The first pride parade was to commemorate a riot (if you don’t know what I’m talking about google Stonewall). Now it’s awash with cops, corporate sponsors clamoring to show they care, and banal playlists filled with pop divas and disco cuts. I love a pop hit, but I love music made by my fellow queer artists more, and I’m OBSESSED with queer musicians exploring their outsider status sonically as well as lyrically. With this in mind, I threw together a mix of punk pride songs for y’all.
Pride is about going out and making a ruckus in public (Shopping’s “Take It Outside”), reminding the people living in the closet or in homophobic places they shouldn’t give up (Le Tigre’s “Keep On Living”), and also about partying your face off (Chastity Belt’s “Pussy Weed Beer”) for all the queer people whose lives were cut short from the AIDS generation to the victims of the Pulse shooting. It’s about basking in the love your community has for you even if you have trouble loving yourself (Mallrat’s “I Don’t Hate My Body I’m Just Afraid of It”).
Billie Joe Armstrong (an out Bisexual) screaming “well maybe I’m the faggot, America!” on “American Idiot” was aspirational to me as a closeted gay teen, so that’s in there too. Nightspace takes the noise and aggression of punk and applies it to electronic music, so their anthemic “Modern Survival” is on there as well. Finally, if you think this mix isn’t for you, allow me to quote Childbirth: “well everyone is gay anyway.”
Cheers queers!
