Our Top Picks of Queer Pop: Pride Month Edition

By Laurine Payet

As Pride Month is starting, the LGBTQI+ community is taking over the music industry for this summer. And We’re here to give you our picks of different music genres each week of June.

To start off the month, we will put a focus on the genre of the biggest icons of the queer community: pop music. While pop is perceived as being exclusively present in the mainstream culture, it is in fact an umbrella term for a lot of different approaches and subgenres such as hyperpop, dream-pop or synth-pop.

Our first pick of the month Austra, a project by the Canadian producer, songwriter and recording engineer Katie Stelmanis. With three albums to their name, Austra took the risk to come back during the first lockdown with the transcendent LP ‘HiRUDiN’. The ethereal voice of the Toronto based artist over her universe of atmospheric instrumentals gives us a dramatic blend of dream pop and electronic music; the perfect sound for your sunny park hangouts this summer.

The American artist Kilo Kish is a perfect case of the fusion between art pop and experimental hip hop. Kish Robinson prides herself in not only using music as her artistic outlet but exploring her work through film and design as well. After releasing her debut album in 2016, she released her latest EP ‘REDUX’ at the end of 2019. The singular and spikey production of ‘BITE ME’ gives us additional hints of her hyper-pop influences.

After over 10 years of career, the trio Years & Years announced last March they were disbanding before the release of their third album. The former frontman Olly Alexander – who starred in the highly acclaimed 2021 drama series ‘It’s a Sin’ – is however pursuing Years & Years as a solo artist and released the first single ‘Starstruck’ on April 8^th, followed by a new version featuring the icon Kylie Minogue. The electro-pop tune seems like the ideal summer hit to listen to while you drink your Aperol Spritz.

At this point, you should know the famous Norwegian singer girl in red again. After breaking through with her 2017 single ‘I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend’ followed by ‘We Fell in Love in October’, Marie Ulven Ringheim has released her long-awaited debut album ‘if I could make it go quiet’. The previous bedroom pop sound of the 22-year-old slightly shifted to an original mix of indie rock and alternative pop.

Demi Lovato has recently faced a lot of media attention over their coming out as non-binary, overshadowing the release of their seventh album ‘Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over’. The LP is actually the soundtrack of the documentary series ‘Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil’. It focuses on the recovery from the addiction faced by the pop star, which caused an almost fatal overdose to Lovato in 2018. The album includes a featuring with Ariana Grande on ‘Met Him Last Night’.

Two years after releasing her breakout hit ‘Undrunk’ in 2019, the American singer Fletcher still sings about her past relationships and we can’t complain. She came back with her new EP called ‘The S(ex) Tapes’. The lead single ‘Bitter’ features the producer Kito and shows Fletcher has had the time to musically mature and settle her sound. She chooses to embrace the difficulties of a breakup and to unfold the daily pain of the absence of someone from the past who still haunts the present.

With more of an alternative rock note, the fully female and queer band MUNA never seems to disappoint. Their career was pushed a couple of years ago when supporting Harry Styles on his 2017/2018 Live on Tour, attracting the majorly queer fanbase of the English singer. Their 2019 sophomore album ‘Saves The World’, almost fully produced by the band themselves, was universally acclaimed by the public and critics. Even without new original releases, MUNA has come out with remixes such as MARINA’s ‘Man’s World’ and Zoe Wees’ ‘Girls Like Us’. Their music has also recently been spotted – alongside Fletcher - in Emerald Fennell’s feminist thriller, for which they wrote ‘Nihilist’.

It seems impossible to list the best current queer pop artists without mentioning Foxgluvv. The Brighton-based singer, who describes herself as a ‘Dyke Pop Princess’, has made a name for herself in the LGBTQI+ community, attracting the likes of Gay Times and Billboard Pride. She’s just released the summer bop ‘1:00am’ and is set to support Tom Aspaul on his July UK tour.

With his pop melodies blended with a dark sound, the singer-songwriter Jason Kwan took over the London scene in 2018 following the release of his first single ‘Just Let Go For Once’. The dark instrumentals of this new single ‘Seduction’ feels heavy and soft at the same time, exploring the art of authentic love. With a multitude of talents - being a drag performer and model as well - Jason can be seen performing in the music video of Little Mix’s ‘Confetti’.

The past few years have seen a lot of queer artists taking over the more underground approaches to pop music, clashing with the cliché queer culture has always faced. Mainstream pop artists are also still very much present and producing the best music for the upcoming summer. Supporting the LGBTQ+ community comes in many different ways, and getting behind queer pop artists is the perfect way to uplift their voices and the queer community this Pride.