{"id":1680831,"date":"2018-06-18T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1680831"},"modified":"2018-06-18T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T02:00:00","slug":"50-songs-that-define-the-last-50-years-of-lgbtq-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1680831","title":{"rendered":"50 Songs That Define the Last 50 Years of LGBTQ+ Pride"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lists & Guides<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

50 Songs That Define the Last 50 Years of LGBTQ+ Pride<\/h1>\n
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The stories after Stonewall, starring Frank Ocean, Tegan and Sara, Jobriath, Troye Sivan, Grace Jones, and more<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Pitchfork<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Grace Jones photo by Getty Images, Frank Ocean photo by D Dipasupil\/FilmMagic, Boy George photo by Ebet Roberts\/Redferns, David Bowie photo by Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images, Madonna photo by Frank Micelotta\/Getty Images.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Rainbow Is a Prism:\u00a0The Many Facets of LGBTQ+ Pop Music History<\/h2>\n
By Jes Skolnik<\/div>\n

LGBTQ+ people have always been at pop\u2019s vanguard, as performers and audiences; the history of pop music is<\/em> queer history. Blues originators like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, both openly bisexual, helped form the foundation of what would become R&B and rock\u2018n\u2019roll. In the 1920s and early \u201930s, Prohibition\u2019s end gave way to the \u201cPansy Craze\u201d: cabaret drag performances that brought gay nightlife to the masses and carried their aesthetics into mainstream musical theater. In the mid-\u201930s, at the edge of the Great Depression, moral backlash\u2014sometimes disguised as economic conservatism but usually explicit in its bigotry\u2014shut down many of these clubs and formally criminalized gay sex at a scale that had never before been seen. The closet door, which hadn\u2019t even existed as we know it now, slammed shut.<\/p>\n

This didn\u2019t stop LGBTQ+ musicians from shaping American pop culture. Jazz can\u2019t be imagined without the contributions of giants like Billy Strayhorn (of Duke Ellington\u2019s band), who was openly gay, and, later, Cecil Taylor, who found that three-letter word was too limiting. Even in the prescriptive world of \u201960s pop, where teen rebellion was anticipated and pre-packaged, there were artists like Lesley Gore and Dusty Springfield. In fact, Springfield was one of the first pop icons to come out to the public (as bisexual, in 1970)\u2014and, notably, she covered Gore\u2019s \u201cYou Don\u2019t Own Me,\u201d as subversive a song as there ever was, on her debut album. The \u201970s brought glam and disco, gender play, and explicitly queer nightlife back to the mainstream; we can\u2019t forget that decade\u2019s great gay pop icon, Elton John, and its great bisexual ones, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. Despite its great appeal to many a very hetero man, many of punk\u2019s early groundbreakers were LGBTQ+, from Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks, who was never shy about his sexuality, to\u00a0Darby Crash of the Germs, who was sadly closeted during his short life. Undergirded by punk\u2019s jagged energy and the electric, over-the-top styles of glam and disco, new wave made space for unconventional queer personalities and for pop to address the AIDS crisis. And so it has evolved, with the late \u201980s and early \u201990s giving a particular showcase to lesbian and bisexual women in pop (Meshell Ndegeocello, Melissa Etheridge, k.d. lang, the Indigo Girls), all the way to today, a moment that young pop star Hayley Kiyoko teasingly refers to as \u201c#20gayteen.\u201d<\/p>\n

This Pride month, Pitchfork editors and contributors have assembled a list of 50 songs from the past 50 years, post-Stonewall riots, that speak to the impact of LGBTQ+ culture and perspectives on the mainstream. Most of the songs here are by LGBTQ+ artists, with a few exceptions we included because they were too notable not to; most of our critics who wrote these entries are LGBTQ+, as well. But this is not in any way meant to be a definitive list; the field is just too wide to narrow to 50 songs.<\/p>\n

Instead, we\u2019re trying to tell as many stories within this community as we can. Some of the ones I would have loved to tell, personally, didn\u2019t make it\u2014like Gary Floyd of the Dicks, whom I\u2019ve written about before for Pitchfork, or the endlessly talented Dee Palmer of Jethro Tull, who, like me, is trans and intersex. We\u2019ve tried to get as big a range as possible, though, from classic chart-toppers to genre notables from hip-hop, punk, house, and so on\u2014and we\u2019ve also gotten some wonderful musicians to reflect on their personal soundtracks, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Pride month itself has a number of meanings and uses: a party, a chance to reflect on our history and think about the challenges we have in the present and going forward, a reason to connect with others and think about how all of us view community, a fierce legacy of radicalism and liberatory praxis. There are millions of different ways to be LGBTQ+, after all. I hope you find something meaningful in this list\u2014a history you might not have known, a song you loved that you\u2019d forgotten about, a new favorite\u2014and that you\u2019re able to tap into the powerful well of emotions that pop can engender in us and let that push you on. Let\u2019s get free.<\/p>\n

Jes Skolnik<\/em>is a writer, editor, and musician who splits their time between Chicago and New York. Their first gay kiss was in junior high, with someone wearing a matching flannel, while listening to Peter Murphy\u2019s \u201cDeep\u201d on shared Sport Walkman headphones.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Atlantic\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Atlantic<\/p>\n

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Roberta Flack: \u201cBallad of the Sad Young Men\u201d (1969)<\/h2>\n

For decades, gay bars offered their male patrons one of few safe havens. But \u201cBallad of the Sad Young Men\u201d looks below that comforting surface to offer a view of the scene that\u2019s both poignant and pained. The song wasn\u2019t written with an exclusively gay audience in mind\u2014though the straight woman who wrote its lyrics, the beat poet Fran Landesman, surely knew of that world, and her words have resonated deeply with many gay people. With music by Tommy Wolf, the song was popularized by Anita O\u2019Day in 1962, and found its most knowing interpretation in the 1981 version by the openly gay jazz singer Mark Murphy.<\/p>\n

Still, Roberta Flack offers the meatiest reading on her 1969 debut album, First Take<\/em>. Proceeding through the arcs of its melody with granular attention, Flack finds weight in every word. And brilliant and brutal words they are: In Flack\u2019s elegant reading, we linger over seven minutes with all the sad young men who pass their time \u201cdrinking up the night\u201d and \u201cmissing all the stars,\u201d as a \u201cgrimy moon\u201d watches them grow old. Flack\u2019s version culminates in a crescendo of Streisandian power, idealizing a gay bar ode that pierces the heart. \u2013Jim Farber<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Roberta Flack, \u201cBallad of the Sad Young Men\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Pye<\/span><\/div>\n
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Pye \/ Reprise<\/p>\n

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The Kinks: \u201cLola\u201d (1970)<\/h2>\n

Initially among the most popular and influential British Invasion bands, the Kinks were refused work permits for four years by the American Federation of Musicians in 1965\u2014which meant no U.S. tours and, after 1966\u2019s \u201cSunny Afternoon,\u201d no U.S. hits. Most groups would\u2019ve pursued a comeback by writing about something universally accessible. True to contrarian form, leader Ray Davies gambled on what was then utterly forbidden love, and saved the Kinks\u2019 careers.<\/p>\n

Deftly leading listeners along a gradual path of discovery, Davies sings from the perspective of a rube who finds himself falling for a trans woman who affirms his masculinity and helps him accept himself. Smarter still is the arrangement, an earthy roots-rock sing-along that accentuates the naturalness of what had only recently been decriminalized in the UK, and would still be illegal for decades in much of the U.S. While pioneering films of the era like The Killing of Sister George<\/em> reflected the difficulty of British LGBTQ+ life, \u201cLola\u201d emphasizes its joys. That positivity marks it as the crucial awakening song of a new era: the first post-Stonewall smash. \u2013Barry Walters<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> The Kinks, \u201cLola\u201d<\/p>\n

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Wendy Carlos: \u201cMarch From a Clockwork Orange\u201d (1971)<\/h2>\n

With the release of her hugely successful album Switched-On Bach<\/em>, Wendy Carlos demonstrated that Moog synthesizers could be as expressive as a piano. Then, while reading Anthony Burgess\u2019 novel A Clockwork Orange<\/em>, teenage protagonist Alex DeLarge\u2019s passion for \u201ca bit of the old Ludwig Van\u201d inspired her to begin composing music based on Beethoven\u2019s Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement. \u201cMarch\u00a0From\u00a0a Clockwork Orange,\u201d which appears in Stanley Kubrick\u2019s infamous film adaptation, is a synthesized choral symphony in which a single voice is transformed by vocoder into an eerily rapturous electronic chorus of \u201cOde to Joy.\u201d A groundbreaking moment in the history of synthesized sound,\u00a0the song is a classical symphony cracked open to reveal technological machinery, a marvel as queer as the titular clockwork orange.<\/p>\n

In the late \u201970s, Carlos changed her professional name and image in reflection of who she was; the media handled this badly, causing her to shy away from identifiers, but she became an inspiring figure to many queer people. Now her legacy continues on her own terms; her pioneering work remains an inspiration to the many women working in electronic music to this day. \u2013Lorena Cupcake<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Wendy Carlos, \u201cMarch\u00a0From\u00a0a Clockwork Orange\u201d<\/p>\n

