Are We Living in the Golden Age of Gay Anthems?

The year 2000 was 26 years ago.

I mean, that's just basic math. Currently, my kids are only aware of music through Spotify, YouTube, or old CD's that are found in the basement. Terrestrial radio doesn't even exist for them, yet Rolling Stone, the print equivalent of radio, continues to angle itself as the arbiter of youth culture....which it clearly is not.

In 2023, Rolling Stone came out with a Top 100 Metal Songs of All Time list. 88 of the 100 songs were from before the year 2000. Rolling Stones' angle was that Metal is now dead and buried.

Rolling Stone's Top 100 Metal vs Beacon of Speech's Top 100 Metal

Earlier this year, Rolling Stone came out with a Top 100 Punk Albums of All Time list. 89 of the 100 songs were from before the year 2000. Rolling Stones' angle was that Punk is now dead and buried.

Rolling Stone's Top 100 Punk vs Beacon of Speech's Top 40 Punk

Editor's Note: Why only Top 40 from BOS? Because we originally were reacting to 2017's Rolling Stone's Top 40 Punk Albums.... From 2017.

Way, way back in 2004, Rolling Stone released their Top 500 songs of all time. But then revised the list in 2010. As America got woke during the 10's, Rolling Stone's List came under fire as Too Old and Too White. In response, Rolling Stone redid their list in 2021 and 2024 using different convoluted criteria. The result? "Only" 80 of their Top 100 songs were from before the year 2000.

Then, earlier this month, Rolling Stone released their The 50 Most Inspirational LGBTQ Songs of All Time.

Surprise, surprise, only 15 songs were from before 2000. According to Rolling Stone itself:

Metal is Dead

Rock is Dead

Punk is Dead

(Toxic Masculinity is Dead)

Gay Anthems are Alive and Well.

Now I have no issues with the top part of the LGBTQ List, it was a lot of songs that I would expect from the likes of Lady Gaga, Madonna, and George Michael. But way, way down at the bottom of the list was a song called Tilted by Christine and the Queens.

I wasn't familiar with the tune, but gave it a few spins. Now with each listen, the song became more and more catchy.

But you know what it wasn't? It wasn't Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

Arguably the gayest hit to come out of the 80's somehow eluded Rolling Stone. The original Relax video was so over-the-top that it was banned by both MTV and the BBC. The video you remember seeing late at night was the iconic [Laser Version] of Relax.

Coincidentally, in honor of Pride Month, Billboard also rolled out Top 100 LGBTQ Anthems and Queer Pride songs.

And, unsurprisingly, Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax is on the Billboard List. Of course it is, they were pioneers for openly gay recording artists.

But what exactly is an LGBTQ Song? According to Billboard: "While it’s impossible to define exactly what makes a song “gay,” this list definitely isn’t straight." Billboard's list encompasses the LGBTQ experience through time.

I actually thought Billboard's List was pretty good. Rolling Stone's list omits many trailblazers in the genre.

Don't get me wrong, that's their prerogative. But their other lists can't read like history books, then, apparently, claim that they have their finger on the pulse of youth culture for the sake of looking hip today.

Co-Editors-in-Chief at Rolling Stone

Which is sad.

I was never a fan of Jann Wenner, but at least he pushed Rolling Stone in a certain direction. The website has become a rudderless ship, adrift in choppy seas.

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I am what the kids would call "a square."

This is where I would USUALLY counter with my own list, but I am too obtuse and disconnected to make a proper stab at it, but here's some LGBTQ related songs that I enjoy.

F@ck My Life 666 by Against Me!

Be Aggressive by Faith No More

Freight Train by Sister Double Happiness

Personality Crisis - New York Dolls

Hamburger Lady by Throbbing Gristle

Sky of Bones - Alice Donut

Copacabana by Barry Manilow

Church of the Poison Mind by Culture Club

Welcome to the Pleasuredome by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

And we'll end back with FGTH. I have a soft spot in my heart for the (other) lads from Liverpool. They captured lightning in a bottle and became a cultural phenomenon in the mid 80's, then, poof, within 3 years they were gone. Rumors were that Holly Johnson wanted the band to move toward a more dance-pop direction, while the rest of the band wanted to move into Duran Duran territory. Rolling Stone scorched the band's second, and last, album in this way "Like most of the era's one-hit wonders, the group did make a second album, though God only knows why anyone would want to hear it."

From Phoebe Bridgers to Lil Nas X, I can't think of any current artists that changed the culture, even if ever so briefly, as Frankie Goes to Hollywood did.

A quarter of a million t-shirts sold in a year in 1983. Half a million bootlegs in the same time frame. A mountain of shirts since.

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