Out queer artists like Janelle Monáe, Frank Ocean, Kelani, Hayley Kiyoko, Troye Sivan, Kim Petras, Big Freedia, and JoJo Siwa (I could go on) haven’t cracked the year-end Billboard Hot 100 with solo songs yet, but even when queer artists do reach the pinnacle of pop mainstream they rarely sing about same-gender relationships. 1 songs from the last 3 years average about 20 weeks in the Hot 100. Lil Nas X’s queer anthem has already spent 12 weeks on the charts. That’s what makes it so special to hear a song like “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name).” Of course, I’m making some assumptions to say that it will appear on the 2021 year-end Billboard Hot 100 charts, but it’s well within reach. It’s pretty safe to say there’s room for improvement, especially since all 8 of the songs we identified feature a woman or non-binary artists explicitly singing feminine-coded words like “she”, “her”, and “girl.” Now, not all songs mention relationships, but a lot of them do: if we look at the Top 10 songs from the last 2 years, 19/20 include lyrics about relationships and 9/20 of those were about opposite-gender relationships. That’s 0.7% - 8 songs, not even one a year, out of 1,170 unique hits. Driving those extra minutes and that extra town ensured that I could snag the equally inconspicuous flaming pink-boxed first season of The L Word without waving a giant rainbow flag and raising any questions about my sexuality. This? In the “Buckle of the Bible Belt” in a state that, to this day, has some of the most vile anti- queer and transgender laws? I immediately downloaded it.Īt 3 minutes long, I could listen to it about 16 times on the 50-minute drive it took to get to the “second-closest” Best Buy two towns over. 6 in my very inconspicuous first car: a lime green Pontiac Sunfire. The first radio station to play the problematically-presented song was Nashville’s 107.5 “The River,” or stereo preset No. □ First time hearing a woman openly singing about being with another woman: Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” □ First heartbreak: Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” As a teenager and young adult the soundtrack to your life is built on a mountain of “firsts:”
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