I swear I’m going to get back to writing about horror, but please indulge me in another Pride-related post.
I’m not quite sure how I came up with the idea to do this list, but there are just so many good pop songs that are explicitly about being a queer woman, I wanted the ones that really spoke to me in a list. The Millennial part is really just due to the first song which I feel is an important historical marker in understanding how far gay pop has come since I was coming of age. This list is not a ranking – just chronological order of release (or when I first heard the song since some came out within weeks of one another). But I do think it is a succinct showcase of just how far we’ve come with how these themes are explored.
1) “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry (2008)
We all need to start somewhere. I know we had Melissa Etheridge, Indigo Girls, and even the original “I Kissed a Girl” by Jill Sobule before this. But whatever your feelings are regarding this song, it is a definitive moment for most if not all Millennial Lesbians (trademark pending on the that capitalization).
For me in particular, this song came out my junior year of college. There simply could not be better timing to an ode about “experimental games” and getting “so brave drink in hand” that one would simply lose their discretion.
My memory may be quite foggy regarding many Pride Parades of yesteryear, but I vividly remember this song playing at least 7-8 times during the parade itself that year. I stand behind the belief that nobody loves this song more than queer women laughing and singing along to the lyrics. And even though it is seen as problematic to some and lighthearted goofing around to others (much like the mixed emotions expressed in the song itself about the titular kiss!), as time goes on it just reads more and more like a queer woman just starting a journey to realizing something about herself.
In the song, she seems to be trying to chalk the kiss up to a silly experimental fluke while she was under the influence. It’s just her experimental game she is completely in control of after all…right?
She mentions hoping her boyfriend doesn’t mind, but we really don’t know what he thinks. At the end she seems to get lost in describing how magical and beautiful other woman are before snapping herself out of the spell by saying “ain’t no big deal it’s innocent.” We also have no idea what the other woman is feeling!
This song can be interpreted different ways, and despite it initially coming across as the musical version of a sweeps week lesbian kiss, this seems like something I needed to include on this list. I sincerely feel like it serves as a goal post that will show us just how far we’ve come in nearly twenty years. But we only need to go to 2015 to see a marked difference in trendy pop songs about dabbling in experimenting with women to see how far we’ve come.
2) “Cool for the Summer” by Demi Lovato (2015)
Oh Demi. At the time, some chalked this up to nothing more than another superficial ode to bicurious experimentation. But for me, the crucial difference between this and “I Kissed a Girl” is what we know about the narrator in each song.
Unlike the narrator of “I Kissed a Girl” who mentions having a boyfriend and seems to want to at least try to downplay the kiss, the narrator of “Cool for the Summer” is definitely game for what is happening. This song may ostensibly be about experimentation, but it is very clearly a song about a woman* playfully trying to seduce another woman. In fact, the narrator sounds like they have already gone through the self-realization that they are queer. It completely lacks the sense of ambivalence and shame that pops up in the previous entry and fills the void with playful, flirty banter that is fitting for trying to start a summer fling:
“Take me down into your paradise/Don’t be scared, ’cause I’m your body type”
“Tell me if I won, if I did, what’s my prize?/I just wanna play with you too/Even if they judge, fuck it, I’ll do the time/I just wanna have some fun with you”
Needless to say, I was not remotely surprised when Demi Lovato later came out as pansexual. And if you need any further proof the narrator is queer in this, look no further than casually dropping “die for each other” into the pact of things they are agreeing to with their perspective hook-up:
*I realize that Demi Lovato has since come out as nonbinary and uses they/she pronouns because it was so exhausting trying to explain their identity constantly to people, so I’m strictly analyzing the song lyrics themselves. I’m proud of them for acknowledging who they are and have a lot of respect for Lovato given all they crap they received for coming out.
Now before I go too much further, I know some of my fellow Millennial Lesbians must be absolutely foaming at the mouth that I haven’t mentioned a certain iconic duo at this point. And I’m here to say I see you, I acknowledge you, and I will explain myself.
It is time we talk about Tegan and Sara.
