Culture
Page: 505
Happy Halloweekend! If you’re looking for some new tunes to fill your party playlists this weekend, look no further: Billboard Pride is proud to present the latest edition of First Out, our weekly roundup of some of the best new music releases from LGBTQ artists.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
From Dove Cameron’s latest entry in her new era to Cat Burns’ excellent Estelle cover, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below:
Dove Cameron, “Bad Idea”
Ever since releasing “Boyfriend,” Dove Cameron’s been hard at work promoting her “villain era” of music. But on her latest song, “Bad Idea,” the villainy takes a back seat to some poor decision-making based purely on lust. Cameron’s voice sounds effortlessly excellent throughout the entire track, while the bouncing, jazzy instrumentation gives us a slightly different flavor of her new sound — it may not be as nefarious as her latest music, but it certainly makes us want to hear more.
Cat Burns, “American Boy (Estelle Cover)”
UK singer-songwriter Cat Burns has been on something of a hot streak lately — and it’s not stopping now. The star’s Spotify Singles session, along with giving fans an acoustic version of her bubbly single “People Pleaser,” delivered a stunning rendition of Estelle’s “American Boy. (Before you ask, in light of recent events, no, she doesn’t include the Kanye verse). This gorgeous, slowed-down version of the iconic track shows off every inch of the rising singer’s voice, as she bathes in the rich sonics of the original song, while giving it her own delicious spin.
Cakes Da Killa, Svengali
If you’ve found yourself in a bit of a house music drought since Renaissance dropped, Cakes Da Killa is here to relieve your tension. Svengali, the sophomore album from the hip-hop innovator, is a tour de force of raw talent for the rapper, as he makes like the titular mesmirizer and hypnotizes listeners with the combined skills of stunning flow (specifically on standout track “Ball and Chain”) as well as some extra-dimensional production flourishes (like on the vibe-fueled single “Drugs Du Jour”). So give in and let Svengali send you down a blissful spiral immediately.
Kaash Paige, “Doubted Me”
If you’re in need of some additional Rihanna vibes after listening to “Life Me Up,” we have just the song for you. Fast-rising R&B singer Kaash Paige’s “Doubted Me” exudes the same breathless confidence and vocal acuity that you’d come to expect from the Bad Gal herself, but does so with a different flavor of unabashed flair. On this psychic, gas-powered anthem, Paige lets her haters know where they can stick their nasty comments — it’s her time to shine, and she takes up every inch of spotlight that she can find on this self-confident track.
Corook, “Smoothie”
Everyone has had plenty of moments of putting off self-worth — up-and-coming pop singer-songwriter Corook wants to remind you that it’s a practice. On “Smoothie,” the singer takes all the parts of her personality, good and bad, and blends them together (get it?) to find that she hasn’t “felt this good since I was 18.” Add into that the fact that the song is a deliciously fun pop-rock genre blend, and you’ve got a verified banger on your hands.
Nakhane feat. Perfume Genius, “Do You Well“
When you put two artists like Nakhane and Perfume Genius together, you’d be forgiven for expecting something slow and tragically beautiful as a result. Instead, the pair pivot in the opposite direction on “Do Me Right,” a bright-eyed, sex-positive anthem of hedonism and wish-fullfillment, backed by a beat that refuses to be denied. Nakhane channels their resonant voice into peak performance, while Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas backs them up beautifully. Dip your toe into this joyful noise, and you’ll find yourself diving back in for more in no time.
Taylor Swift once dreamed a dream of starring opposite Eddie Redmayne in Les Misérables, but unfortunately, that dream quickly turned into a nightmare.
The 32-year-old pop star was a guest on The Graham Norton Show episode airing Friday (Oct. 28). Also on the couch was Eddie Redmayne, whom Swift recalled meeting 10 years prior during a screen test for Tom Hooper’s 2012 film adaptation of the musical based off Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel.
“Basically I was up for two roles,” the “Anti-Hero” singer explained, according to People and Entertainment Weekly. “I had the look of Cosette and the range vocally of Éponine, so it was established I was there for a good time but not for a long time.”