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Labi Siffre: \u201cIt Must Be Love\u201d (1971)<\/h2>\n

\u201cIt Must Be Love\u201d is pure sweetness, a lovely pop gem about that rush of emotion in a young relationship. It manages, with its plangent chords, to feel real instead of syrupy\u2014after all, a new love feels amazing, but its power can also be so intense as to be frightening. The original was a hit in the UK, and its writer and performer, Labi Siffre\u2014a jazz guitarist, singer-songwriter, and poet\u2014was a rarity in the 1970s pop pantheon, an out gay man born to a Nigerian father and a Barbadian-Belgian mother who refused to tamp down his advocacy against apartheid at a time when that was a severely unpopular view to have.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Though Siffre is not actively recording these days, many of his \u201970s and \u201980s hits have been covered or sampled by a wide variety of artists, from Olivia Newton-John to Kenny Rogers to Kanye West. (The two-tone ska band Madness even covered \u201cIt Must Be Love,\u201d scoring a hit both in the UK and the U.S.) Siffre continues to meditate on art, power, and politics in poetry and essays, still vitalized decades on. \u2013Jes Skolnik<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Labi Siffre, \u201cIt Must Be Love\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fanny: \u201cCharity Ball\u201d (1971)<\/h2>\n

Initially billed as a \u201cnovelty act\u201d\u2014how else, cynically, would one market an \u201call-girl\u201d band in the early \u201970s?\u2014Fanny proved to the doubters that they were (surprise!) a damn fine hard rock band with enough harmonies and hooks for pop chart appeal. (David Bowie was an enormous fan, as are Amy Ray from Indigo Girls, Bonnie Raitt, and Jill Sobule.) Led by the Filipina-American sisters June and Jean Millington, the group scored an early hit single with \u201cCharity Ball,\u201d from their second album of same name, a party-ready boogie-rocker with a swinging backbeat and a blistering guitar solo. It would still make for a perfect, swaggering drag king lip sync performance. Though three out of four members were lesbian or bi, Fanny wanted to be categorized as a lesbian or feminist band about as much as they wanted to be seen as novelties; what they wanted was to just play<\/em>, to be given the same space and gravity as any of their \u201call-boy\u201d counterparts. \u2013Jes Skolnik<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Fanny, \u201cCharity Ball\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Madeline Davis: \u201cStonewall Nation\u201d (1971)<\/h2>\n

Madeline Davis, a lifelong gay rights activist, wrote this lilting folk song with its undercurrent of steely strength after attending her first gay civil rights march. (Davis was also a key member of the early gay rights organization Mattachine Society.) \u201cStonewall Nation\u201d is widely regarded as the first gay liberation record, and its uncompromising lyrics, which demand freedom rather than acceptance, celebrate the resiliency and potential power of radical gay activism. (Her line about her sisters not wanting \u201ctheir lovin\u2019 called a sin no more\u201d is particularly poignant.) Davis came to the lesbian folk scene through choir participation and then jazz, and the fullness of her voice and delicacy of her fingerpicking here belie her background. This is a song meant not just to be performed by Davis herself but to be sung together at potlucks and at protests, voices raised in unison with love for the community, and all power to the people. \u2013Jes Skolnik<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Madeline Davis, \u201cStonewall Nation\u201d<\/p>\n

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David Bowie: \u201cStarman\u201d (1972)<\/h2>\n

It really is impossible to exaggerate the importance of \u201cStarman\u201d to a generation of young, sexually-questioning British kids. When Bowie draped an arm around Mick Ronson in the summer of 1972, on the hugely popular music show \u201cTop of the Pops,\u201d a nation was outraged. But the indignation of parents would only help endear the otherworldly Bowie to their children. For the generation that would spawn the out-gay pop stars of the 1980s, Bowie\u2019s outrageous campery and sexual androgyny was a revelation, and for many watching that Thursday evening, life would never be the same again.<\/p>\n

Now, almost half a century after it happened, David Bowie\u2019s admission in the British music press that \u201cI\u2019m gay, and always have been\u201d seems like no big deal. And after Bowie himself retracted his statement, first becoming bisexual and then resolutely straight, it has been seen by supporters and critics alike as nothing more than an aberration. But for some\u2014the style-makers, the trendsetters, the icons of the \u201980s and \u201990s\u2014Bowie\u2019s fauxmosexuality opened up a whole new world, and his performance of \u201cStarman\u201d was a pivotal moment in the lives of a whole generation of British musicians. \u2013Darryl Bullock<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> David Bowie, \u201cStarman\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lou Reed: \u201cWalk on the Wild Side\u201d (1972)<\/h2>\n

On his most indelible song, Lou Reed narrates New York\u2019s 1970s queer scene with the cool eye of a documentarian. The former Velvet Underground frontman had worked with Andy Warhol in the late \u201960s, and \u201cWalk on the Wild Side\u201d names several of the gay men and trans women who ran in the art icon\u2019s inner circle. Actresses Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, and Jackie Curtis all appear in Reed\u2019s archly delivered lyrics, having flocked to New York as the one place where they could embrace their femininity openly and be lauded for it.<\/p>\n

Produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, \u201cWalk on the Wild Side\u201d plays like glam rock with its engine cut out, dropping the bombast for an easier, more casual feel. It\u2019s as if Reed didn\u2019t feel that his \u201cwild side\u201d was so wild after all\u2014to straight people, maybe, but not to him. He\u2019d already incubated in the city\u2019s queer underbelly, and he had enough affection for it to memorialize the era. Reed\u2019s runaway hit was among the first pop tracks to celebrate trans women by name in the Billboard Hot 100, but he never sang it like he was making history. He just called it the way he saw it.
\u2013Sasha Geffen<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Lou Reed, \u201cWalk on the Wild Side\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jobriath: \u201cI\u2019maman\u201d (1973)<\/h2>\n

While Bowie was touting his fauxmosexuality in the press, actor and musician Bruce Wayne Campbell was reinventing himself as Jobriath Boone, the space cowboy who was going to out-Ziggy our David and show the world what the \u201ctrue fairy of rock\u201d could do. Sadly, no one took him seriously, and although today Jobriath is recognized as an influence by Morrissey, XTC\u2019s Andy Partridge, and many others, his importance\u2014as the first out-gay rock singer to sign to a major label\u2014is largely overlooked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The swaggering pomposity of \u201cI\u2019maman,\u201d a single from Jobriath\u2019s eponymous debut album, is a fantastic example of his talents. It\u2019s a slice of theatrically high-camp glam rock, in which he makes a pitch for acceptance while looking and sounding like an alien being, something that all LGBTQ+ people can relate to. Yet the press hated him, seeing him as little more than a Bowie clone, and before long, he was headed down the road to self-destruction. But watch his appearance on the late-night TV show \u201cMidnight Special\u201d (where he is introduced by a clearly confused Gladys Knight), and then compare it to Bowie\u2019s later performances with Klaus Nomi. Who was leading whom?
\u2013Darryl Bullock<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Jobriath, \u201cI\u2019maman\u201d<\/p>\n

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Donna Summer: \u201cI Feel Love\u201d (1977)<\/h2>\n

The first time Nicky Siano played \u201cI Feel Love\u201d at the Gallery, New York\u2019s most important disco club and queer-friendly space, the crowd \u201cexploded.\u201d Ever since, the song\u2019s legacy has had less to do with its creators and everything to do with the people who were dancing that night\u2014and every other joyous dancefloor filled with brown, black, and queer bodies after.<\/p>\n

In 1977, Donna Summer and producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte were not the likeliest of LGBTQ+ allies, or even aware they\u2019d kicked off a revolution. While the sleek disco Summer made with Moroder and Bellotte resonated with queer audiences\u2014their self-possessed, proudly erotic songs just jived with the sexual revolution and the flowering of the gay public imagination\u2014none of them were clubgoers. They weren\u2019t there to see the bodies that writhed to \u201cI Feel Love,\u201d to its Moog-powered melody and cyborgian drumming. But queer crowds immediately knew it was special: It\u2019s a song about loving your body and your desires, a powerful sentiment for people whose urges were once seen as deviant. Four decades later, that power over crowds is undiluted, as is the freedom and recognition in its every beat. \u2013Kevin Lozano<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Donna Summer, \u201cI Feel Love\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gloria Gaynor: \u201cI Will Survive\u201d (1978)<\/h2>\n

\u201cI Will Survive\u201d probably would\u2019ve become a gay anthem even without the specter of AIDS. It has an undeniable flair for the dramatic: After moving through that filigreed piano intro, you can imagine a lone spotlight shining on Gloria Gaynor as she drags the man dumb enough to break her heart and crawl back for more. It was released as disco\u2019s wave was beginning to break, topping the Billboard charts a few months before the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park. Had the story ended there, it\u2019d represent the last, best gasp of a culture beaten into temporary irrelevance by thinly-veiled racism and homophobia. (The out lesbian diva Alicia Bridges\u2019\u00a0\u201cI Love the Nightlife\u201d stands out as another hit from this time.)<\/p>\n

