LGBTQ mic history is so much more than a timele of who me out when and which songs beme gay anthems -- ’s also about the artists who weren’t aaid to be themselv eras when dog so often had real risks attached.
Contents:
THE 50 BT GAY SONGS TO CELEBRATE PRI ALL YEAR LONG
Pri serv more than a month. The gay songs – om dis hs to club classics – are perfect for Pri year-round. * lgbt songs 1980s *
In the 1920s and early ’30s, Prohibn’s end gave way to the “Pansy Craze”: baret drag performanc that brought gay nightlife to the mass and rried their athetics to mastream mil theater. In the mid-’30s, at the edge of the Great Deprsn, moral backlash—sometim disguised as enomic nservatism but ually explic s bigotry—shut down many of the clubs and formally crimalized gay sex at a sle that had never before been seen. Jazz n’t be imaged whout the ntributns of giants like Billy Strayhorn (of De Ellgton’s band), who was openly gay, and, later, Cecil Taylor, who found that three-letter word was too limg.
The ’70s brought glam and dis, genr play, and explicly queer nightlife back to the mastream; we n’t fet that ’s great gay pop in, Elton John, and s great bisexual on, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. Their first gay kiss was junr high, wh someone wearg a matchg flannel, while listeng to Peter Murphy's "Deep" on shared Sport Walkman headphon. While some classics do appear on our list, others do not – sorry, Gloria Gaynor, Kylie Mogue, RuPl, Brney and Cher, we still adore you — here are 25 sential pri songs om the 1970s to today.
THE 13 GAYT MIC VIOS OF THE '80S
* lgbt songs 1980s *
Somewhat rctively lled the “Queen of Dis, ” the virtuosic, openly gay sger approached genr ( his performative and private liv) as a fluid, non-bary ncept a pre–Judh Butler era. Although seems most of Queen’s fans were cluels as to how openly gay and subversive ontman Freddie Mercury was – spe the unabashed swank of his stage prence – he also never really tried to hi . Much of Erasure’s disgraphy embodi not precisely celebratory gay pri but gay romantic realy – a ankns about the emotnal, if not overtly sexual, liv of gay men toward the end of the 20th century.
So when out Brish duo Andy Bell and Vce Clarke’s plative yet buoyant sgle beme a worldwi h gay-uniendly 1988, felt quietly revolutnary to anyone the know.