Joy, Anger, and Freedom in New Queer Music
By WILL WEATHERLY, Exposure Staff Writer It seems like in 2015, the year of landmark Supreme Court decisions and Tangerine, that queer representation in music would be a bit of a given. Queer people are making inroads on our TV’s and in our movies, so the...
By WILL WEATHERLY, Exposure Staff Writer
It seems like in 2015, the year of landmark Supreme Court decisions and Tangerine, that queer representation in music would be a bit of a given. Queer people are making inroads on our TV’s and in our movies, so the fact that queer artists would be our iPods would be a bit of a no-brainer, right?
Well, not quite. Progressive music is one thing, queer representation another entirely. I find that music by and about queer-identifying people can still be hard to come by. For me, these artists’ progressive statements often seem surprisingly radical, more than they would be in a movie or in a CNN report. Perhaps this is because they exist in an industry which has supported bigoted sentiments as much as it has forwarded progressive ones. We still live in the spectre of Eminem’s slurs on The Marshall Mathers LP 2, or the sometimes vitriolic reaction to Frank Ocean’s bisexuality. When the industry does promote a queer message, it does it halfheartedly, on the back of a straight, white pop star.
So if you’re seeking music that shares your viewpoint, or simply looking to support artists from marginalized identities, here are three contemporary queer artists for you to check out. Their music has differing relationships to their queerness – some use their music to meditate on their identity, while others are simply queer and making bumpin’ jams simultaneously.