A few years later, when a generation of queer people was ravaged by a disease dismissed as \u201cthe gay plague,\u201d \u201cI Will Survive\u201d made for the perfect rallying cry. It burns with righteous indignation and celebrates resilience, qualities well-suited to a community that scrapped for recognition and banded together even as it was condemned and ignored as a matter of policy. (You can imagine the marginalized asking the same rhetorical questions Gaynor poses in the pre-chorus: \u201cDid you think I\u2019d crumble? Did you think I\u2019d lay down and die?\u201d) Even after decades of progress, many LGBTQ+ people are still made to grapple with daily assaults on their personhood. \u201cI Will Survive\u201d remains there for them, ready to galvanize in moments when asserting your basic humanity feels like an act of defiance. \u2013Jamieson Cox<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Gloria Gaynor, \u201cI Will Survive\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sylvester: \u201cYou Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)\u201d (1978)<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s still stunning, the sheer radicalness of Sylvester: an out-and-loud, gospel-singing, gender-nonconforming queen<\/em> among queens who not only revolutionized disco in the late \u201970s, but affirmed her identity so intensely that few people dared question it. This track from her second album, Step II<\/em>, was originally written as a gospel song for the piano; it was then remixed and produced into perfection by Patrick Cowley, another disco pioneer lost to AIDS. His version married Sylvester\u2019s take-you-to-church vocals with the synthesizer, then still considered a revolutionary instrument. Packed skyward with handclaps, tambourine shakes, and lazer synths, not only is \u201cYou Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)\u201d a stone-cold classic of the disco era, it\u2019s a revelation of queer desire. When Sylvester sings, \u201cI feel real when you want me\u201d to her dancefloor paramour, it\u2019s not just a simple admission of want. The song is about singing the praises of someone\u2014whoever, whatever they happen to be\u2014who make us feel good, seen, validated, and alive. \u2013T. Cole Rachel<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Sylvester, \u201cYou Make Me\u00a0Feel (Mighty Real)\u201d<\/p>\n

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Queen: \u201cDon\u2019t Stop Me Now\u201d (1978)<\/h2>\n

This shamelessly jaunty, piano-pumping karaoke killer wasn\u2019t a big hit at first, by Queen standards. It hails from Queen\u2019s also moderately popular Jazz<\/em>, which inspired Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s most suspiciously scathing review ever. (Sample dis: \u201cIndeed, Queen may be the first truly fascist rock band.\u201d) The song\u2019s wan initial reception may have had something to do with the genders of its love interests, which flip from male to female and back again to assert that frontman Freddie Mercury was bisexual\u2014and it was released just days before the gay visionary Harvey Milk was assassinated.<\/p>\n

But like Elton John\u2019s originally neglected \u201cTiny Dancer,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Stop Me Now\u201d is today considered quintessential. It\u2019s the giddy, fun-loving flipside to the forcefulness of \u201cWe Are the Champions,\u201d and though it similarly acknowledges outside resistance, it does so with a flick of the wrist from a shy guy still hiding behind the sybarite self he strutted onstage so legendarily. In the early \u201980s, Mercury indulged that pleasure-seeker, and he prematurely and cruelly met his mortality. But this song, with its poignant and high-Fahrenheit fantasy of enjoyment without end, will live forever. \u2013Barry Walters<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Queen, \u201cDon\u2019t Stop Me Now\u201d<\/p>\n

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Village People: \u201cGo West\u201d (1979)<\/h2>\n

Most music fans would be forgiven for dismissing the Village People as a disco novelty act\u2014and they wouldn\u2019t be completely wrong. After all, their relentlessly gaudy \u201cYMCA\u201d remains inescapable to this day, providing manufactured glee at everything from bar mitzvahs to baseball games. In hindsight, however, it\u2019s amazing that such an openly, flamboyantly gay act was able to reach popularity at all in the late \u201970s, let alone earn household-name status within months of their formation.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo West,\u201d the title track of the Village People\u2019s fourth studio album, stands alone among the band\u2019s most famous songs: It\u2019s a passionate, lustful ode to queer community and spirit. Released a few years after the staunch conservative Anita Bryant launched her despicable \u201cSave Our Children\u201d campaign, which became the blueprint for the next 30 years of anti-LGBTQ+ politics, \u201cGo West\u201d imagined a utopia free of homophobia and discrimination. The rousing choral chants of \u201cTogether!\u201d\u2014blasting over joyous horns and hi-hats\u2014don\u2019t just describe a man and his lover, but all queer folk yearning to find their tribe and flourish in the sun. \u2013Cameron Cook<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Village People, \u201cGo West\u201d<\/p>\n

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Loose Joints: \u201cIs It All Over My Face (Female Vocal)\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n

The gay, avant-garde musical prodigy Arthur Russell, working with DJ Steve D\u2019Acquisto, hustled up money in 1979 from the disco label West End Records for an experimental studio project. Hoping to capture the propulsive energy of their favorite New York hotspot, the Loft, Russell and D\u2019Acquisto invited musicians and singers into the studio and subjected them to Buddhist-influenced improv and DIY recording practices. Thus, Loose Joints were born.<\/p>\n

DJ genius Larry Levan kidnapped the master tapes, taking it upon himself to remix the record with his connoisseur nightclub crowd at the Paradise Garage in mind. Levan\u2019s reworking of the track is a masterpiece of throbbing, risqu\u00e9, suspenseful funk\u2014an off-kilter confluence of electric keys, propulsive bass, sinewy drumming by Philadelphia\u2019s John Ingram, and a blas\u00e9, haughty Melvina Woods vocal (\u201cIs it all over my face?\/You got me love dancing\u201d). No song better captures the vibey, druggy, slightly dissociated erotics of downtown New York in its post-disco thrall. To this day, Russell, D\u2019Acquisto and Levan\u2019s mutant baby remains a staple of black and Latino gay ballroom scenes. In fact, a limber dancer with loose joints is probably fiercely voguing to \u201cIs It All Over My Face\u201d as you read this. \u2013Jason King<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Loose Joints, \u201cIs It All Over My Face (Female Vocal)\u201d<\/p>\n

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Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

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The B-52\u2019s: \u201cPrivate Idaho\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n

Outrageous, kitschy, definitively Southern, and unmistakably queer, the B-52\u2019s in their \u201980s prime wove surreal imagery into irresistible technicolor new wave dance jams. While \u201cPrivate Idaho,\u201d their second hit, inspired Gus Van Sant to name a film that\u2019s now become a part of queer cinematic canon (My Own Private Idaho<\/em>), the song itself shares little thematically with that drama. Instead, it\u2019s a classic B-52\u2019s party song with expectedly bizarre and dark edges, Fred Schneider\u2019s yelped lyrics conjuring a deep state of paranoia and surveillance (\u201cprivate eye-daho,\u201d get it?) as they clash with Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson\u2019s lush harmonies. Guitarist Ricky Wilson\u2014an integral part of the band\u2019s early success, and Cindy\u2019s brother\u2014particularly shines here with his ferocious playing; tragically, he would pass away from AIDS a few short years later, spurring the band to activism in honor of his memory. What better way, too, to celebrate life than to soundtrack a club floor where every weirdo can feel safe enough to dance this mess around? \u2013Jes Skolnik<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> The B-52\u2019s, \u201cPrivate Idaho\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Diana Ross: \u201cI\u2019m Coming Out\u201d (1980)<\/h2>\n

Disco appealed to pretty much everybody except the straight white dudes who ran the music industry; they got tired of gay\/black\/Latino club DJs calling the shots, just as disco\u2019s reigning band Chic morphed into an equally fierce songwriting, production, and instrumental team. One night, their leader Nile Rodgers spotted three Diana Ross\u2013impersonating drag queens at GG\u2019s Barnum Room, a Manhattan disco where transgender acrobats on trapezes flew over the dance floor. He had the ingenious idea to have Miss Ross herself sing a roof-raising LGBTQ+ anthem as a thank-you to all those queens for supporting her (and Chic, too).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This meant Rodgers\u2014a revolutionary in designer duds\u2014was never upfront about the fact that \u201cI\u2019m Coming Out\u201d was obviously about sexuality. Indeed, it\u2019s also about being your truest self and throwing aside shame\u2019s shackles. Ross rose to the occasion, turning in a triumphant performance as exacting as Chic\u2019s sashaying accompaniment. But Motown hated the album, demanded the tapes, remixed them to downplay Chic\u2019s instrumentation, and released diana<\/em> in 1980 without so much as a single for the first month. Rodgers and collaborator Bernard Edwards nearly disowned what they\u2019d originally considered their crowning achievement. Then \u201cUpside Down\u201d went No. 1, \u201cI\u2019m Coming Out\u201d hit No. 5, and *diana\u2014*ultimately her biggest solo album ever\u2014sold nine\u00a0million internationally. Disco wasn\u2019t dead yet; queers still had clout.\u00a0\u2013Barry Walters<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Diana Ross, \u201cI\u2019m Coming Out\u201d<\/p>\n

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Soft Cell: \u201cTainted Love\u201d (1981)<\/h2>\n

