Pride
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Taylor Swift delivered a heartfelt speech in honor of Pride Month during her Eras Tour concert in Chicago on Friday (June 2).
Sitting in front of her piano at Soldier Field, the 33-year-old pop superstar gave a special shout-out to the “brilliant crowds of people who are living their authentic lives” and assured fans that her shows are a “space space” for the LGBTQ community.
“I’m looking out tonight, I’m seeing so many incredible individuals who are living authentically and beautifully and this is a safe space for you,” Swift said in the fan-captured video. “This is a celebratory space for you.”
She continued, “One of the things that makes me feel so prideful is getting to be with you, and watching you interact with each other, and being so loving, and so thoughtful, and so caring.”
The Grammy-winning artist also referenced her 2019 Lover track “You Need to Calm Down,” which features lyrics like “can you just not step on his gown?” and “cause shade never made anybody less gay.” The song peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2019.
“You guys are screaming those lyrics in such solidarity, in such support of one another, in such encouraging, beautiful, acceptance and peace and safety,” she said. “I wish that every place was safe and beautiful for people in the LGBTQ community.”
The Midnights singer then segued into recent legislation in the United States that targets members of the LGBTQ community.
“There have been so many harmful pieces of legislation that have put people in the LGBTQ and queer community at risk,” she said. “It’s painful for everyone, every ally, every loved one, every person of these communities, and that’s why I’m always posting, ‘This is when the midterms are, this is when these important key primaries are.’”
Swift added, “We can support as much as we want during Pride Month, but if we’re not doing our research on these elected officials — are they advocates? Are they allies? Are they protectors of equality? Do I want to vote for them?”
Swift was mostly silent on the subject of politics for her entire career up until late late 2018, when she endorsed Phil Bredesen, the Democratic candidate for Senate in her home state of Tennessee. Since then, she’s been outspoken about all that’s going on in the world. Click here for a full timeline of Swift’s political evolution.
Watch Swift’s heartfelt Pride Month speech in Chicago on Twitter below.
Happy Pride, everybody! What better way to celebrate the reason for the season than with a cornucopia of new tracks from your favorite queer artists? Billboard Pride is proud to present the latest edition of Queer Jams of the Week, our roundup of some of the best new music releases from LGBTQ artists.
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From Tove Lo’s Y2K dance anthem to Adam Lambert’s appropriate new Pride cover, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below:
Tove Lo, “I Like U”
That’s right, we’re kicking off Pride with one hell of a new dance song. Tove Lo’s “I Like U” doesn’t need to be anything other than what it is — a feel good, fire-up-the-smoke-machine single about the revelry of newfound love. With production courtesy of frequent collaborator Timfromthehouse, Tove’s new song is a perfect party banger to kick off your Pride Month, as she wails “I li-li-li-like you/ I want you tonight.”
Adam Lambert feat. Sigala, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” (Sylvester cover)
When you think of “Pride anthems,” a handful of tracks immediately come to mind — one such song is Sylvester’s classic 1978 hit “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” Now, 35 years after the disco icon’s death, Adam Lambert is ready to pay tribute to a great that paved the way. Teaming up with Sigala for a dance-fueled remix of the track, Lambert’s falsetto stylings fit perfectly with the song, nailing each note of the track, but never aiming to emulate the late star — rather, he honors his legacy with this dedicated cover.
Paris Hilton feat. Kim Petras, “Stars Are Blind (Paris’ Version)”
Say it with me — “that’s so hot.” Paris Hilton is, in fact, back with a re-release of her beloved single “Stars Are Blind.” (Note Taylor Swift’s impact, with Hilton dubbing her new rendition “Paris’ Version”). This time, though, Hilton is bringing along her friend and past collaborator Kim Petras to amp up the newest version of the track, with a pitch perfect second verse.