She went on to say that she knew immediately she probably wouldn’t be cast, but still decided to go through with the screen test knowing she would get to meet Redmayne. The Fantastic Beasts star had already been confirmed for the part of Marius in the film, and Swift said he was one of her “favorite” actors at the time.
“I wasn’t going to get the role,” she told Norton. “[But] this isn’t an experience I am going to get again in my life.”
When she arrived in London to audition next to Redmayne, however, it wasn’t the glamorous cinema experience she’d been expecting. “When I got there they put me in full 19th century street-urchin costume and told me they were going to paint my teeth brown, and I was like, ‘You are going to do that after I meet Eddie Redmayne right?’” she joked.
“They made me look like death and it became a nightmare,” she continued. “When I met Eddie I didn’t open my mouth to speak!”
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the Theory of Everything actor either, though. “I thought we would just be singing off each other — I didn’t know we would be in each other’s arms,” he said. “My overriding memory of it is that I had pizza and garlic dough balls beforehand and all I could think about was my garlic breath while Taylor was dying in my arms and I was trying to show emotion.”
Suffice to say, Tay didn’t get the part. She did, however, end up getting cast in another of Hooper’s films just a few years later. When the director started working on his 2019 live action Cats movie, he immediately thought of Swift, who ended up starring in the project as Bombalurina.
“She rather brilliantly auditioned for Éponine. I didn’t cast her, but I got very close to it,” he told Vulture in 2019. “Ultimately, I couldn’t quite believe Taylor Swift was a girl people would overlook. So it didn’t quite feel right for her for the most flattering reason.”
“I knew she was curious to work on a musical,” he continued. “When [Cats] came up, I wrote to her and just said, ‘Would you like to meet? Would you like to see the world I’m creating?”
The Graham Norton Show episode featuring Taylor Swift and Eddie Redmayne — as well as U2’s Bono — airs Friday at 11 p.m. on BBC America.
Add Stephen Colbert to the increasingly lengthy list of people who are banning Kanye West. The embattled rapper (who now goes by Ye) has seen his once-formidable music and fashion empire crumble to dust, and on Thursday night (Oct. 28) he got the bad news that he will never be invited to visit the Ed Sullivan Theater, either.
In the midst of the outrage over West’s repeated amplification of hateful antisemitic tropes, Colbert tried to inject some levity into what is otherwise a not-at-all funny story about hate speech in the monologue to last night’s show. “After much thought and soul-searching I, Stephen Colbert, am banning Kanye West from the Ed Sullivan Theater,” the host announced grimly to hearty applause from the studio audience.
“Have to. I have to. Line in the sand,” Colbert said before getting serious for a moment and running down a list of completely fake “high profile collabs” the two men have (not) released. Among them: their collection of “spreadable jams” entitled “Strawbeezy Jelleezy,” as well as the now-cancelled release of their duets album, Ye & Phen: Sing Fiddler on the Roof.
“I know this has been too long in coming, I have no excuses for why I didn’t do this before,” Colbert said of the action he took to ban the rapper. Well, maybe one very good one. “Except, perhaps, that he has never been on the show, had no plans to be on the show, we’ve never asked him to be on the show and I am not sure he is aware that I have a show.”
But, Colbert said, he had to take immediate action for fear that Ye might “show up at any moment,” kind of like West did earlier this week when he arrived uninvited at Skechers headquarters and was summarily escorted from the premises. That move came after Ye lost his mega-lucrative deal with Adidas due to the company’s disdain for his hate speech against Jews, a decision that former billionaire West has claimed cost him nearly $2 billion.
“In five years the idea of an unannounced visit from Kanye has gone from ‘Amazing!’ to: ‘sir, you need to leave this Skechers,” Colbert joked. “It gets worse. Unlike with Adidas, Kanye never had any deal with Skechers, apparently Kanye is so desperate he’s just driving around searching Google maps for ‘shoes near me.’”
Watch Colbert’s monologue below.
Quentin Tarantino loves a good tall tale. But on Thursday night (Oct. 28) QT went on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to pour water on a recent stem-winder that Kanye West told in which the embattle rapper (now known as Ye) claimed that he originally conceived the idea for Q’s 2012 historical revamp tribute to Spaghetti westerns Django Unchained.