When Ed Cobb wrote \u201cTainted Love\u201d in 1964, he never could have imagined its grim repurposing two decades later. In the \u201980s, the song came to represent the fear and dread that gripped the gay community at the very start of the AIDS crisis. The soul singer Gloria Jones first recorded a manic version of the song in 1965, and in the early \u201970s, it became a favorite of the U.K.\u2019s Northern Soul scene. Then Soft Cell\u2019s Marc Almond changed the piece radically in 1981 by taking a much slowed-down and sleazed-up approach, and it became an unlikely smash in the U.S.<\/p>\n

At that time, AIDS had not yet been given that name, though gay men knew all too well of a mysterious new \u201ccancer\u201d ravaging the community. The key lines in the song, \u201cOnce I ran to you\/Now I\u2019ll run from you,\u201d were the first to capture the new terror surrounding sex and connection. At the same time, Soft Cell\u2019s shadowy version embraced the darkness, capturing the complex amalgam of pitched attraction and deep angst that marked earlier eras of gay life. In 1985, when AIDS was overwhelming the community, \u201cTainted Love\u201d appeared once again, this time via the British group Coil. Their video for the song cast one of their own members as a man dying of the disease, finally putting the plague into full, savage focus. \u2013Jim Farber<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Soft Cell, \u201cTainted Love\u201d<\/p>\n

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Grace Jones: \u201cPull Up to the Bumper\u201d (1981)<\/h2>\n

The subject matter of \u201cPull Up to the Bumper\u201d has been interpreted widely as anal sex, oral sex, and, well, simply parking a car. But therein lies the sly, transgressive power of Grace Jones: Between her cutting sense of humor and relish of outr\u00e9 spectacle, the Jamaican pop iconoclast has never been hemmed in by flimsy, pearl-clutching moral codes, even if those same codes most likely played a role in the song\u2019s mainstream radio swift ban for its \u201clewd content.\u201d (It was released the year of Reagan\u2019s inauguration, after all.)<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019 genre-hopping artistry earned her a diehard LGBTQ+ fan base from day one, largely because of her very uncommon divadom. By gleefully toying with masculine and feminine conventions, she offered her queer audience a constantly evolving performance in which they could recognize their own sexual fluidity. \u201cBumper\u201d succinctly captures Jones\u2019 protean mix of playfulness and aggression, simultaneously tongue-in-cheek and dead serious. It\u2019s a masterstroke of double entendre that, with its sinuous reggae-disco backdrop and Jones\u2019 snarled vehicular puns, really only demands one thing from you: that you move. \u2013Eric Torres<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Grace Jones, \u201cPull Up to the Bumper\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pete Shelley: \u201cHomosapien\u201d (1981)<\/h2>\n

Pete Shelley shared private lusts to which the shame clung like incense on priestly robes. Embracing synthesizers just when everyone else in England did, the former Buzzcocks singer-guitarist coaxed out of them what everyone in England wasn\u2019t: writing without a hint of code-switching about homo superiors in his interiors. The clinking-clanking \u201cHomosapien\u201d made an excellent solo debut for a songwriter whose previous works relied on the all-purpose second person pronoun yet whose prissy, epicene vocals, on desperation moves like \u201cEver Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn\u2019tve\u201d and \u201cYou Say You Don\u2019t Love Me,\u201d gave the game away. This is a vignette by an orgasm addict, out and loving it, of understanding that life is as much performed as it is lived, of cruising for losers because it\u2019s fun<\/em>. Not as fun: the BBC banning it for its \u201cexplicit reference to gay sex.\u201d Their loss. \u2013Alfred Soto<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Pete Shelley, \u201cHomosapien\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Smiths: \u201cThis Charming Man\u201d (1983)<\/h2>\n

Before Morrissey became the poster boy for sad, doe-eyed wallflowers, he introduced himself to America as a \u201cprophet for the fourth gender.\u201d And abruptly\u00a0here, in a decade of conservative straitjacketing, was this\u00a0proto-hipster Victorian ghost of a pop star who gushed over Oscar Wilde bon mots and cruised a male automobile driver right on back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Charming Man\u201d was the Smiths\u2019 first major hit in the UK; it\u2019s spoiled for riches with one of Johnny Marr\u2019s greatest pop guitar lines, a jaunty wink of an Andy Rourke bassline, and some of Morrissey\u2019s most lavishly antique overtures. (Try typing \u201cit’s gruesome that someone so handsome should care\u201d at your<\/em> next reticent Tinder match!) And fittingly to Wilde, the most eccentric asides spoke volumes; Morrissey\u2019s most inexplicable line, \u201ca jumped-up pantry boy who never knew his place,\u201d references the homoerotic 1972 thriller Sleuth<\/em>, which starred Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. Ensuing years would prove Morrissey a disturbing\u00a0icon\u00a0for anyone, including LGBTQ+ people, but his debut was faultless; oh, for the halcyon days when Morrissey didn\u2019t have \u201ca stitch to wear,\u201d before he wore so many woeful\u00a0opinions densely on his sleeve. \u2013Stacey Anderson<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0The Smiths, \u201cThis Charming Man\u201d<\/p>\n

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Culture Club: \u201cChurch of the Poison Mind\u201d (1983)<\/h2>\n

Writing for Rolling Stone<\/em> in 1983, the critic Stephen Holden contrasted the queer stylings of Boy George and David Bowie circa Ziggy Stardust<\/em>. \u201cGeorge was no icy alien parading at a safe emotional distance,\u201d wrote Holden. \u201cInstead of concealing his \u2018girlish\u2019 feelings, he flaunted them, putting his heart on the line along with his fantasies.\u201d His assessment rings true when you hear \u201cChurch of the Poison Mind,\u201d a song that proposes countering the hateful ideology suggested in its title with radiant spirit and undeniable melody.<\/p>\n

\u201cChurch of the Poison Mind\u201d rings with the buoyant joy of the finest Motown hits; it\u2019s not a secret that its beat and wheedling harmonica are pilfered from Stevie Wonder\u2019s \u201cUptight (Everything\u2019s Alright).\u201d (George once sang Wonder\u2019s hit over his own, putting on a show for a writer on Culture Club\u2019s tour bus.) It\u2019s one of a few songs on Colour by Numbers<\/em> in which George faces off against ferocious backup singer Helen Terry, whose wailing electrifies the chorus. Together, they pose an important question: If you\u2019re living in a society distorted by prejudice, why not take a chance on joy whenever you can? Lock eyes with someone across the street and let infatuation take over; embrace love, whatever form it takes. It\u2019s an irresistible suggestion, and for a moment, it made an unrepentantly queer frontman a pop icon. As George said in 1984, while accepting the Grammy for Best New Artist, \u201cThank you, America. You\u2019ve got good taste, style, and you know a good drag queen when you see one.\u201d \u2013Jamieson Cox<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Culture Club, \u201cChurch of the Poison Mind\u201d<\/p>\n

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Frankie Goes to Hollywood: \u201cRelax\u201d (1983)<\/h2>\n

Most humans of a certain age have heard \u201cRelax\u201d so many times, it\u2019s easy to forget that it\u2019s totally, explicitly a song about having gay sex. It\u2019s also remarkable that a song about gay sex would, in 1984, go on to become one of the highest-selling singles in the history of the UK pop charts. \u201cRelax\u201d may be relentlessly \u201980s in its production and design\u2014synthy, bombastic, slick beyond measure\u2014but it remains one of the catchiest pop songs of its era. Bolstered by an infamously kinky video featuring live tigers and an S&M sex dungeon\u2014plus a subsequent fashion craze inspired by Katharine Hamnett\u2019s \u201cFrankie Say Relax\u201d t-shirts\u2014the song and all its attendant imagery would push the envelope even by today\u2019s standards. At a time when gay sexuality was still mostly communicated via clever allusions and nonthreatening feyness, \u201cRelax\u201d was not only a raunchy, sex-positive middle finger to the establishment, it was also\u2014despite being banned by the BBC and<\/em> MTV\u2014the biggest pop song in the world. \u2013T. Cole Rachel<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Frankie Goes to Hollywood, \u201cRelax\u201d<\/p>\n

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Bronski Beat: \u201cSmalltown Boy\u201d (1984)<\/h2>\n

The British synth-pop trio Bronski Beat specialized in turning the subtexts of disco into text. Pinning singer Jimmy Somerville\u2019s gender is hard at first\u2014in his long cry that is \u201cSmalltown Boy,\u201d it feels like it could come from queer youth anywhere who were eager to escape their small towns. Released in 1984, the year the AIDS epidemic hit its crisis moment, Bronski Beat\u2019s debut album The Age of Consent<\/em> presented itself as a political document\u2014the sleeve lists the ages of consent around the world for gay men, as if to say, this is the real politics of dancing<\/em>. \u201cCry, boy, cry,\u201d Somerville sings, the besieged kid as subject and object.<\/p>\n

Any doubts about what \u201cSmalltown Boy\u201d concerned itself with should turn to the video, in which Somerville plays the escaping kid, finding sanctuary in the city and in scoping out a cute diver. Maybe he hooked up with the diver in a club that was playing the same Hi-NRG disco that Bronski Beat specialized in. Still,\u00a0as those synthesizers continue their chimes of doom, it\u2019s difficult to hear solace; there was still too far to go. \u2013Alfred Soto<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Bronski Beat, \u201cSmalltown Boy\u201d<\/p>\n

