A Rainbow of Gay Anthems That Show What Pride Sounds Like

Whether openly or otherwise, LGBT artists have been shaping popular music for over a century.

As early as the 1890’s, jazz musicians, arrangers, and composers cloaked their identity in smooth rhythms and suggestive lyrics. Queer artists like Ma Rainey and Billie Holiday sang about encounters with the same sex all the way back in the '30s. Billy Tipton, another prominent jazz musician at the time, was revealed as a transgender man after his death in 1989. These artists set the stage for pop music's love of the subversive, the androgynous, and the proudly authentic.

In the 1970s, disco became a counter-culture haven for folks who didn’t conform to the societal hegemony. LGBT people, especially LGBT people of color, cultivated a diverse dance club scene that was inclusive and sex-positive. And though we know what ultimately happened to disco, this paved the way for the sexual liberation movement in the '80s. Here, we got flamboyant and subversive queer artists like David Bowie, Elton John, Queen, and Grace Jones.

Today, we have LGBT artists representing all genres and backgrounds. Many of today's gay anthems specifically describe the challenges our community faces, but also celebrate queer love in the face of adversity. We know our history and we know that we still have a long way to go to achieve equality. Still, we choose to not only be open about our identities but to sing powerful, romantic ballads about it. Each artist brings their unique experiences and passions to create a rainbow that represents pride in our diversity.

This playlist is only a small sample of the amazing modern pride anthems, but they each bring a new stripe of color to a much broader picture.

Pink

Rainbow - Kesha

You'll find a rainbow, rainbow, baby

Trust me, I know life is scary

But just put those colors on, girl

Come and play along with me tonight

In 2017, Kesha shook her reputation as a vapid party girl by telling the harrowing story of her trauma and recovery. As an album, Rainbow is a nakedly vulnerable work of art. Most notably in the song Praying, where she processes her past and wishes her abusers a life of repentance.

The titular song on the album, Rainbow, is an anthem to courage and brightness in the face of dark times. She states "I'm falling right back in love with being alive" and that line hits me. Through all the hate and exploitation she's faced, she still came out of it with wistful self-love. It takes considerable resiliency to love yourself and love life in the face of such ugliness.

Red

Make Me Feel - Janelle Monáe

Baby, don't make me spell it out for you

All of the feelings that I've got for you

Can't be explained, but I can try for you

Janelle Monáe has been an icon of androgynous fashion for years. Her red carpet tuxedos caught the attention of the queer community long before Dirty Computer came out in 2018, but the album is unabashedly progressive. Monáe is proudly bisexual and Make Me Feel is a fun, flirty expression of her attraction. It's accompanied by a gorgeous music video, draped in the blues, purples, and pinks of the bi pride flag.

Monáe discussed the song in an interview saying: "It's a celebratory song. I hope that comes across. That people feel more free, no matter where they are in their lives, that they feel celebrated."

Orange

Shaken - LP

Oh no, feelin' that vertigo

Slow row, feelin' that swell of desire

Am I on fire?

Flashbacks rolling like a movie

Whiplash, she's holding you instead of me

Is that your type?

Laura “LP” Pergolizzi has described her androgyny as a form of art. With her tousled curls and perpetually unbuttoned blazer, her style is an expression of her self-described “neutral” gender. Her vocals have a distinct depth that gives her songs a serenely powerful sound. A sound that adds to the heartbreak in the lyrics of Shaken, describing a longing for a former partner who has since moved on. Now, all she can do is watch from the corner and wonder what they could have been.

There were a few more upbeat songs from this album I could have picked, but this one paints such a vividly specific picture. It conveys a very relatable feeling of jealousy in an honest way. This inadvertently normalizes lesbian relationships with its purposeful use of pronouns while presenting a ubiquitous sentiment.

Yellow

Show Me - Sakima

If the mood is right

We can do this right

I don’t want to hear you say that it’s love

I just need you to show me

Sakima’s smooth alternative pop music feels so down to Earth. His songs are cathartic explorations of societal expectations and navigating relationships from a specifically queer lens. Show Me is about the silent communication between two people in the moments before intimacy.