After West said in a recent interview that he pitched a similar concept to Tarantino while working up the treatment for the video for his 2005 hit “Gold Digger” — which features Jamie Foxx, later the star of Django — Tarantino told Kimmel that’s not exactly how it went down.
“There’s not truth to the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of Django and then he told that to me, and I go, ‘Hey, wow, that’s a really great idea! Let me take Kanye’s idea and make Django Unchained out of it.’ That didn’t happen,” said Tarantino of the 2009 Ye video that feature the rapper and Foxx frolicking with scantily clad models.
“I’d had the idea for Django for a while before I ever met Kanye,” Tarantino continued. “He wanted to do a giant movie version of [his 2004 debut album] College Dropout the way he did the album – so he wanted to get big directors to do different tracks from the album and then release it as this giant movie – not videos, nothing as crass as videos, it was movies, movies based on each of the different tracks.”
That story differs significantly from the one West told British talker Piers Morgan in a recent interview. “Tarantino can write a movie about slavery, where actually — him and Jamie [Foxx] — they got the idea from me, because the idea for Django I pitched to Jamie Foxx and Quentin Tarantino as the video for ‘Gold Digger.’ And then Tarantino turned it into a film,” Ye said during the interview, in which he also continued to lean into his recent string of antisemitic comments that have caused his once sprawling business and music empire to crumble.
The Hype Williams-directed “Gold Digger” video consists almost entirely of West rapping the song in a raspberry-hued void while Foxx croons the refrain and buxom, lingerie-clad models dance with the men at a nightclub and pose for magazine covers. Tarantino’s controversial Oscar-winning film tells the story of a freed slave named Django (Foxx) who embarks on a killing spree across the South with a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) as they search of Django’s wife (Kerry Washington); there does not appear to be any obvious narrative correlation between the “Gold Digger” video and Tarantino’s film.
Which is exactly what QT told Kimmel, though he did reveal that he did have a meeting with Ye that didn’t amount to anything.
“We used it as an excuse to meet each other and and so we met each other we had a really good time. And he did have an idea for a video,” Tarantino said, adding that the kernel could have turned into something. “I do think it was for the ‘Gold Digger’ video, that he would be a slave. And the whole thing was the slave narrative where he’s a slave and he’s singing ‘Gold Digger.’ And it was very funny. It was a really, really funny idea.”
When Kimmel quipped that it sounds like it could have been a “funny slave video,” Tarantino responded, “It was meant to be ironic. And it’s like a huge musical. I mean, like no expenses spared with him in this slave rag outfit doing everything. And then that was also part of the part of the pushback on it. But I wish he had done it. It sounded really cool. Anyway, that’s what he’s referring to.”
Watch Tarantino on Kimmel below.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.Don’t Worry Darling is now streaming on Prime Video. Amazon’s streaming platform makes it easy for movie lovers to stream newer releases that are still in theaters from home.
To make things even easier, we did some of the searching for you and rounded up a handful of in-theater releases (and movies that recently left theaters) that you can rent on Prime Video and watch on your TV, laptop, phone or another compatible streaming device.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Prime Video lets users access countless hours of content including action and adventure movies, dramas, comedies, documentaries, sci-fi, mysteries and thrillers, and kid-friendly programs. Not signed up for Amazon Prime? Join today under a free 30-day trial ($14.99 a month after the trial ends) and enjoy tons of great perks such as fast and free shipping, exclusive deals on millions of items and a free one-year subscription to GrubHub+. There’s also an option to join Prime Video by itself (free trial included, but you won’t get as many perks as you would with a Prime membership).
Movie lovers can rent Bullet Train, Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis, Nope, Orphan First Kill, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Jurassic World Dominion, The Black Phone, Everything, Everywhere All At Once and other films on Prime Video for around $5.
Not to be confused with Amazon Originals, which are free to Prime Video members, the majority of the releases listed below cost $19.99 to rent and $24.99 to buy, depending on the film. After deciding on a rental, you’ll have 30 days to start watching the film, and 48 hours to finish once your start.
See the lineup below.