The Aces, I’ve Loved You For So Long
You shouldn’t mistake The Aces’ new album, I’ve Loved You For So Long, as nostalgia; while much of the 11-track project does deal with delving into the past, not all of it is done fondly. Throughout this expansive LP, the group retrods everything from teenage self-loathing (“Miserable” and “Always Get This Way”) to co-dependency (“Girls Make Me Wanna Die”), all done with their signature indie-pop sound and top-shelf songwriting completely intact.
Claud, “Wet”
Ever had that one person in your life who just refused to commit? If so, Claud has a song for you. The alt-pop star’s latest offering “Wet” deals with this exact dilemma, as Claud chastises a could-be partner for their refusal to just go for it. The thrumming, synth-focused production only adds to the drama, as the singer passively tells the song’s subject, “That’s not an apology/ But I’ll take what I can get/ Dip your feet but not too wet.”
Jake Shears, Last Man Dancing
It bears repeating that in dark times, it feels good to unplug and dance for a little while. Jake Shears’ phenomenal new album Last Man Dancing provides exactly that opportunity, while also offering something of a history lesson in queer music. Revisiting the chaotic electroclash that defined the late ’90s and early 2000s (especially on album standout “Really Big Deal”) and diving headfirst into gorgeous disco-tinged dance songs (the Kylie Minogue-assisted “Voices”), Last Man Dancing is a triumphant call to joy from Shears for the queer community. Sure, the world’s turning into a dystopia, but when has that ever stopped us from making our own good time?
CHIKA, “Requiem For A Dream”
When it comes to penning lyrics that make you sit back in your chair and exhale loudly, CHIKA is nearly unmatched. Her return single “Requiem for a Dream” is a perfect example — throughout this woozy track, the rapper dives deep into her own mind, plucking out insecurities, fears and self-scrutinizations and laying them out for the listener. But after shooting off a veritable laundry list of the problems she’s dealing with, CHIKA comes to a gorgeously-sung resolution on the song’s chorus: “I’m alright with pretending that all’s well …We’ll be okay,” she sings, before hampering her own thought. “F–k, I’m delusional.”
Zolita, “Grave”
As fun as it is to be petty, sometimes you just have to suck it up and be the adult in a relationship. For all of the angst she’s sung about thus far in her career, Zolita’s ready to be the grown-up on “Grave.” This chilling new track sees the rising pop singer living through the aftermath of a breakup, and instead of going scorched earth on her ex (see past single “20 Questions” for that particular tirade), Zolita decided to just take it in stride. “You said things you never thought you’d say,” she offers, spitefully. “You’re lucky I’ll take that s–t to my grave.”
Dorian Electra, “Sodom & Gomorrah”
If right-wing politicians want to use the Bible like a cudgel, Dorian Electra says “let them.” On “Sodom & Gomorrah,” the hyperpop star takes a look back at that “ancient story” where “two cities got super horny,” and turns it into a metaphor for what they’d like to see their lover do to them. With some cheeky wordplay and a lot of thinly-veiled innuendo, Electra gets their point across with ease in this sexed-up single.
Trixie Mattel, “Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous” (RuPaul cover)
Her Snatch Game impression of RuPaul might have been a bit rough, but Trixie Mattel’s new cover of a RuPaul classic is, as she put it, a “winner winner chicken dinner.” Taking the (frankly underrated) RuPaul track “Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous” and giving it a modern facelift, Mattel leans into the unbridled camp of the dance single, pouring every ounce of faux-sincerity into the song’s central question of “How do I look?” Considering the fact that the music video is also raising money for the Drag Isn’t Dangerous fund, and you simply have no reason not to press play.
Check out all of our picks on Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week playlist below:
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Adam Lambert and Orly teamed up for a “high drama” collaboration in honor of Pride Month. Inspired by Lambert’s High Drama album, the six-piece collection of vibrant nail polishes will be available exclusively at Orlybeauty.com on Friday (June 2).
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“We are all very excited about this collaboration. Adam has such a powerful voice, both in his music and in championing the causes closest to his heart,” said Tal Pink, Vice President of Business Development at Orly International. “As a musician myself as part of a rock band, we not only are immense fans of Lambert’s musical talents but also his compassion and advocacy for the queer community.”