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Erasure: \u201cOh L\u2019Amour\u201d (1986)<\/h2>\n

Arguably the most outr\u00e9 gay synth-pop band of all time, Erasure\u2019s now three-decade discography is like a mirror of contemporary gay culture. \u201cOh, L\u2019amour\u201d\u2014the third single from the band\u2019s 1986 debut\u2014is Erasure doing the absolute most. Queeny, campy, catchy, and swooningly romantic, it wrapped up all the typical lost-love trappings already so ubiquitous in pop music (\u201cOh l\u2019amour, mon amour\/What\u2019s a boy in love supposed to do?\u201d) and refracted them through an unapologetically gay lens, complete with throwing yourself down on the floor when the boy of your dreams doesn\u2019t remember your name. Though it was considered something of a flop upon release, the song was rescued by the now-legendary \u201cFunky Sisters Remix,\u201d which made it a hit in the clubs and a forever staple in Erasure\u2019s setlist. A gay classic for the ages, \u201cOh L\u2019amour\u201d is a song that proves that the best place to get over the heartbreak of being ignored and misunderstood is the middle of a dancefloor. \u2013T. Cole Rachel<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Erasure, \u201cOh L\u2019Amour\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tracy Chapman: \u201cFast Car\u201d (1988)<\/h2>\n

In 1988, the Cleveland-born contralto Tracy Chapman delivered her haunting debut single, \u201cFast Car,\u201d a four-and-a-half-minute glimpse into the horror show that was Reagan\u2019s America. Ever since, queer folks have seen themselves mirrored in Chapman\u2019s tale of a high school dropout-turned-supermarket-checkout girl living in a homeless shelter, desperately hoping to hop in her lover\u2019s fast car and escape her small-town confines, lest she \u201clive and die this way.\u201d The socially outcast couple\u2014Chapman sidesteps gender pronouns\u2014clings to romantic intimacy (\u201cYour arm felt nice wrapped \u2019round my shoulder\u201d) as they strive for quality of life in the face of cosmically cruel odds. The irony is that the dreadlocked, butch-outfitted, androgyne Chapman has never officially come out of the closet (ex-lovers, including author Alice Walker, outed her in subsequent years).<\/p>\n

The song\u2019s immortality has much to do with the persistence of class tension: One out of every five LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. who live alone still live at or below the poverty line, at a disproportionate rate to straights. With her ability to conjure the blues in songs like \u201cFast Car,\u201d when we most need to hear them, Tracy Chapman remains a cherished icon in LGBTQ+ circles, regardless of which side of the closet she happens to be on. \u2013Jason King<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Tracy Chapman, \u201cFast Car\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ten City: \u201cThat\u2019s the Way Love Is\u201d (1989)<\/h2>\n

Spearheaded in the 1980s by Midwestern innovators like Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Jamie Principle, and Marshall Jefferson, Chicago house was dance music created in, and intended for, black gay clubs. It featured programmed drums, sequencers, bass modules, and eerie synthesizers, these sometimes married to traditional gospel keys and churchy, uplifting vocals. Of its small handful of standalone classics, Ten City\u2019s R&B chart hit \u201cThat\u2019s the Way Love Is\u201d stands above. Foregrounding a bittersweet lyric about marriage vows gone sour, plus a whole lot of wah-wah guitar and thumping Sunday morning piano, the track remains a singalong party-starter. (Club Shelter DJ Timmy Regisford\u2019s mix places the strangely out-of-sync synth strings front and center; it\u2019s become the gold standard.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Though the production will always have a quaint late-\u201980s tinge, \u201cThat\u2019s the Way Love Is\u201d still feels like a sophisticated \u201970s throwback in the style of the Spinners\u2019 \u201cMighty Love\u201d or Double Exposure\u2019s \u201cMy Love Is Free.\u201d Ten City\u2019s each-man-take-a-turn vocals are really the star here\u2014especially those of plaintive Byron Stingily, whose post-bridge Pentecostal falsetto howl is still the fastest ticket you can purchase to gospel-house paradise. \u2013Jason King<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Ten City, \u201cThat\u2019s the Way Love Is\u201d<\/p>\n

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Madonna: \u201cExpress Yourself\u201d (1989)<\/h2>\n

In the glittering, self-actualized utopia of \u201cExpress Yourself,\u201d Madonna reached an early, pivotal career high. Through clearly feminist self-affirmations, a charging and muscular club-pop groove, and a homoerotic art-deco masterpiece of a video inspired by Fritz Lang\u2019s Metropolis<\/em> and helmed by David Fincher\u2014the most expensive clip of its time\u2014she crafted a symbolic salve for LGBTQ+ people everywhere. Madonna\u2019s longtime, well-documented support of their community may be most palpable in 1990\u2019s \u201cVogue,\u201d with its ballroom-lifted choreography, or 1992\u2019s \u201cIn This Life,\u201d a somber remembrance of friends lost to AIDS, but \u201cExpress Yourself\u201d is unique in how it speaks to a distinctly LGBTQ+ experience: living your truth in the clearest terms possible. By gleefully encouraging her fans to lay bare their wants and needs, she makes it plain that it\u2019s within each of us to have transparent, even-footed relationships\u2014whether with ourselves or other people. That the hit song simultaneously laid out a musical blueprint for Lady Gaga\u2019s unabashed LGBTQ+ anthem \u201cBorn This Way,\u201d 22 years later, is the deliciously reductive cherry on top. \u2013Eric Torres<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Madonna, \u201cExpress Yourself\u201d<\/p>\n

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George Michael: \u201cFreedom! \u201990\u201d (1990)<\/h2>\n

\u201cTeenybop idol\u201d and similar epithets had dogged George Michael since his time in Wham!, as had rumors about him being gay. Like the solo album it arrived with,\u00a0Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1<\/em>, \u201cFreedom! \u201990\u201d was Michael\u2019s attempt to prove his pop virtuosity and reclaim his image, stifling all that gossip. (He only succeeded at the former.) \u201cFreedom! \u201990\u201d is a stripping-down but no slash-and-burn; an electric bass still snakes its way under the track\u2019s otherwise acoustic first four minutes. \u201cThere\u2019s something deep inside of me\/There\u2019s someone else I\u2019ve got to be,\u201d sings Michael, closet subtext no doubt intended, over gospel-dense vocal layers\u2014not only asking fans to have faith in his new sound, but demanding that they have it.<\/p>\n

Michael appeared on neither the cover of his own album nor in the David Fincher\u2013directed music video for \u201cFreedom! \u201990,\u201d leaving a sextet of supermodels to lip-sync in his stead while a jukebox and other Faith<\/em>-era\u00a0iconography burst into flames. Michael lived privately out as bisexual and, later, gay for over a decade before a much-publicized cruising arrest in 1998 forced him to come out more publicly. Released at a time when out gay men couldn\u2019t be pop stars, \u201cFreedom! \u201990\u201d was a fascinating peek at Michael\u2019s mind and the complexities of living life authentically. \u2013Harron Walker<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> George Michael, \u201cFreedom! \u201990\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pet Shop Boys: \u201cBeing Boring\u201d (1990)<\/h2>\n

In 1990, when the number of gay men dying of AIDS in the West approached its hideous zenith, the Pet Shop Boys released a song that, more than any other, captured the cost. \u201cBeing Boring\u201d\u2014which opens the duo\u2019s fourth album, Behaviour<\/em>\u2014takes place in three eras: First, the 1920s, with a quote from Zelda Fitzgerald that lends the song its title. Then, the narration switches to the 1970s and turns autobiographical, tracing the moment when singer Neil Tennant \u201cbolted through a closing door\u201d to a new gay life (something he had yet to declare publicly when the song was released). The song ends at the start of the 1990s, when Tennant finds himself in a strange and shrinking world, haunted by \u201call the people I was kissing,\u201d many of whom are now missing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Madonna\u2019s song \u201cThis Used to Be My Playground,\u201d released two years later, has often been cited as the great elegy to vanishing gay friends during the AIDS crisis. But if Madonna\u2019s song expressed empathy from an ally, the Pet Shop Boys\u2019 proved even more consequential by coming from men whose own lives were on the line. \u2013Jim Farber<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Pet Shop Boys, \u201cBeing Boring\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Sire<\/span><\/div>\n
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Sire \/ Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

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k.d. lang: \u201cConstant Craving\u201d (1992)<\/h2>\n

After over a decade in country music, k.d. lang broke out of conservative Nashville with her yearning, flowing torch song \u201cConstant Craving.\u201d When she won the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Grammy for it, religious groups protested outside the ceremony. The World Health Organization had only just declassified homosexuality as a mental illness; coming out of the closet, as lang had just done in The Advocate<\/em>, was considered a career-killer. But lang was unafraid to invite controversy with her embrace of her own desire, an electric current that hums through every note of the song.<\/p>\n

With her unlikely, erotic pop hit, lang helped usher in the \u201990s era of so-called \u201clesbian chic.\u201d She immediately became an icon\u2014splashed across provocative magazine covers in androgynous clothing, creating visibility for homosexual women in a time when the focus was often on gay men. Small-town queer women used her as a guiding star to navigate their own identities; lang\u2019s soaring vocals soundtracked countless slow dances and sexual awakenings in hole-in-the-wall gay bars. To this day, \u201cConstant Craving\u201d continues to provide connection for those who need it.
\u2013Lorena Cupcake<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> k.d. lang, \u201cConstant Craving\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Island\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Island<\/p>\n

