10 Queer Artists You Should Be Listening To

[xchrom]

http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2013/12/10-queer-artists-best-2013-year-listen

Turn on any commercial radio station or check out the popular music videos on YouTube, and even today the odds are slim that the music you will hear relates to a non-heterosexual relationship. Mainstream music, by and large, is all about straight love and sexuality, and representation of musicians who don't identify publicly as straight is meager at best. To counter that trend, I put together this list of 10 queer artists worth checking out, talented musicians who aren't afraid to be open about their sexuality in their music and in their public


From left: CocoRosie, Le1f, Angel Haze, Austra, Zebra Katz.

Angel Haze - Echelon (It's My Way) [Parental Advisory]
Born in 1991, Angel Haze has been on every up-and-coming-rapper list since she released the EP Reservation in 2012. Her song "Werkin' Girls" was named one of Pitchfork Media's 100 Best Tracks of 2012. This year, Haze released a poignant cover of Macklemore's "Same Love," in which she raps about her own experiences with love and homophobia. Haze is direct about her sexuality, telling the Guardian that she identifies as "pansexual... If you can make me feel, if you can make me laugh—and that's hard—then I can be with you. I don't care if you have a vagina or if you're a hermaphrodite or whatever." The 22-year-old rapper's debut album, "Dirty Gold" is set to drop in January 2014. She gave us a peek with the song "Echelon (It's My Way)," released this past October.

Austra - Home (Official Video)
In 2011, Austra released its debut album, Feel it Break, to critical acclaim. This past June, the Toronto band, fronted by Katie Stelmanis (whose middle name is the band's namesake), dropped its second studio album, Olympia, featuring the operatic single, "Home." In a 2011 interview with 'Sup Magazine, Stelmanis said that she identifies as queer because "it encompasses gay, lesbian, trans..." She told the website After Ellen that she'd always wanted to be in a gay band. "I'd like to say being gay means being gay and being in a band, but most of my bandmates are gay and we've never really had that classification...it probably has to do with the fact there are a lot of stereotypes of what a gay band—particularly lesbian-identified band—should sound like, and we don't really fit in with those stereotypes, which is confusing."

Le1f "Spa Day" (Explicit)
Le1f (pronounced leaf) is the stage name of Khalif Diouf, who gained recognition for producing tracks for Das Racist, including the hit "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell." He broke out as a solo artist last year, and immediately got noticed for the song "Wut." This year, Le1f took to Twitter to call out Macklemore over "Same Love," tweeting: "News just in: Gay people don't care about your video about gay people." He released two mixtapes in 2013: Tree House and Spa Day, and his EP Hey is expected to drop in 2014. His rap is subversive, playful, and great.


***not in my wheel house -- i'm too old.
but i still love knowing about it.

[xchrom]

1. Le1f - Wut (Official Video)

[Bennyboy]

2. Garrin Benfield

Perhaps not as "Queer" as the above but he is pretty amazing.....

[Zorra]

3. Thanks, added Austra and Tegan and Sara to my Pandora. nt

[Half-Century Man]

4. I have no idea of the artist's sexuality, nor do I give a crap.

It is a beautiful song and the video is interesting.

with Spanish subs.

[Zorra]

5. What is your purpose in posting that in the LGBT Group? What point are you

trying to express by making that post?

[Half-Century Man]

7. Sorry, I found it in the latest threads list

When I saw the thread and immediately thought of the song.
The production video of Sakasama no Cho, implies the artist as being in a same sex relationship, but remains vague enough to be unsure. And that is fine. I did select the wrong video, the one I saw months ago had a translation of the lyrics.
How do the preferences of an author lessen the message of a love song? I can see the preferences adding to a message. But in the long run, so what?

If I have made a mistake, sorry. I thought then and still feel I had something to contribute.

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. No mistake. Good stuff. Thanx for posting.

>>>If I have made a mistake, sorry. I thought then and still feel I had something to contribute.>>>>

[Zorra]

9. Oh, no problem at all. Perfect answer, no mistake,

Beautiful song, beautiful video, I love it, thanks for sharing them here.

Because we are a historically and presently stigmatized minority who are seeking the greatest degree of recognition possible as equal human beings, we have a tendency to celebrate and note our openly LGBT artists. It is a relatively new phenomenon that LGBT artists are widely accepted, so we might make a distinction and note it when artists are LGBT.

In the past, an LGBT artist coming out could be the kiss of death for their career, and this is changing, but is still an issue. It's actually a very personal issue for me.

It's why we may sometimes make an effort to note that an artist is LGBT.

Even though it should not make any difference if the artist is LGBT, str8, green, maroon, male, female, or unspecified.

And you get that.

[Smarmie Doofus]

10. +1 n/t

[Half-Century Man]

11. One day, it will recognized that being LGBT or something else

is as relevant as right or left handedness.

[DemocraticWing]

6. Decent list.

Vampire Weekend and Ezra Furman also deserve mentions I think, as they both had excellent albums come out in 2013.