3) “Boyfriend” by Tegan and Sara (2016)
Yes I have been listening to Tegan and Sara and crying over various heartbreaks to Tegan and Sara long before Katy Perry spiked sales in cherry-flavored Chapstick. And yes since they are out queer artists, even their most ambiguous songs about love and heartbreak could reasonably be interpreted as lesbian songs. But “Boyfriend” is truly the first song of theirs I heard that is clearly and painfully about being a queer woman who is in some kind of messy situationship with another woman based on the lyrics. A theme that will definitely be touched on again throughout this list.
Honestly, this song could the response from the other woman in “I Kissed a Girl.” In my mind, Tegan and Sara are like the queer version of the most aggressively heterosexual woman on the planet aka Taylor Swift. They all excel at writing catchy songs with lyrics that are both incredibly relatable and somehow incredibly ambiguous at the same time in a way that allows you to latch on to a particular line and see yourself in a catchy funhouse mirror of pop. Not an easy choice to make when I love so many Tegan and Sara songs, but I had to go with this one.
4) “Pynk” by Janelle Monáe feat. Grimes (2018)
Although “Make Me Feel” is the bigger hit, this refreshingly trans-inclusive ode to the female form is delightfully explicit even when it’s playing coy. Janelle Monáe has defied simple labels every step of the way as an artist, so although this song just reflects one part of their world, it is delightful to be a part of it at all!
5) “What I Need” by Hayley Kiyoko feat. Kehlani(2018)
This list would not be complete without a song from the artist who has been referred to as “Lesbian Jesus” (seriously go ahead and Google it if you don’t believe me). It is an extremely fitting nickname given how much of a revelation it was when I first laid eyes on this music video. It was post-Pride Parade 2018. There may have been more than a few beers at that point. But I was speechless.
Truthfully, it was really hard to choose a single song from Kiyoko. She really captures the nuances of queen romance in her lyrics in a way that you can tell is genuinely authentic. But the fact that this is a feature with Kehlani and has such a viscerally relatable music video in terms of the tension and “will they/won’t they” gave it the edge over the less-grounded post-apocalyptic/Mad Max single take seduction of “Feelings.” Or attending a house party where all the other femmes dance up on you like at the clurb in “Curious.” With “What I Need”, I was clutching my pearls ready to curse the Powers That Be if Hayley Kiyoko and Kehlani did not kiss at the end of the music video.
But I’m going to cheat and talk about her again with the next entry so I’ll wrap up here.
6) “Cherry” by FLETCHER feat. Hayley Kiyoko (2021)
I know the last song is a duet, but it is more about a fight between the two about their level of commitment. But “Cherry” feels like a capital D duet with both singers coyly yet enthusiastically expressing their interest in…let’s just say getting to know each other better.
It would probably be more poetic to feature FLETCHER’s ultimate reclamation of “I Kissed a Girl” titled “girls girls girls”, but this song is so damn catchy I had to include it. Plus I love the double twist at the end of the music video that changes the meeting a bit.
7) “Not My Fault” by Renée Rapp with Megan Thee Stallion (2023)
I already talked about loving this song and the importance of Mean Girls to queer people in my last post, but I also had to include it here. This song starts with the soundbite of Lindsay Lohan yelling “You know what?! It’s not my fault you’re like in love with me or something!” before completely flipping the script and reclaiming Cady’s cheap homophobic dig into a celebration of Rapp being a hot lesbian.
This song is about as close as we will get to a canon version of Regina George as a lesbian, bragging about how your girl came with you but might leave with her if she so desires. A feature from Megan Thee Stallion is icing on the cake.
8) “LUNCH” by Billie Eilish (2024)
I had heard some rumblings about Eilish’s new album having some explicitly queer lyrics, but my jaw was on the ground when I listened to this song for the first time. I nearly had to post on social media calling in my straight allies and asking them to do better because why did no one tell me how gay this album and in particular this song is?!
The song is about…well I’ll let it speak for itself it is so delightfully obvious with its messaging. It’s confident, fun, and flirty. It is the even more self-confident version of “Cool for the Summer.” Eilish adds to the vibe with a music video where she basically just flirts with the camera over 3 minutes (even if her clothes always remind of this Tweet from years ago):
The whole album HIT ME HARD AND FAST has a lot of queer-coded lyrics and is one of the most addictive albums I’ve heard since Beyoncé’s Renaissance.
