Femme-pop, music unapologetically performed by women for women, has surged in the last year. This year women played to sold-out stadiums, reset culture and sprinkled arenas with lots of rhinestones.
Dallas is a key stop for women on tour as they reach for icon status.
In March, Olivia Rodrigo rocked on stage for an angst-filled, heartbroken crowd. Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour spent a long weekend at AT&T Stadium in April. After painting the town neon green, Brats rejoiced at Charli XCX’s stop at the American Airlines Center in October. Wrapping up the parade of strong women was Sabrina Carpenter, whose Short n' Sweet tour line started forming at 9 in the morning on Halloween eve.
Making sonic waves in the music scene a little farther south, Chappell Roan's Austin City Limits performance was promoted to the main stage and still created a sea of a crowd. Roan, experiencing the exponential growth in femme-pop, has captured media attention for openly discussing the difficulties of adjusting to an excessively rapid ascend to fame.
Determined to keep Dallas on the map is Frisco-based Ella Red. The young star, only 21 and still living at home with her parents, is riding on the back of the femme-pop revolution.
“Because of how fast I've grown this last year, I feel like this is a great opportunity with the rise in hyper-feminine pop,” she says. “It's a great opportunity for me to just ride the current.”
In just a year, the rising star released a dozen songs, gained almost 200,000 monthly listeners and is on the cusp of a blossoming pop career.
“Since the very beginning, since I started and I released my first song, I've been in a state of exponential growth that everybody is confused about and nobody really knows what's going on,” Red says.
One of her earliest releases, “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is,” has half a million Spotify streams. The song, which begs for a noncompliant man to fulfill broken promises, performed well on radio charts immediately upon release.
“'Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is’ did so well,” Red says. “I didn't understand what was going on. I was so new to the scene.”
A few months later, Red was invited to perform for an audience of 4,000 opening for LoveJoy in Denver. She followed this up with a radio tour, then spent September opening for fellow femme-pop princess Morgan St. Jean on a tour across the Midwest.
Capitalizing on the song's quick success, Red released a follow-up track, “I Like You Best," mimicking the rhythmic structure of her former single. This time, the hyper-feminine hit found success online and has over two million streams.
“I've been getting around 20,000 streams a day since it's been released, and it's not showing any signs of slowing down,” she says.
With so few singles under her belt and a short time spent in the industry, Red’s instant growth was a shock to the artist.
“I didn't understand how good this was, that this was all happening,” she says. “I was completely taking it all for granted, having no idea.”
Riding the Pink Pony
Red credits her success to social media and Spotify’s editorial playlists. She is a featured artist on the Next Gen Singer-Songwriters and SALT playlists. SALT, or sapphic alternative, is a myriad of sexually driven hyper-feminine lyricism strung over reverb-heavy pop-rock instrumentalism. Red finds herself beside Rebecca Black and other, lesser-known artists.“SALT is entirely female alt-pop,” Red says. “I've always really loved that. I wanted to lean into as much of that as possible when I started recording these songs a little over a year ago.”
There’s more nuance than just women making music, says Red, and she’s happy to embrace a smaller niche under the large umbrella of pop.
“I knew that there was a really big market for alt-pop because it was doing so well, but it wasn't as big as standard pop, like Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter,” she says. “I knew that I would have a chance to break into this genre in this market.”
A key ingredient to success in pop music is image. Red carefully curates hers, creating a blend of coquettish appearance and taboo appeal.
“I’ve always been incredibly feminine and girly,” Red says while twirling a large neon-pink-dyed curl. “I feel like I'm healing a lot of people's inner children and inner teenagers by showing you can be feminine.”
Red rejects the normal construct of modesty in femininity through risqué lyrics. Her music is expletive-riddled and hyper-sexual, but she takes the stage in billowing gowns and lace.
Speaking of “I Like You Best”, Red told her Instagram following, “I wrote this song in part as a song for my significant other… but also as a way of expressing my sexuality and giving a voice to those who can’t turn their feelings into words.”
Following performances at the State Fair of Texas, Red is wrapping up a year of success with two shows in early November in Dallas and Bryan. She plans to continue releasing new music and, hopefully, touring in the coming year. Her moves are paying off, in the form of a record deal.
"I'm about to be signed by a record label — Nettwerk Music Group, probably within the next couple of days," she says. "We just finished our negotiations and are signing now. Exciting!"