Queer history has a unique connection to expressing desire and affection with body language as a safety measure to remain covert. Even today, LGBT people are more prone to depression, and on average start dating at a later age, setting us behind our straight peers when it comes to learning how to express ourselves in relationships. Show Me is a statement that we don't always need to rely on words to convey our feelings.

Green

Love is Love - Trey Pearson

Oh. İt if I've any say so

Maybe I'll be enough

Tell me baby where should we go

When you're right by my side

I don't wanna say come over

Tell me baby now that

We're home, we're home

This is the kind of love song you listen to and swoon. The kind of song that makes you proud to live in a time where we can be so loudly honest about ourselves. This level of openness is especially brave from an artist from a conservative community in Columbus, Ohio, who started his music career as a Christian rock singer. Pearson says he struggled with accepting his sexuality for two decades before he came out. When he did, he lost a lot of his former life. The LGBT community helped him bounce back, rebuild his career, and create music based on his new perspective.

Love is Love is a common mantra in the gay rights movement and an honest statement from someone ready to love and be loved unconditionally. This song is a celebration of the freedom Pearson experienced by embracing his identity.

Blue

What’s it Going to be? - Shura

I don't wanna give you up

I don't wanna let you love somebody else but me

So what's it gonna be?

So what's it gonna be?

Upbeat, simplistic, and corny. This song always makes me want to do an awkward dance.

Though the lyrics to the song don’t use pronouns, the music video for What's it Gonna Be? tells an adorable love story. Taking tropes from 80s movies, it tells the story of two friends trying to get with their crush, but it ends with a gay twist. It puts a playfully romantic and subversive spin on an old story of courting the high school quarterback or cheerleader.

Violet

So Lucky - Shea Diamond

I should be so lucky to be me all day

Wear my hair down honey, while the music plays

Like a son of a gun only running for fun

Don't give a care what the world say

Ain't a damn thing funny (ain't a damn thing funny)

I should be so lucky (I should be so lucky, I should, I should)

Shea Diamond is a transgender soul singer who entered the conversation of trans activism while serving time in a men’s prison.

Born in Flint, Michigan, her early life is rife with instability and discrimination specific to her race and gender identity. But her past doesn’t diminish her radiantly powerful stage presence, it informs it. She says her name "Diamond" comes from her being forged under pressure, and remaining shining through the hard times.

This woman is tough as hell. This song makes you feel it.

Black

Girls Like Girls - Hayley Kiyoko

Saw your face, heard your name

Gotta get with you

Girls like girls like boys do, nothing new

In 2015, the only other song I had heard that was so specific in its depiction of a gay romance was Katy Perry's I Kissed A Girl. But I never connected to that song because it played the girl-on-girl action as a raunchy joke. As a kid, I was a quiet, anxious teacher's pet who didn't have much exposure to queer art. So, if that was what being bisexual was, that wasn't me.

Girls Like Girls was exactly what I needed at the time I first heard it.

It makes its statement completely unambiguous: “Girls like girls like boys do. Nothing New.” It's not sexualized or leveraged to be edgy or subversive, it's simply declared as fact.

It may seem trivial, but just singing along with the song allowed me to say those words out loud for the first time. It made it feel natural. Eventually, I internalized the idea and am now able to see my identity as something beautiful.

White

Montero (Call Me By Your Name) - Lil Nas X

Call me when you want, call me when you need

Call me in the morning, I'll be on the way

Of course, I had to include Montero. I had never been much of a Lil Nas X fan before this, but I’m absolutely obsessed with this song and the discourse around it.

You have this young artist who’s been told by so many conservative sources that he’s going to hell for being who he is. So, in his next music video, he does. He sings about a relationship so passionate, he’d proudly go to hell for it… while pole dancing.

Then those same conservative voices called it offensive and satanic. To give them credit, they are right in a way. The song is an open rejection of religion, but not because Lil Nas X wants to promote satan worship. Montero is a response to a church that only ever gave us two options: pretend to be something we aren't or go to hell. Now, many of us have made that same choice, and we refuse to be ashamed of it.