In the old days — and by old days, I mean the Dark Ages of 2017 — I spent hours sifting through objectively heterosexual song lyrics searching for subjectively Sapphic clues.
Take Taylor Swift’s song “Dress,” which opens with the line: “Our secret moments in your crowded room, they’ve got no idea about me and you.” Like, who has “secret moments” in “crowded rooms” besides gay people?
This was a good mental exercise, or just a horny exercise, but it came from a place of loneliness. I wanted mainstream pop music to be queer because I was queer, and I wanted desperately to relate to the music and artists I already loved.
For years, wherever there wasn’t explicit Sapphic desire, I inserted my own in an attempt to connect. It was a long road from “I Kissed a Girl” to “Silk Chiffon” and I walked every step of it — hell, I chronicled it in my new book, Girls Can Kiss Now. The whole time I was pining, much like Taylor Swift’s strangers in a crowded room, for pop culture to get gayer.
Fortunately, each passing year has felt like the most Sapphic yet, and 2022 in particular has been off to a deeply lesbian start. There are more queer characters on TV than ever before, with lesbians in the majority. Queer women have been nominated for Academy Awards in both top acting categories, and mainstream pop and rock music is growing increasingly, visibly queer, with women like Doja Cat, Adrianne Lenker, Phoebe Bridgers, Brandi Carlile, and Megan Thee Stallion leading the scene.
Gone are my days of searching for Sapphic water in a heterosexual desert; now, the landscape is so gay, there’s no need for it (although, admittedly, it’s still a little fun). These days, I’m listening to a wave of pop-punk and rock music that’s distinctly Sapphic, slurping down new releases from The Aces, girl in red, King Princess, Clairo, Julien Baker, St. Vincent, Muna, Phoebe Bridgers, and more. Finally, there isn’t just a sea of queer acts being elevated to the mainstream, but they’re also extremely, unapologetically gay.
Clearly, this is part of a larger shift toward — or thirst for — pop-punk and rock music. Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour album broke streaming records, and music’s biggest stars are ushering in an emo renaissance, like Machine Gun Kelly, Demi Lovato, and WILLOW, who’ve collaborated with the likes of Travis Barker and Avril Lavigne. For me, it feels refreshing and energizing to return to a genre I grew up obsessing over — one which thrives on longing and thus always had the potential to be way more Sapphic — and to finally see those undertones be realized and made accessible to a wider audience.
Pop and rock music isn’t necessarily “being queered,” because queer women have an extensive history in the genre. In the ’70s and ’80s, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts rose to fame along with the Indigo Girls. In the ’90s, musicians like Sleater Kinney, Bikini Kill, k.d. Lang, Melissa Etheridge, Ani DiFranco, and Tracy Chapman launched their careers, followed in the 2000s by Tegan and Sara, The Veronicas, Brandi Carlile, and Laura Jane Grace’s Against Me! Many of these musicians were slammed or outcast for being openly queer in their time, and some weren’t afforded the opportunity to be out and proud at all.
There is a glaring difference between these previous waves of queer rock music and the kind of in-plain-sight visibility that women-loving-women musicians enjoy today. In the 2020s, generic, pronoun-less lyrics are finally being swapped for loud odes to loving and kissing and pining over women; and wider audiences are revering these artists and lyrics, not shunning them. As a result of a much more accepting public, lyrics these days are just so, so lesbian, and so many of them are celebratory.
On her song “Did You Come?” girl in red sings, “Did you do the things you know I like? / Roll your tongue, make her cum twenty times?” The boldly horny lyric became a rallying cry for queer girls on TikTok. Muna and Phoebe Bridgers’ single “Silk Chiffon” feels like gay warmth on a summer day as Katie Gavin sings, “Silk chiffon / That’s how it feels, oh, when she’s on me.” On The Aces’ song “Kelly,” Cristal Ramirez sings, “Spent the night ’tween her thighs / caught a vibe and I got too zealous.”
As an avid pop and rock fan, and as an avid lesbian, it’s magical to witness such an influx of queerness in the genres I’ve always loved. I can finally put down my magnifying glass and sing along instead. But even more gratifying than this overt representation is the fact that it proves something queer people have known all along: there’s a market for this music.
Queer fans are a particularly ravenous base. No one rallies behind and obsesses over the pop culture they love more than we do. I spent two decades of my life repressing who I was and who I liked, and worrying about what pop culture I was consuming would out me. And maybe there was a sense of safety in listening to straight-identifying artists and sifting for queer subtext in their music; when I wasn’t loudly out and proud, the pining and the clue-hunting was all I had. I could listen to music and feel extremely gay without outing myself to anyone else.
But now that I’m the loudest, most obnoxious gay person in the world, when I stan, I’m out there in the streets (on Twitter) screaming “Step on me, girl in red!!” I have to make up for lost time, or lost thirst.
My own journey of self-acceptance took place as these acts started reaching unprecedented levels of success. When St. Vincent released her sixth studio album Daddy’s Home in May 2021, it charted at no. 1 on Billboard’s U.S. Independent Albums chart. Brandi Carlile, who won one Grammy last year, is nominated for five more this year. Clearly, investing in a queer rock artist is less of a perceived business “risk” these days; more people are visibly out, which means the music will resonate with more people.
Two decades ago, by contrast, record labels could more convincingly try to tell LGBTQ+ musicians that they wouldn’t generate enough album sales to be worth signing. This left many queer performers with no way to continue making and releasing music: if a label refused to promote them, they had no way to sustain a career.
The industry has changed in ways that are alternately challenging and exciting for musicians overall, but many queer performers are finding more opportunity in the aftermath of the major label system. Freed from the kind of zero-sum thinking that big labels were beholden to, independent upstarts have become very pro-queer and see the value (and the probability for success) in signing a slate of queer musicians. Take Secretly Group, a collection of four indie labels and a music publishing house that is now home to queer artists like Phoebe Bridgers, MUNA, Angel Olsen, and Claud.
Just as the major label era discouraged many queer musicians from even trying to make a name for themselves, the proliferation of LGBTQ+ friendly indie labels is opening doors for an even queerer future.
Today, artists who are loudly and proudly queer know that there are labels who are not just willing to elevate them, but also whose business model is to appeal to the queerest generation in history. With the concomitant rise of TikTok and social media, labels and publishers can actually visualize the demand for queer music; the market isn’t imaginary, but rather loud, visible, and horny for more.
Even as the Sapphic pop boom continues, I may never fully give up my hobby of searching for and decoding song lyrics for slivers of possible queerness that I can cling to. Like many queer fans, I love doing a good close reading of a Taylor Swift or a Harry Styles song. Because I am gay, I filter everything through a gay lens, and often interpret expressions of desire as queer, especially coming from artists that I am already head over heels for.
But with so much plainly Sapphic music out there these days, I finally feel sated, like I have relatable music to scream-sing in the shower. And not just music that I so desperately want to be gay, but that is gay.
Girls Can Kiss Now is available now from Atria.
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