[embedded content]
‘Don’t Worry Darling’
$19.99 (rent)
Don’t Worry Darling centers around a 1950s housewife living in a “utopian experimental community” but cracks in their seemingly blissful life begin to appear, exposing something more sinister lurking beneath the façade. The film is directed by Olivia Wilde and stars Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, and Chris Pine.
[embedded content]
‘Bros’
$19.99 (rent)
Billy Eichner, Luke MacFarlane and Guy Branum star in Bros, directed by Nicholas Stoller. Bros is the first gay romantic comedy from a major studio starring openly gay male leads. Eichner wrote, stars in and executive produced the film. Judd Apatow, Stoller, and Joshua Church are producers.
[embedded content]
‘The Silent Twins’
$19.99 (rent)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrence play identical twins in The Silent Twins. The film is based on real-life twins, June and Jennifer Gibbons, who became known as “The Silent Twins” because they only communicated with each other. The sisters endured constant racial bullying in school and were eventually locked up for nearly a decade in England’s notorious Broadmoor psychiatric hospital following a string of petty crimes. Jennifer Gibbons died in 1993.
[embedded content]
‘Beast’
$19.99 (buy)
A widowed father and his two daughters become prey for a rogue lion in Beast, starring Idris Elba, Iyana Halley, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Iyana Halley. Beast is also streaming on Peacock.
“Do you think rock stars are special people?” That’s the question that kicks off the trailer for Taurus, the upcoming music industry drama starring Machine Gun Kelly.
In the video, released Thursday (Oct. 27), the musician otherwise known as Colson Baker plays Cole, a depressed musician on the verge of self-destructing amid his seemingly glamorous L.A. lifestyle. As the events of the trailer get increasingly bleak, Kelly’s character begins writing new music. “I want it to sound far from everything,” he says while seated at the piano with a female collaborator. “Like everything’s upside down.”
The untitled song that then plays over the second half of the trailer finds the Mainstream Sellout singer intoning, “Life imitates art/ Bury me alive/ Disappear underground where they found me/ Before I ever had this career.”
Written and directed by Tim Sutton, Taurus also stars MGK’s real-life fiancée Megan Fox as well as Maddie Hasson, Scoot McNairy and Ruby Rose and will feature a soundtrack of new music by Kelly. The trailer didn’t offer a concrete release date for the flick.
The pop-punk rocker’s previous film roles include 2021’s Midnight in the Switchgrass and 2019 Mötley Crüe biopic The Dirt, in which he played Tommy Lee.
Earlier this month, MGK wrapped up the European leg of his Mainstream Sellout Tour with a show in Amsterdam. This December, he’s slated to play at Tampa, Fla.’s MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre before hitting the stage at Audacy Beach Festival 2022 in Fort Lauderdale.
Watch Kelly’s brooding turn in the trailer for Taurus below.
Girls5eva is getting the band back together and hitting the road — to a new streaming home.
The star-studded comedy, which aired as a Peacock original for its first two seasons, has been renewed for a third round — on Netflix.
Stars Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps will all return for the musical comedy’s third season on the streaming giant. The deal for the series also includes rights to Girls5eva’s first two seasons, which will stream on both Peacock and Netflix. The series is expected to arrive on Netflix sometime next year, ahead of the third season’s debut, in a move similar to what the streamer did when it acquired Cobra Kai from YouTube.
“Our deepest thanks to Peacock for bringing Girls5eva to life and supporting us creatively at every turn since the first pitch. And we are endlessly grateful to our partners at NBCU for their boundless commitment,” said executive producers Meredith Scardino, Tina Fey, Jeff Richmond and Robert Carlock. “Today, we are thrilled to announce that our reunited girl group will be re-reunited at Netflix. We are so thankful to everyone at the streamer who fell in love with our music-filled comedy. We cannot wait to introduce Dawn, Wickie, Summer and Gloria to the global Netflix audience. Well, not fully introduce, if you look closely, Girls5eva can be seen in the background of the Woodstock ’99 documentary setting a porta potty on fire.”
Sources say the show didn’t find an audience on Peacock, the NBCUniversal-backed streamer that also has struggled to cut through a crowded landscape and fierce competition from such other newly launched platforms as HBO Max and Apple TV+. Netflix, which previously rescued the Fey-produced Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt after NBC passed on the straight-to-series comedy, stepped in and made a deal for a third season of Girls5eva with the hopes that its global platform could help the series find an audience in a way similar to the way it did with Pop’s Schitt’s Creek, Lifetime’s You and broadcast rejects Lucifer and Manifest.