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Melissa Etheridge: \u201cCome to My Window\u201d (1993)<\/h2>\n

Four years before Ellen DeGeneres\u2019 famous \u201cYep, I\u2019m Gay\u201d Time<\/em> magazine cover, Melissa Etheridge defiantly declared Yes I Am<\/em>, as both the name of her fourth studio album and a thinly veiled response to the rumors that had been dogging her since the beginning of her career. Where the record\u2019s title may have been coy, its hit single, \u201cCome to My Window,\u201d was anything but: a scorching mid-tempo ballad of longing, heartache, and dependency.<\/p>\n

The iconic video for \u201cCome to My Window\u201d stars a young Juliette Lewis, in a tank top and shag haircut, screaming the song\u2019s lyrics while suffering a mental breakdown in a dingy psych ward. She writhes and splutters in her bed, dramatizing Etheridge\u2019s comparatively subdued delivery\u2014until near the end of the bridge, when Etheridge lets out a guttural wail to match her white-hot desire. Of course, all human beings deal with wanting each other, but here, Etheridge gave a new face to that particular brand of young queer yearning, with all its excitement and doubt and fear, without succumbing to the clich\u00e9 of \u201cthe love that dare not speak its name.\u201d \u2013Cameron Cook<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Melissa Etheridge, \u201cCome to My Window\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Tommy<\/span><\/div>\n
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Tommy Boy<\/p>\n

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RuPaul: \u201cSupermodel (You Better Work)\u201d (1993)<\/h2>\n

One of pop\u2019s most subtle subversives, RuPaul used the charm, hooks, and wit of his breakthrough hit to become the first mainstream-approved drag queen. His debut single, which sold over 500,000 copies, brought elements from three key subcultures\u2014drawn from black, gay, and drag experience\u2014onto suburban dancefloors. It also popularized declarative tag lines like \u201csashay\/shantay,\u201d taken from the demimonde of drag balls. Three years earlier, that culture had been tipped to the outside world by Jennie Livingston\u2019s documentary Paris Is Burning<\/em>; that same year, Madonna amplified the scene with \u201cVogue.\u201d But Ru had, by far, the deepest understanding of the milieu, as well as the most at stake in representing its realities, beauty, and power. \u2013Jim Farber<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> RuPaul, \u201cSupermodel (You Better Work)\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Groovilicious\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Groovilicious<\/p>\n

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Junior Vasquez: \u201cIf Madonna Calls\u201d [ft. Franklin Fuentes] (1996)<\/h2>\n

If it weren\u2019t for Junior Vasquez, Madonna may not have learned to vogue. The house producer and DJ introduced her to New York\u2019s ball scene, and before long, the hyper-queer dance made its way into her 1990 hit \u201cVogue\u201d\u2014stripped of its context, of course, upsetting its original community.<\/p>\n

Vasquez maintained a working relationship with Madonna for several years after \u201cVogue,\u201d continuing to remix her work. But 1996\u2019s \u201cIf Madonna Calls\u201d signals a break in their friendship; it\u2019s an uptempo \u201cbitch track\u201d featuring what is ostensibly a message left by the pop star on Vasquez\u2019s answering machine. However the beef may have originated, guest vocalist Franklin Fuentes makes feelings plain with his bitter instruction to let Madonna know he\u2019s not around if she calls. The voicemail is the centerpiece of the track, with Vasquez expertly splicing Madonna\u2019s words into the club banger. By the time the track draws to a close, we\u2019re left with a caustic punch line: \u201cActually, if Madonna calls, disconnect her.\u201d While Vasquez has since claimed he has no hard feelings, \u201cIf Madonna Calls\u201d is plenty vindication for the queens left in \u201cVogue\u201d\u2019s wake. \u2013Michael Siebert<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Junior Vasquez, \u201cIf Madonna Calls\u201d [ft. Franklin Fuentes]<\/p>\n

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\"Kill<\/span><\/div>\n
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Kill Rock Stars<\/p>\n

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Sleater-Kinney: \u201cOne More Hour\u201d (1997)<\/h2>\n

Sleater-Kinney\u2019s third album, Dig Me Out<\/em>, is full of desperation and heartbreak, and on \u201cOne More Hour,\u201d they\u2019re at their most vulnerable. Corin Tucker\u2019s lyrics frankly address the end of her relationship with bandmate Carrie Brownstein, details of which were published in a disastrous Spin<\/em> article that outed Brownstein without her permission.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a song full of dichotomies, offering a hint at how the delicate interplay between Tucker and Brownstein\u2019s guitars and vocals might have mirrored their personal lives. Brownstein\u2019s jittery lead riff quickly locks into Tucker\u2019s bright chords, and before long, Tucker\u2019s trademark vibrato bursts into the fore with details that are as painful as they are relatable: clothes left behind, the prospect of other future girls, the urge to hold each other close before it\u2019s over for good. Brownstein plays the comforter, anchoring Tucker\u2019s howls with gently sung affirmations. In other hands, \u201cOne More Hour\u201d could have just been another breakup song. Instead, Sleater-Kinney created a master class in heartache, a queer anthem that is at once deeply personal and universal. \u2013Michael Siebert<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Sleater-Kinney, \u201cOne More Hour\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo by Wendy Lynch Redfern\/Redferns<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Self-released<\/p>\n

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Limp Wrist: \u201cI Love Hardcore Boys, I Love Boys Hardcore\u201d (2001)<\/h2>\n

Limp Wrist\u2019s spazzier take on straight-edge punk\u2014an aggressive, hyper-masculine movement with members dedicated to a drug- and alcohol-free lifestyle\u2014hit that community hard in 1998. Featuring Martin Sorrondeguy, erstwhile frontman of the shambolic Latinx crust-punks Los Crudos, Limp Wrist quickly set about challenging notions of sexuality and gender within punk. The band uses queer sexuality and often explicit gay male imagery on their album covers, fliers, and merchandise, in an effort to help LGBTQ+ punk rockers find a voice for their social frustrations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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First appearing on the band’s demo tape Don\u2019t Knock It Til You Try It<\/em>, \u201cI Love Hardcore Boys, I Love Boys Hardcore\u201d is a wiry, brash punk spectacle. It breaks down the band\u2019s attraction to dudes across all the punk and hardcore sub-scenes, from the whiny emo guys to the skinheads in tight pants and boy in between. Martin\u2019s raspy, sassy shouts over a pummeling drumbeat and loud, fuzzy guitars set Limp Wrist in line with hardcore, but it’s their message of LGBTQ+ acceptance\u2014sorely needed in their community\u2014that makes them truly punk. \u2013Alex Smith<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Limp Wrist, \u201cI Love Hardcore Boys, I Love Boys Hardcore\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"MCA\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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MCA<\/p>\n

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Common: \u201cBetween Me, You & Liberation\u201d (2002)<\/h2>\n

In its spacious, sax-laded groove, \u201cBetween Me, You & Liberation\u201d allows Common plenty of space to parse a then-taboo topic in hip-hop: queer acceptance. In the final verse, the Chicago rapper relates a story about a friend coming out to him as gay, a revelation he doesn\u2019t handle well at first: \u201cThis is how real life\u2019s supposed to be?\/For it to happen to someone close to me?\u201d Common raps, setting the emotional scene. \u201cSo far we\u2019d come, for him to tell me\/As he did, insecurity held me\/I felt like he failed me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite hip-hop\u2019s history of\u00a0queer intolerance, and Common\u2019s own participating lyrics\u00a0in the past, \u201cBetween\u201d is a story that ends with acceptance. Common renounces his past hostility, ultimately delivering a powerful statement a little clumsily; after questioning his biases, he finally declares, \u201cThrough sexuality, he liberated himself.\u201d While earnest, it didn\u2019t eradicate homophobia overnight; in fact, the singer on the hook, Cee-Lo, has since made\u00a0antagonistic remarks to the LGBTQ+ community. But \u201cBetween Me, You & Liberation\u201d opened a door in a scene that needed it badly, and challenged the orthodoxy of mainstream rap in its own delicate way. \u2013Alex Smith<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Common, \u201cBetween Me, You\u00a0& Liberation\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Polydor\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Polydor<\/p>\n

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Scissor Sisters: \u201cTake Your Mama\u201d (2004)<\/h2>\n

The mainstream gay rights movement took a hard right in the new millennium, with issues like marriage and adoption coming to the forefront. San Francisco briefly issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004, and Massachusetts became the first state to recognize same-sex marriages shortly after. Around that same time, Scissor Sisters released \u201cTake Your Mama,\u201d a raucous, backwoods dance track about coming out to your mom and showing her a gay ol\u2019 time. \u201cTake your mama out all night\/So she\u2019ll have no doubt that we\u2019re doing the best we can,\u201d sing Jake Shears and Ana Matronic in their best Bee Gees falsetto.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake Your Mama\u201d came from an unmistakably queer perspective, one with broad appeal; queers straddling New York\u2019s rock and electroclash scenes, as well as those in other cities worldwide, saw a familiar slice of nightlife elevated to a greater stage, while the baby gays watching the music video in their parents\u2019 houses got a taste of what life might be like in the great, grown-up world beyond. It also reflected a growing anxiety among queer people: In this new era of blending traditional family structures with ones created out of want and necessity, could the two ever coexist without the former swallowing the latter whole? \u2013Harron Walker<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Scissor Sisters, \u201cTake Your Mama\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Interscope<\/span><\/div>\n
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Interscope \/ Stream Line \/ Kin Live<\/p>\n