Now technically this next song came out about a month before “LUNCH” but I first heard it after that, so in this case I’m going in the order I first heard the song.
Here we go with the most inevitable artist to grace this list:
9) “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan (2024)
I’m not going to say anything about Chappell Roan’s meteoric rise to fame as a cisgender drag queen lesbian that hasn’t already been said by her devoted fanbase. I generally agree with sentiments I’ve seen that she could very well be the next Lady Gaga and it is incredible to see such an explicitly queer artist create such a chokehold on general audiences.
It was tough to choose a single song of hers for the playlist, and I was tempted to double down on Mean Girls references by going with “Naked in Manhattan” with its
“Mean Girls, we watch it every night/And we both have a crush on Regina George“
But let’s just give the people what they want and go with the definitive hit of the moment.
Similar to “Boyfriend” and “What I Need”, this song alludes to a secret love affair where one partner isn’t ready to come out or make things official. But while both of those songs embrace the confusion of the situationship, this serves a different function.
This is the kind of song that you can play even when you are absolutely heartbroken to pick yourself up, find some catharsis, and tell the other person they will eventually regret their decision. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But singalong bangers like this are the pickup we have all needed at one point. It is bittersweet and absolutely addictive.
This list started with cringe and it seems fitting for who I am as a human being to end it with cringe:
10) “Karma” by JoJo Siwa (2024)
Now I know it is hard to believe this is the last song on the list. How can that be when Siwa herself invented gay pop?
All teasing aside, I feel like people are going way too hard roasting Siwa. She is a baby gay in her prime. I shudder to think what I would have said and done at her age if I had the platform she has. It reminds me of something I read a while back that said all college-age people should be able to write one cringy Medium article and then have it wiped from existence and everyone’s memories.
Based on her recent interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Siwa is far more self-aware of the cringe she exudes than most people give her credit for. Her answer to every gaffe she’s made was basically, “this is the full context but yeah I would be making fun of me too if I saw that.”
Furthermore, it does feel groundbreaking to have a child star kind of known for her family-friendly/innocent demeanor coming out as a lesbian.
And most of all? I do actually kind of like this cheesy song. It feels like a lesbian version of “The Call” by the Backstreet Boys (a music video that still puzzles me to this very day), where the protagonist seems torn between some semblance of regret at their indiscretions while reveling in their badness a bit too much to garner much if any sympathy.
It is admittedly the least queer in terms of the lyrics themselves since she doesn’t specify a gender for the love interest she cheated on, but the video is ridiculously campy and gay and given how much of a moment she and the song are having I wanted to throw it in.
Also Rans/Discard Pile:
It was tough narrowing this down to 10 songs.
Cuts include the absolutely addictive and raunchy “Slumber Party” by Ashnikko featuring Princess Nokia and “Girlfriend” by Rebecca Black (yes THAT Rebecca Black is absolutely queer and has some great music. “Girlfriend” in particular would have tapped into another important theme for lesbians: boldly declaring you are getting back together with an ex-girlfriend because this time you just know it will be different. As Chappell Roan would say, good luck with that babe!
I know there are some key artists not on here like girl in red and G Flip (when my wife was confused during The L Word: Generation Q when the characters started excitedly talking about someone named “G Flip” I excitedly proclaimed “I know what a G Flip is!”). Truths be told I just haven’t listened to a lot of their music – my tastes are basic and catchy pop.
Another big miss is Lady Gaga, but I wanted to focus as much as possible on songs with prominent and pervasive lyrics alluding to a woman’s romantic relationships with other women even at the cost of including “Poker Face” or “Americano.” Same thing for Miley Cyrus – I adore her and she exudes big queer energy but I had to stick to what felt right.
In general, I truly feel like we are living in a Golden Age of lesbian pop music, which explains what could easily come across as recency bias on this list.
Feel free to sound off in the comments about what you would have swapped in, or if it was more offensive to include “I Kissed a Girl” or “Karma” on this list.
A Huffle of Horror 