Also helping matters was Netflix’s relationship with Fey and Kimmy co-creator Robert Carlock as well as with writers Meredith Scardino and Jeff Richmond. Girls5eva was created by Scardino, who earned an Emmy nomination for writing for the series. Fey, Carlock and Richmond are among the show’s exec producers. Netflix global head of TV Bela Bajaria developed Kimmy during her tenure atop Universal Television, where Fey has been based for years with an overall deal, and eventually sold the show to the streamer after NBC passed on the series that starred Ellie Kemper and ran for four seasons.
Sources also note that Netflix head of comedy Tracey Pakosta originally wanted to buy Girls5eva for NBC when she, alongside Lisa Katz, served as co-presidents of scripted for the broadcast network. Ultimately, the project was earmarked for Peacock and Pakosta, a former Universal TV comedy exec, wound up leaving NBCU to reunite for Bajaria at Netflix.
“We are so happy to bring Girls5eva to Netflix,” said Pakosta, vp comedy at Netflix. “Just like the show, we are so excited to reunite with this amazing team.”
Peacock, meanwhile, will continue to have streaming rights to the first two seasons of Girls5eva and will share them with Netflix. Season three will be exclusive to Netflix. The decision to drop Girls5eva comes as Peacock has struggled to find a platform-defining, must-watch show. Comedy has been especially challenging for the streamer, which canceled critical darling Rutherford Falls and its Saved by the Bell update after two seasons apiece. No comedy has made it to a third season at Peacock. The platform, overseen as part of a content group that includes NBC and various cable networks, has Pete Davidson comedy Bupkis, a Ted reboot and a Pitch Perfect spinoff in the works, among others.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Halloween is just around the corner, and Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest are gearing up for for the ultimate spooky daytime show special.
Live with Kelly & Ryan shared exclusively with Billboard on Thursday (Oct. 27) a photo of the duo dressed as Billie Eilish and Harry Styles, with Ripa rocking the “Happier Than Ever” singer’s signature oversized, monochromatic outfit while Seacrest channels the “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” star in a fluffy pink coat.
Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest as Billie Eilish and Harry Styles.
ABC/Jenny Anderson
Live’s Multiverse Halloween: The Best in the Universe will air on Halloween (Oct. 31) and feature over 75 costumes and multiple secret celebrity guest cameos, creating fresh and hilarious spins on some of the most iconic moments in pop culture, per a press release. The daytime talk show powerhouse duo will take on looks from House of Dragons and Stranger Things to The Kardashians and The Bachelorette.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Actor and former White House staff member Kal Penn will also be joining the episode, dressed in his own secret Halloween costume.
Additionally, the show is bringing back its popular audience costume contest, in which the final five finalists will get a chance to win an exciting grand prize.
Live With Kelly & Ryan airs weekdays at 9 a.m. ET on ABC.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Rihanna is back on the red carpet! The Grammy winning-singer made her first post-baby red carpet appearance at the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in Los Angeles on Wednesday (Oct. 26).
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The star walked the purple carpet in an olive green, sequined Rick Owens gown with leather gloves. Her makeup glam was courtesy of Fenty Beauty, and her skin was prepped with Fenty Skin products.
“We wanted the skin to really mimic the beautiful shimmer of her dress,” says Fenty Beauty Global Makeup Artist Priscilla Ono. “We created a diamond-like shimmer on Rihanna’s face and body using her favorite Fenty Beauty Diamond Bomb Highlighter which then allowed her semi-matte neutral pink lips with Fenty Icon Refillable Lipstick in Pose Queen to really pop. We chose a coordinating olive green color for her eyes with Flypencil Eyeliner in Bank Tank and took that shade into her waterline so that it was a fresh and graphic eye look.”
Rihanna will debut “Lift Me Up” from the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack on Friday (Oct. 28). The song is her first solo track since 2016.