The Adam Lambert x Orly: High Drama Collection features a silver metallic shade dubbed “Fluidity,” an apple green polish named “Adam’s Apple” and a black and silver glitter polish named “In the Moonlight.” There’s also a gold polish called “Hero Worship,” a plum shade named “Flight of Fancy” and “Berry That” — a custom navy duo chrome shimmer that Lambert conceptualized and created at Orly Color Labs in West Hollywood, Calif.
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The polishes retail for $10.50 and the six-piece collection retails for $63. Proceeds from the collection will go to Stand With Trans, a non-profit organization that provides critical support for trans youth and their families.
“Stand with Trans is thrilled to be invited to participate in this exciting collaboration with ORLY and Adam Lambert. Adam’s voice will send an impactful message to folks about the importance of celebrating the trans and queer community,” said Roz Gould Keith, founder and executive director of Stand with Trans.
Shop the collection below.
Orly
Adam Lambert x Orly High Drama Collection — Fluidity $10.50
Adam Lambert x Orly High Drama Collection — Flight of Fancy $10.50
Orly
Adam Lambert x Orly High Drama Collection — In the Moonlight $10.50
How does a song become a gay anthem? Like the LGBTQ+ community itself, our soundtrack is vast and diverse. We have recorded our history and contribution to the culture through music, and with this list we acknowledge and remember the forerunners that have made possible the positive changes we’ve seen over the decades. These songs […]
Unapologetically gay disco pioneer Sylvester was one of the many LGBTQ artists whose lives were cut short by the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s while the Republican-led government willfully ignored the crisis or actively blamed its victims. But while Sylvester, the human being, died at 41 of AIDS-related complications in 1988, Sylvester, the Queen of Disco, is immortal — and Pride Month 2023 finds the legend being honored twofold.
A newly available anthology, Disco Heat: The Fantasy Years 1977-1981, draws on the six albums he recorded for Fantasy Records, covering his three Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hits – “Dance (Disco Heat),” the undying classic “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and a version of “I (Who Have Nothing)” — as well as rare 12-inch mixes. After that, New York City’s venerable Lincoln Center is saluting the trailblazer with a tribute concert featuring performances from Inaya Day, Mykal Kilgore, Dawn Richard, Byron Stingily and Kevin Aviance on June 15.
Finally, it seems, the world is catching up to Sylvester – even if it is 50 years after his debut album. But when “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” began to gain traction in 1978, most people simply weren’t ready for a human as mightily real as Sylvester.
“The thing was, my brief for promoting Sylvester was to tell him to downplay his gayness,” Sharon Davis, who worked as a publicist for Fantasy Records in the U.K. in the late ‘70s, tells Billboard. “The U.K. just was not ready for this type of open-minded artist. And it was felt that his career could be dead in the water if he promoted his gayness, despite having an international dance hit under his belt.”
Regardless of any brief from the record company, Sylvester was hardly closeted. He wore women’s clothing, hit the stage wearing makeup and took gender-bending flamboyance to peaks that even a glam-era David Bowie never dared to scale.
Rudy Calvo, a veteran makeup artist who has worked with everyone from Patti LaBelle to Chaka Khan to Natalie Cole, remembers the first time he saw Sylvester and the Hot Band perform at L.A.’s Whisky a Go Go in 1973. “Sylvester and his posse hit the stage like an 5F tornado,” Calvo raves. “His hair was in a turban, and he was wearing lots and lots of bracelets you could hear clinking in the back of the room. His face was painted to perfection, which added to the drama of his androgynous stage persona.”
