Five New Gay Heroes Who Aren't Lady Gaga


Lady Gaga says we were “born this way” (Well, she wasn't, but whatever.) Katy Perry sings about kissing a girl! (Even though she admittedly never has.) As much as I appreciate the Gag in particular for throwing her gay audience a bone with a Madonna-pilfering banger, discerning gays can do a little better when it comes to our new musical heroes, can't we?

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Robyn

Plenty of gays and hipsters love Robyn, but most of the rest of the
world still only knows her from her fun '96 hits like “Show Me Love”
(remember her awesome flippy hairdo?). Robin Miriam Carlsson has done a
lot of growing up, musically and otherwise, since those mid-'90s hits she
performed at age 16. Her latest album, Body Talk, was like a greatest
hits package of eurodisco from the last 30 years. Her best songs focus
on specific, awkward emotional territory, like seeing your ex with
someone else (“Dancing on My Own”) or getting your new flame to dump
what's-his-or-her-name (“Call Your Girlfriend”). Her songs feel
relatable, whether you're male, female, transgendered, gay, straight or
bi, for their emotional nakedness but ultimately triumphant nature. Plus
those throbbing synths could melt the icy heart of the most hardened
music critic.

Owen Pallett

Owen Pallett has been releasing records as Final Fantasy since 2005,
full of avant-garde songs that incorporate Pallett's training as a
classical musician and lyrics that reflect his sexual orientation — and
also songs about the schools of magic in Dungeons & Dragons (hey,
D&D and Final Fantasy the video game are pretty, pretty gay). His
latest album shed the chocobo-lovin' moniker and silly album conceits in
favor of more straightforward (but still outré) orchestrated pop
released under his own name. The result, Heartland, is his best, most
moving work yet.

Patrick Wolf

Patrick Wolf writhes onstage in sometimes little more than a loin
cloth, singing lyrics like “I am fucking and I am fucking too”
(“Tristan”). And he likes to toss of ambiguous statements about his
sexual orientation, telling the Sydney Star Observer, “My sexuality is
kind of liberal. I fall in love with men and women. I guess you would
call me bisexual.” But this is all sideshow to Wolf's brilliant music.
Wolf, a multi-instrumentalist with a knack for infusing his songs with
unpredictable twists and electronic noise, can write a heartbreaking
ballad as easily as he can write a perfect pop song, such as “The Magic
Position.” And whereas before he sang about never getting married, in
January he announced via Twitter that he would marry his boyfriend.
Plus, he and Pallett are totes friends and collaborators.


Beth Ditto

A lot has been said about everyone's favorite plus-sized lesbian
frontwoman of rock band The Gossip, but mere words — and reductive
descriptions such as the one I just wrote — don't do her justice. While
her outsized personality and spandex outfits command a lot of
attention, it's her voice and delivery we really care about. Seeing her
perform is believing.

Big Freedia – “Y'all Get Back Now” from stereogum on Vimeo.

Big Freedia

Gender-neutral queer hip-hop stars don't just fall out of the sky,
but Big Freedia is finally getting her big break with recent hyped
appearances at SXSW and on Last Call With Carson Daily. Her Hitz Vol. 1
(1999-2010) shows the claim is warranted that Freedia is the “Queen
Diva” of Bounce Music, high-energy hip-hop born on the streets of New
Orleans. Whether Freedia would ever cross over into the mainstream seems
unlikely, but stranger things have happened — after all, everyone and
their mothers can sing at least a few bars of RuPaul's “Supermodel.”

See also: the girl-group-as-gay-garage-rock of Hunx and His Punx; Ed
Droste of magnificent indie crooners Grizzly Bear; the lesbian
electro-crunk of Yo! Majesty; Deerhunter's Bradford Cox, who cut his
teeth cross-dressing and screeching into the mic onstage, until the band
evolved into its current incarnation as an atmospheric pop band; the
(sometimes brutally) tumultuous, neo-classical electro goth of Xiu Xiu;
and Antony Hegarty, whose gorgeous ballads sound like Nina Simone
singing the blues of gay history, while his voice graces some of the
best disco anthems of the new millennium.

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