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Lady Gaga: \u201cBorn This Way\u201d (2011)<\/h2>\n

Four years before gay marriage became legal across the United States, Lady Gaga put out her most unabashed LGBTQ+ anthem. She had cultivated a queer fan base since 2008\u2019s \u201cJust Dance,\u201d and even hinted that 2008\u2019s \u201cPoker Face\u201d was about her own bisexuality, but \u201cBorn This Way\u201d cut out the subtlety: This was a dance-pop banger about how every queer kid on\u00a0Earth was born perfect. The stomping four-on-the-floor beat and triumphant hook make \u201cBorn This Way\u201d an irresistible, adrenalizing ride, and Gaga\u2019s snarling vocals add some high camp flair. By 2011, Pride had already become a high profile affair, but no other star had instructed their massive fan base to \u201cjust be a queen\u201d in a No. 1 hit, nor had anyone this big in pop explicitly proclaimed that queer people were not a curse upon the Earth but a blessing. Gaga was at the peak of her powers, and she used the moment to preach the gospel of Mother Monster: The gayer you are, the closer to God.
\u2013Sasha Geffen<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Lady Gaga, \u201cBorn This Way\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Def<\/span><\/div>\n
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Def Jam<\/p>\n

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Frank Ocean: \u201cForrest Gump\u201d (2012)<\/h2>\n

It was a Tumblr post that hit popular culture like an earthquake, and Frank Ocean wrote it in such filmic fashion: on a plane from New Orleans to L.A. after a \u201cmarred\u201d Christmas.\u00a0If the mythical, American story of Frank Ocean should ever be set to film, this will be the opening scene: Frank with a laptop and a window seat and his internal monologue, typing out the note to say that his first love was a man, and that he now felt free. These two miraculous paragraphs closely preceded the release of 2012\u2019s Channel Orange<\/em>, and monumentally disrupted what we thought we knew about Ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cForrest Gump\u201d is the penultimate track of Channel Orange<\/em>, as if Frank knew that placing it earlier would reveal too much too soon. He flips the gender script of the titular film, and in its uneven romance of Forrest and Jenny, he is Jenny. But the truth of \u201cForrest Gump\u201d is spelled out perfectly clear, so corporeally. \u201cYou run my mind, boy,\u201d Ocean sings on this spare soul ballad, his voice disarmingly close, letting through the occasional cracked and vulnerable note. \u201cYou\u2019re so buff and so strong\/I\u2019m nervous, Forrest.\u201d If there is any confusion that \u201cForrest Gump\u201d is an ode to Frank\u2019s first love, he echoes his Tumblr post verbatim: \u201cI won\u2019t forget you.\u201d
\u2013Jenn Pelly<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Frank Ocean, \u201cForrest Gump\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Vapor\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Vapor<\/p>\n

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Tegan and Sara: \u201cCloser\u201d (2012)<\/h2>\n

Tegan and Sara\u00a0are already an iconic singer-songwriter duo\u2014not just charismatic and Canadian but out, and lesbian, and twins<\/em>! with impeccable haircuts!\u2014and they had been indie stars since 2007\u2019s The Con<\/em>, a collection of alternatively dark and melancholy pop-folk. But it was 2013\u2019s Heartthrob<\/em>\u2014and specifically its lead single, \u201cCloser\u201d\u2014that provided audiences with a timeless queer anthem, as well as the duo\u2019s first U.S. chart hit. Written by Tegan, \u201cCloser\u201d combines nostalgic emo and pop-punk notes with an unrepentant four-to-the-floor beat, making it work both as a dancefloor-filler and as music to make out to (or just fantasize about making out to).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cCloser\u201d is a song about the anticipation before the kiss, before anything gets physical. It\u2019s a love song that conjures adolescent longing, no matter how old you are, with impossibly catchy, cleverly rhyming lyrics. And it\u2019s that cherishing of that gap between anticipation and release\u2014asking to be closer<\/em>, not touching; cherishing the moment before you realize you\u2019re in too deep\u2014that seems to speak to that particularly queer feeling of wanting something you know you may never get. \u2013Larissa Pham<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Tegan and Sara, \u201cCloser\u201d<\/p>\n

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Total Treble<\/p>\n

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Against Me!: \u201cTrue Trans Soul Rebel\u201d (2014)<\/h2>\n

When Against Me! lead singer Laura Jane Grace came out as trans in 2012, she wrote an album of diamond-sharp punk songs to carve her emotional process into stone. The album is often her in the throes of depression, alone, on some godforsaken frontier; she screams about the rapture of self-acceptance into the black void of a world who views her as a stranger. The tone of the album ranges anywhere from black to pitch black.<\/p>\n

On Grace\u2019s\u00a0ode to outcasts, \u201cTrue Trans Soul Rebel,\u201d self-love mutates into fear, doubt, loneliness, and anger. She\u00a0squares off against God and asks who blesses the unchanging hearts of trans men and women. Out of this despair comes one of the best hooks of the decade: \u201cWho\u2019s gonna take you home tonight?\u201d It is a rebuke and a catharsis, a whisper and a scream, all surrounded by huge guitars and drums trying to bring down an arena. Love wages a constant battle with our worse angels, and it\u2019s inspiring to hear Grace\u2019s tale from the frontlines. \u2013Jeremy D. Larson<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Against Me!, \u201cTrue Trans Soul Rebel\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Matador\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Matador<\/p>\n

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Perfume Genius: \u201cQueen\u201d (2014)<\/h2>\n

Mike Hadreas had already emerged as a powerful queer voice in music by the time of 2014\u2019s Too Bright<\/em>\u2014not least for his tearful 2010 ballad \u201cMr. Peterson,\u201d in which told the devastating tale of a troubled teacher who \u201clet me smoke weed in his truck\/if I could convince him I loved him enough.\u201d On \u201cQueen,\u201d Hadreas channeled a lifetime of cold stares from strangers and draped them in sheets of glitter. In seven words, within a slowly-churning glam-pop daydream, he wrote a generation-defining anthem and sang it resiliently: \u201cNo family is safe\/When I sashay.\u201d<\/p>\n

This refrain cleverly, thrillingly skewered the very notions of gay panic and \u201cfamily values,\u201d making \u201cQueen\u201d a classic upon arrival. It is the sound of defiantly being femme in public, and it immediately topped the pantheon of Hadreas\u2019 best songs. \u201cI sometimes see faces of blank fear when I walk by,\u201d Hadreas has said of the song. \u201cIf these fucking people want to give me some power\u2014if they see me as some sea witch with penis tentacles that are always prodding and poking and seeking to convert the muggles\u2014well, here she comes.\u201d \u2013Jenn Pelly<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Perfume Genius, \u201cQueen\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Bella<\/span><\/div>\n
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Bella Union \/ Partisan<\/p>\n

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John Grant: \u201cSnug Slacks\u201d (2015)<\/h2>\n

His religious parents thought he needed to be \u201cfixed,\u201d he developed an anxiety disorder after facing homophobic bullying during his youth, and he battled with drug and alcohol abuse. In 2011, he discovered he was HIV positive. It\u2019s a wonder John Grant is producing music at all, let alone receiving such critical acclaim for it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cSnug Slacks\u201d is sleazy dance music that makes no bones about the sexual predilections of its singer. It\u2019s a leering come-on from a mature male who\u2019s happy in his own skin (entirely at odds to the way Grant felt about himself for most of his life) to a younger, prettier, self-obsessed man. The message is simple: You may think you\u2019re God\u2019s gift, but I\u2019ve been around a lot longer, and there\u2019s nothing that I haven\u2019t seen before.<\/em> Irresistibly filthy, bordering on the obscene, \u201cSnug Slacks\u201d could not have been written 50 years ago. It takes decades of bump\u2018n\u2019grind macho posturing and flips it on its head (and on its back), beautifully demonstrating how far LGBTQ+ musicians\u2014and audiences of all sexualities\u2014have come. \u2013Darryl Bullock<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0John Grant, \u201cSnug Slacks\u201d<\/p>\n

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Odd Future \/ Columbia<\/p>\n

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The Internet: \u201cGirl\u201d (2015)<\/h2>\n

\u201cGirl\u201d\u00a0sure sounds familiar at first listen. Soulfully sung by the former Odd Future member Syd, and produced by Kaytranada with a bouncy, low-key beat and a sunny Neil Merryweather sample, \u201cGirl\u201d is a tender ballad\u00a0for long, hot summer days. And what makes it so laid-back is also what makes it so revolutionary. It\u2019s a song about a woman, sung by a woman; it\u2019s unapologetically, openly queer. But it\u2019s also an ordinary love song, concerned with the intimate universe that can exist between just two people\u2014a song where Syd, who may be a fickle lover, sings about making and breaking promises.<\/p>\n