Davis – whose book Mighty Real: Sharon Davis Remembers Sylvester is currently being expanded and rewritten now that the film rights have been picked up – says Sylvester casually used feminine and masculine pronouns. “Sylvester was happy being a man,” Davis explains. “In leisure time, if he was in gay company, he would use the term ‘she’ but in public always referred to himself as ‘he.’” While she admits that the androgynous imagery of glam rockers like Bowie and Marc Bolan helped bring about “a certain tolerance in the U.K. music business,” people weren’t fully ready to embrace a gay-gay disco star. “Being bisexual seemed to be the get-out clause at that time,” she opines.
Despite Sylvester’s flashy threads — and a falsetto that soared so high it scraped heaven — both Davis and Calvo describe him as comparatively reserved in private. “He was quiet, softly spoken,” Davis says. “I loved the calmness about him. Yet he could be as stubborn as a mule if he didn’t want to do something.” Calvo – who became friends with Sylvester not long after he caught the artist’s 1973 show at the Whisky – recalls him similarly. “He was totally different from the person you saw on stage,” Calvo says. “The way he dressed, he seemed very flamboyant; in reality, he was very low-key.”
Calvo says he and Sylvester bonded over a shared love for “underground artists like Betty Davis” and a mutual respect for each other’s styles. The afternoon before Calvo caught Sylvester’s Whisky set in ’73, he had been scouring a flea market in West Hollywood for the perfect outfit to wear to the show. After picking up “a vintage yellow bowling shirt with silver threading woven throughout” to complement his bell-bottoms and platforms, Calvo clocked a striking man with bright pink hair also browsing the selections. Later that night, backstage at the Whisky, both Calvo and Sylvester realized they had been admiring each other’s fashion sense from afar at the flea market. “Oh, you were the guy at the flea market with the cool haircut,” Sylvester told Calvo when the makeup artist took off his hat to reveal a “short-spiked cockatoo” haircut. In turn, Sylvester “lifted off his turban to reveal his hidden pink electric hair,” says Calvo.
Four years after they first met, Calvo gave Sylvester a preview listen to Patti LaBelle’s self-titled debut album. “The first time he heard the song ‘You Are My Friend,’ he said, ‘I could do something like this.’” Two years later, Sylvester released a live cover of the song (backed by The Weather Girls) on his Living Proof album; the song became a top 30 hit on what’s now called the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and appears on the Disco Heat: The Fantasy Years 1977-1981 anthology. At one concert, the soul icon and the disco pioneer even performed it together. “When he hit the stage, it was like a church experience,” Calvo says. “He brought that energy of gospel to his music. It was like disco gospel.”
“His smile was wonderful, as it lit up his face, and his lisp so attractive,” Davis says. “A beautiful man on many levels. I shall always be grateful to have his friendship. And call him my brother.”
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As the 2024 presidential race starts to heat up with more than half a dozen republicans already throwing their hats in the ring to take on President Biden, Paramore singer Hayley Williams told New Jersey fans that she’s not afraid to get political from the stage. In fact, the outspoken vocalist told the crowd at […]
Little Richard knew exactly what he was doing when he sang the seemingly gibberish lyrics “Awop-bop-a-loo-mop-alop-bam-boom/ If it don’t fit, don’t force it/ You can grease it and make it easy.” The iconic couplet he originally wrote for his 1955 breakthrough hit “Tutti Fruitti” is explored in a new episode of PBS’ American Masters, “Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” which will debut on public stations on Friday (June 2) at 9 p.m. ET as pat of LGBTQIA+ Pride Month and African American Music Appreciation Month.
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The show, which features interviews with the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, Nile Rodgers, Pat Boone, Ringo Starr, Bobby Rush and Big Freedia, as well as activist/drag performer Sir Lady Java and Richard’s spiritual advisor, Rev. Bill Minson, tells the origin story of Richard (born Richard Wayne Penniman) from a child prodigy steeped in the world of gospel to global rock stardom; it features never-before heard audio recordings of Richard made by his authorized biographer, Charles White, who is also featured.
In a Billboard exclusive clip from the show (see below), Little Richard’s bandmates and contemporaries talk about the origin story of “Tutti Frutti,” which was birthed at the raucous Dew Drop Inn in New Orleans. “When we went into the Drew Drop Inn there was a piano… and that’s when I began to know and understand Little Richard,” says Specialty Records producer Robert “Bumps” Blackwell.