“We knew she was at a point in her life as well where she was focusing on different things — focused on business, motherhood, which is a big theme in our film. We were holding out hope that maybe it could work out and boy did it for this song,” director Ryan Coogler told The Hollywood Reporter during the premiere. “I can’t wait for people to hear it.”
Rihanna is officially back to work after welcoming a son with A$AP Rocky in May. Her Savage x Fenty Vol. 4 show premieres on Amazon Prime Video on Nov. 9, while her SuperBowl Halftime Show goes down in February.
Shop Fenty Beauty products from RiRi’s red carpet look below.
Ulta
Diamond Bomb All-Over Diamond Veil
$40
Ulta
Fenty Icon Semi-Matte Refillable Lipstick in Pose Queen
$20
Sephora
Flypencil Longwear Pencil Eyeliner in Bank Tank
$23
“There can only be one.” It’s a bombastic and thrilling motto when spoken by the immortal characters of the Highlander film franchise, but much more nefarious in the context of queer artists trying to make it in the music industry.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
For years, LGBTQ artists have spoken about an inferred “queer quota” that exists within the music industry, where decision-makers are hesitant to provide expanded representation to the community at large after filling a pre-determined slot for a queer artist — whether on label rosters, event lineups, radio airplay or various other platforms.
Darren Hayes, the Australian singer-songwriter of Savage Garden fame, recently explained the concept in an interview with Billboard. “When you’re a queer artist, it’s as though you are somehow niche. And there is this unspoken quota that exists, like, ‘Well, we have our one gay person already,’” he explained. “Or, it’s worse than that — it’s patronizing. I get feedback, like, ‘Oh my god, we love you! We can’t play the song [on radio], but we love you.”
Moore Kismet, an up-and-coming superstar in the dance space, told Billboard in a February interview that they “try not to really think about inclusivity riders, or if they’re booking me — a Black queer 17-year-old — to fill a diversity quota.” Even Kim Petras, undeniably the most popular transgender artist currently making pop music, told Billboard last week that there is very little room for her community to thrive in the industry. “There’s always been incredible and talented trans artists, and they have been paid dust,” she said. “That same story just keeps repeating over and over for trans girls who have been making exceptional music and have been pushed under the rug.”
But Petras is part of a changing tide. Sam Smith and Petras made history this week when their sultry duet “Unholy” reached the Billboard Hot 100‘s No. 1 spot. It’s a first for both artists, but also for their communities — Smith became the first out non-binary solo artist to reach No. 1, and Petras became the first out trans solo artist to do the same.
“I’ve been genuinely humbled by the reaction to ‘Unholy,’” Smith tells Billboard of the track’s breakout success via email. “I felt like we’d made something special in the studio, but you never know how that is going to translate. It was only when I started playing it to people close to me and seeing their reactions to the record that I dared to think it might.”
Smith and Petras are far from the only ones bringing much-needed representation to their respective communities. The pair replaced Steve Lacy, the openly bisexual R&B-pop superstar, at No. 1, as “Bad Habit” moved down to No. 2, spending its 16th week on the chart.
Having two gender-diverse artists replace an openly bi artist at No. 1 is a feat that has naturally never occurred in the Hot 100’s been accomplished in the chart’s 64-year history. And according to David James Lennon, a digital marketing consultant at Warner Music Group and co-founder of U.K. collective Pride in Music, it says a lot about the state of the music industry today.
“It’s such a fantastic result for visibility,” he says. “We’ve come a long, long way from the dark days of the ’90s, where labels and managers were regularly telling people not to come out, because it would hurt album sales.”
Smith’s success here is a clear example of the exact opposite, in fact. “Unholy” is not only their biggest hit to date, but also their first big success since coming out as non-binary in September 2019, definitively showing that their identity doesn’t diminish their cultural impact. Add in the fact that the song deals in overtly queer themes — like “on the down-low” hookups where straight-presenting men are sleeping with other guys behind closed doors — and you have the silver bullet for any anti-queer argument still being presented.