\u201cGirl\u201d is equal parts bravado and pleading for love to be returned, pared down into a relaxed R&B jam that goes on for so long, it\u2019s almost like a daydream. Near the end, Syd has a change of heart, wondering if she\u2019s really in love. \u201cCan we just live in the moment?\u201d she asks. In other words, instead of marching toward something, let\u2019s just hold hands\u2014something that, for LGBTQ+ people, finally feels possible. \u2013Larissa Pham<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> The Internet, \u201cGirl\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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M.A Music<\/p>\n

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Young M.A: \u201cOOOUUU\u201d (2016)<\/h2>\n

In hip-hop, there is inevitably a song of the summer. It\u2019s that inescapable joint heard booming out of passing cars, that easily recognizable beat at the block party. It\u2019s the track teenagers play from their phones as if they were tinny, handheld boomboxes, and the omnipresent jam spun by every DJ worth their salt. In 2016, that song was Young M.A\u2019s \u201cOOOUUU,\u201d three minutes and 55 seconds of native Brooklyn swagger with no discernable hook and bars upon bars of clever bravado and slick talk. The artist behind it was a queer young woman from East New York who had captured the attention of the streets with ferocious YouTube freestyles; now she had a track so undeniable, radio legend Funk Flex bestowed it with the ultimate FM laurel, putting his signature bomb-drop sound effect on it as he played it again and again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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While it\u2019s likely that there have been other hit rap songs by queer artists, what makes the triple-platinum \u201cOOOUUU\u201d even more special is that it was penned by a rapper who was out, proud, and unambiguous about her identity (the \u201cM.A\u201d stands for \u201cMe, Always\u201d). What\u2019s also notable is hip-hop\u2019s reception: For the most part, M.A wasn\u2019t othered or marginalized as a \u201dgay rapper.\u201d She was accepted and celebrated as a talent. This is what being yourself sounds like. \u2013Timmhotep Aku<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Young M.A, \u201cOOOUUU\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mad Decent \/ NA$A<\/p>\n

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Starrah & Diplo: \u201cImperfections\u201d (2017)<\/h2>\n

In the 2010s, more than ever, we\u2019ve seen pop\u2019s hybridization with rap. The influence is clear in pop singers\u2019 rap-inflected phrasing, song lyrics that borrow words from the hip-hop lexicon, bass-heavy beats and, of course, guest verses from the MC du jour. For the past four years, Starrah (aka Brittany Hazzard) has been at the creative forefront of this intersection and one of the premier songwriters behind the scenes, crafting constant hits for pop icons; she\u2019s lent the sauce to Camila Cabello (\u201cHavana\u201d), Rihanna (\u201cNeeded Me\u201d), Travis Scott and Young Thug (\u201cPick Up\u00a0the Phone\u201d), and Drake (\u201cFake Love\u201d).<\/p>\n

As Starrah steps into the spotlight herself\u2014albeit with a K-pop-inspired mouth mask\u2014her fingerprints on today\u2019s hits are becoming more visible. \u201cImperfections,\u201d from her collaborative EP with Diplo, is exemplary of all the touches that make her songwriting so appealing. Here, she is a woman singing to a woman about putting her past relationships (with fuckboys and lames) behind her. The counterpoint to the sweet melody and sentiment are brash, rapper-esque boasts that qualify Starrah as a superior partner. Pop\u2019s elite seek out Starrah with good reason. If you know, you know. \u2013Timmhotep Aku<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Starrah & Diplo, \u201cImperfections\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"XL\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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XL<\/p>\n

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Arca: \u201cDesaf\u00edo\u201d (2017)<\/h2>\n

A lot of queer people have waited a lifetime for a love song as honest and complicated as \u201cDesaf\u00edo.\u201d Its hook\u2014\u201cLove me, bind me, and slit my throat\/Search for me, penetrate me, and devour me\u201d (translated from its Spanish)\u2014is a gripping, direct description of queer desire. Its tempest of hot, undulating synthesizers and drums set a scene of sex and love that feels unfettered and free. It also reveals hidden inhibitions in its creator: Before \u201cDesaf\u00edo,\u201d Arca\u2019s experimental electronic songs were intense, but he hid a percolating sensuality beneath fractured noise. Up until the release of his 2017 self-titled album, Arca had never sung on his music before\u2014and on \u201cDesaf\u00edo,\u201d the yearning sensuality of his voice strikes its most passionate note.<\/p>\n

But \u201cDesaf\u00edo\u201d is more than just a new classic of queer music; it is that rare love song that continues to feel revelatory and new. Arca\u2019s music sounds like it comes from a future we still haven\u2019t reached\u2014one where the way we love will be fluid and liberated and uncompromising, rejecting every single convention of the here and now. \u2013Kevin Lozano<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Arca, \u201cDesaf\u00edo\u201d<\/p>\n

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Wondaland \/ Bad Boy \/ Atlantic<\/p>\n

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Janelle Mon\u00e1e: \u201cMake Me Feel\u201d (2018)<\/h2>\n

When Janelle Mon\u00e1e arrived in 2007 with Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase)<\/em>, it was as if a second P-Funk mothership had landed and Klaus Nomi stepped out of it. Following releases soldered her high concepts (Octavia Butler\u2019s Afrofuturism, Donna Haraway\u2019s visionary techno-feminism, and Fritz Lang\u2019s glamorous world-building) to the boogie of Grace Jones, OutKast, and James Brown. And while Mon\u00e1e publicly refused to pin down her sexuality, queerness was all over her interface. But a decade later, coyness no longer computes. And so, with racism and homophobia run amok in our leadership and a generation refusing to live by the binary, Mon\u00e1e rebooted with two crucial updates: first, in pansexuality, she\u2019s found an identity that suits her. Second, she\u2019s celebrating realness, in both the humanistic and Sylvester sense of the word.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMake Me Feel\u201d is Mon\u00e1e\u2019s biggest hit in years, but isn\u2019t a return to form; she\u2019s yet to slip. Instead, it\u2019s a tribute<\/em> to form\u2014the shivering, shuddering pop made by Prince, her sometime-mentor and collaborator on the track, who before his death had a pretty controversial relationship to queerness (ask Wendy and Lisa). It\u2019s an ode to queer joy and an ode to the human form, delighted with delight and fully turned on. Now, for Mon\u00e1e, pleasure is her operating system. \u2013Jesse Dorris<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Janelle Mon\u00e1e, \u201cMake Me Feel\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"EMI<\/span><\/div>\n
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EMI Australia<\/p>\n

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Troye Sivan: \u201cBloom\u201d (2018)<\/h2>\n

In some ways, the Troye Sivan type has always been with us: a boyish beauty with a voice to match, a lineage that includes Fabian, Michael Jackson, and the Justins Timberlake and Bieber. In other ways, Sivan could only exist in 2018: a kid who made tracks on a laptop, became a YouTube sensation, starred in an X-Men<\/em> movie, and became a pop star. And all along, his work has been explicitly, celebratorially gay.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Sivan is not only pop\u2019s ne plus ultra<\/em> of the Elio gay archetype\u2014a naughty boy who\u2019s not really that naughty, and about to be no longer a boy\u2014he\u2019s also proof that cis, white gayness can be a selling point. If \u201cBloom\u201d were really about flowers, it could have been a hit for any artist from Doris Day to Taylor Swift. But it\u2019s 2018, and so this beautifully made song about the power of love reveals itself as a power ballad for power bottoms, irresistibly sung by a twink with a wink. Just watch him perform it on \u201cThe Today Show,\u201d of all places, for a crowd of mostly ecstatic women, and glory at this fey fellow in a fetching yellow blouse. \u201cBloom\u201d is a ruthlessly catchy song that took a piece of gay slang for the relaxing of the anus during sexual activity and made it a mainstream romantic anthem. What a time to be alive. \u2013Jesse Dorris<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Troye Sivan, \u201cBloom\u201d<\/p>\n

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Contributors:<\/strong> Timmhotep Aku, Stacey Anderson, Darryl Bullock, Cameron Cook, Jamieson Cox, Lorena Cupcake, Jesse Dorris, Jim Farber, Sasha Geffen, Jason King, Jeremy D. Larson, Kevin Lozano, Jenn Pelly, Larissa Pham, T. Cole Rachel, Michael Siebert, Jes Skolnik, Alex Smith, Alfred Soto, Eric Torres, Harron Walker, Barry Walters<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/features\/lists-and-guides\/50-songs-that-define-the-last-50-years-of-lgbtq-pride\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lists & Guides 50 Songs That Define the Last 50 Years of LGBTQ+ Pride The stories after Stonewall, starring Frank Ocean, Tegan and Sara, Jobriath, Troye Sivan, Grace Jones, and more By Pitchfork June 18, 2018 Grace Jones photo by Getty Images, Frank Ocean photo by D Dipasupil\/FilmMagic, Boy George photo by Ebet Roberts\/Redferns, David […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1680832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,54],"class_list":["post-1680831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1680831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1680832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1680831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1680831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1680831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}