“‘Cause that’s all you gotta do is give Richard an audience, turn the lights on and show is on,” Blackwell says. Richard’s longtime keyboard player and friend Ronald “Ron” Jones adds that one day Richard jumped on the piano and played the “alop-bam-boom” riff and his producers asked about the hook they’d never heard before, even though the singer — who died in May 2020 at age 87 of bone cancer — had been using it for years while playing to Black audiences on the Chitlin’ Circuit.
In the episode we hear archival tape of Richard reciting the next two lines in the chorus, “If you want it, you got it/ Tutti-frutti, good booty.” The lyrics, of course, could be interpreted as being about gay sex, laughs Deacon John Moore, a blues musician who recorded with Richard. “They’re not gonna play that on the radio. ‘Tutti-frutti, good booty!’ And everybody knew this ain’t about ice cream!”
The bottom line from Richard’s producer, though, was that regardless of what he was singing about, “Tutti Fruitti” sounded like a slam-dunk hit record. Informed that he would have to clean up the “smutty” lyrics a bit to get airplay, Richard agreed, with Blackwell explaining how they changed the first bit to “tutti frutti, oh rootie,” while adding girls named Sue and Daisy. After two or three takes, history was made.
The PBS doc follows on the heels of producer/director and former label exec Lisa Cortés’ recent doc, Little Richard: I Am Everything, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and has been streaming on Prime Video and Apple TV since April.
Watch the American Masters preview below and watch the full episode on Friday night.
Pride Month has officially arrived, and pop superstar Sam Smith is ready to help you celebrate with a new cover. On Thursday (June 1), Smith unveiled their cover of Christina Aguilera‘s 2002 anthem “Beautiful” exclusively on Amazon Music. Stripped down to focus on Smith’s sonorous vocal and a single guitar, the cover slowly grows, adding […]
This Pride Month, Billboard asked artists to write a series of love letters to their LGBTQ fans, highlighting what the community means to them, as people and as artists. Below, Chappell Roan recalls finding herself in the queer community and being able to finally tell herself “Thank God I’m gay.” Explore Explore See latest videos, […]
This Pride Month, Billboard asked artists to write a series of love letters to their LGBTQ fans, highlighting what the community means to them, as people and as artists. Below, Hope Tala rejoices in the queer community’s ability “to be endlessly varied, containing every kind of multitude,” even in a world “that increasingly feels like a dystopia.”
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The first time I can remember hearing the word ‘gay,’ I was eight or nine years old, playing in the sunshine the morning after a sleepover. I asked one of my friends what it meant and received a child’s definition — ‘when a boy kisses another boy’, whispered in my ear like it was something bad.
I was shocked; this concept was so far outside my understanding of how the world worked that it had never even occurred to me that it could happen in a way that wasn’t familial or platonic. I had never encountered anything that resisted the idea that a woman should be with a man so I didn’t consider that ‘gay’ could have anything to do with me until I was fourteen and began spending copious amounts of time trying desperately to locate that newly discovered part of myself externally.
Eleven years later, through the world’s progress (however insufficient it has been) and the intentional reconstruction of my own world, I’m now able to see and feel queerness everywhere. It was always there, of course, just not in my line of sight. The wonder of it still feels astonishing, the comfort immense.
In a world that increasingly feels like a dystopia where the political right is bent on destroying it, the queer community continues to be endlessly varied; powerful and vulnerable all at once, containing every kind of multitude. I am grateful to know queer people closely and from far away; to be inspired by them, to be able to live through the knowledge that they are thriving, laughing, crying, hurting, resisting, making food and mistakes and love and art absolutely everywhere. Now this thing that often felt like a source of fear and ostracization, separating me from the world I had always known, has brought me closer to the community I was always supposed to be a part of and the person I really want to be.