Smith, Petras and Lacy aren’t the only openly LGBTQ artists on this week’s chart, either: Doja Cat appears on two songs in the chart’s top 15, as a guest star on Post Malone’s “I Like You (A Happier Song)” at No. 5 and her own “Vegas” at No. 13, Elton John’s collaboration with Britney Spears “Hold Me Closer” remains within the Top 40 at No. 34; Lil Nas X’s League of Legends-themed track “Star Walkin’” sits at No. 43; Omar Apollo’s stunning breakup ballad “Evergreen” comes in at No. 77; and one other Lacy track, “Static,” remains on the chart at No. 96.
After the 2010s helped usher in a new era for queer artists merely existing in the mainstream, the 2020s are already building on that success, where multiple queer artists can not only survive at once, but thrive and top the biggest charts in the music industry.
“We found that when people, especially creators, live their lives authentically and they don’t feel they have to hide who they are, then the art that they put out into the world is so much better,” explains Anthony Allen Ramos, GLAAD’s vice president of communications and talent. “People thrive once they feel fully comfortable and accepted for who they are.”
So, how does a concept like the “queer quota” continue when the two most popular songs in the world are performed by LGBTQ artists? In short; it doesn’t. “Being an out artist doesn’t harm record sales, and it creates visibility for that 14 year old who doesn’t have anyone to speak to and needs someone to look up to,” Lennon says. “It’s like there was a strange mentality that queer people don’t buy records, which is completely bizarre.”
The facts point to the opposite being true — as Billboard reported in a study published with Luminate and Queer Capita earlier this year, LGBTQ music fans regularly over-index when it comes to monthly spending as compared to their straight counterparts. Queer and gender diverse listeners shell out an average of $72 more per year than the standard consumer, and spend 27% more overall on physical sales than the general population.
A significant factor in songs like “Unholy” and “Bad Habit” reaching the summit of the Hot 100 has been TikTok — both songs accrued massive, universal attention across the app both prior to and following their releases, which allowed fans to drum up hype at breakneck speed.
“The beauty of those platforms is you have such a special direct connection to fans, and it was so rewarding to be able to share something with them first hand at an early stage like that,” Smith says. “I was such a novice on TikTok but now I love it, and the positivity and love that we got for the record was so life-affirming.”
TikTok has not only revolutionized the way listeners discover music, or artists and labels market their sounds — the platform has also created a sense of democratization for LGBTQ art, where users can show labels just how popular a song containing explicitly queer themes can get, without any tastemakers interfering to decide what the public does or doesn’t want to hear.
“Anybody can do anything on TikTok, and that provides a platform for a lot of people to be themselves, to be able to create their own content, to be able to engage with artists,” Lennon explains. “If a queer artist’s song resonates on TikTok, then that’s where the audience is, and labels are going to listen.”
When the specter of the “queer quota” is dispensed with, you’re left with a growing number of successful queer artists showing other up-and-coming queer artists that their sexuality or gender identity is not a hurdle to be overcome. “It’s great to have this as a moment for people who are non-binary and who are trans to see success from people like them,” Ramos says. “It’s about making them feel accepted and motivated to strive for their own success.”
Smith affirms that point, saying they stand as a personal example of that very concept. “I know from watching gay artists like George Michael growing up what representation means to marginalized communities,” they explain. “Nothing is as powerful as success on your own terms.”
As for the music industry, Lennon says that the rising tide of LGBTQ representation on the artist side is just a small piece of the equation; when it comes to the more behind the scenes work of the industry, there is still plenty to be done. He points to Pride in Music’s collaboration with Warner-Chappell and British artist MNEK back in 2019 to host a songwriting camp for queer writers as an example of some of the work he’d like to see more of from major labels.
“Whether it’s labels working with LGBTQ songwriters through writing camps like ours, or giving up-and-coming queer artists a place to shine on the live side, or creating more ERGs (employee resource groups) for the queer community, there is so much that can be done,” he says.
In the meantime, Ramos is also quick to point out that the kind of visibility of these back-to-back No. 1s is not only good for queer artists, but good for the larger issue of LGBTQ acceptance at a societal level. “So much of the what is going on specifically with the trans community right now is largely based on people both not understanding and also not wanting to understand what it means to be trans or non-binary,” he explains. “I hope that people have their eyes opened to this and see Sam and Kim and Steve and just want to learn a little bit more. That’s all that we can ask for.”