” had lingered as a hit a little longer, maybe radio programmers never give another Roan song as much shine to kick off the year. Yet this gap proved to be the perfect opportunity to let “Pink Pony Club” shine, and at long last, one of the standouts of Midwest Princess is in the top 10 in its heels, where it belongs.