Illustration by Ella Rinehard

Editors’ note: Opinion articles published by The Watchdog provide perspectives of the writer separate from general Watchdog reporting.

2024 was the year queer artists took the stage.

While scrolling through Tiktok, I watched a video on LGBT artists and their growth in popularity. There is no question about this growing traction in LGBT music. Articles like Billboard’s “The 20 Best Pride Albums of 2024” outline this trend.

The use of the word “queer” in this context is interesting, though. As more and more discussions are being had on LGBT music, more and more we are finding the use of “queer.”

Bringing queerness into our discussion of music is amazing, and it is great that our culture has come to be more accepting of queerness. However, it is important to know what “queer” really means before we get too far into the discussion of queer music.

Queerness is more than a sexual identity. It’s more than a term interchangeable with LGBT. Queerness, most importantly, is not a binary identity between heterosexuals and non-heterosexuals. “Queer” is an extremely broad and nuanced term used to describe non-normativity, deviance and existing against the white heteronormative patriarchy.

What is normativity and what is non-normativity?

Social norms are ways in which institutions such as the media, the government and our families inform our actions and perceptions and pressure us to perform.

Generally, people think about gender norms and racial norms such as “only women wear makeup” or “Asian people make great doctors.” While these are great examples of how norms make us think and act, social norms go even deeper than that.

Think about ordering a cup of coffee. First, you get in line. Oftentimes, there aren’t signs for a line and we form them ourselves. Typically, while you are waiting in line, you’ll try to figure out what you would like to save the time of the person taking your order. When you get up to the front of the line, you place your order and leave a tip.

You say, “Thanks.”

The barista says, “Have a great day.”

You say, “You, too!”

These are all examples of social norms. There was nothing there outlining or telling you how to act or think. You behaved a certain way because there is an understanding of how you are “supposed” to order a coffee.

Breaking these norms causes us to be non-normative. When the barista hands your drink to you and says to enjoy, have you ever said “You, too?” Congratulations, you’ve broken a social norm!

Queer theory studies these norms and the people who have chosen or been forced to live outside of them, not just non-heterosexuality.

While LGBT artists creating songs about their own lived experiences is a part of queerness, we must be sure that when we have discussions about queer music, we don’t only talk about sexual identity.

Understanding queerness as a discussion of non-normativity allows us to have wider conversations that aren’t centered around sexual identity. It also recognizes that queerness is not within a vacuum and that LGBT art and spaces can be normative as well.

We can then begin to talk about white privilege and how it continues to permeate through LGBT spaces, how our society sees people with disabilities and queer people as “failures,” and how gender-based violence greatly affects trans and gender non-conforming people.

Illustration by Ella Rinehard

Queerness in music 

Now that we have an understanding of what queerness is, we can apply that knowledge to our review of music. Let’s begin by using some concepts in queer theory in the way we listen to music.

1. Queer failure

Jack Halberstam argues that queer people should embrace failure in his book, “The Queer Art of Failure.” This expands upon the work of Lee Edelman and his book, “No Future.” Halberstam claims queer people are viewed as societal failures with no future because of their nonconformity with our social norms.

Queer people do not traditionally reproduce, so they do not provide more workers for our corporations to exploit. Queer people do not engage in traditional gender norms but subvert them. Queer people disregard social norms, whether purposefully or not, and become harder to control. Because of this uncontrollability, as Edelman argues, queer people are seen as failures.

However, Halberstam doesn’t say queer people should change to meet societal standards. He argues we should embrace failure to tackle the institutions that oppress us and ignore the normative future. Using the movie “Shrek” as an example, Halberstam shows how Shrek embraced being an ogre and became a “freedom fighter for the refugee fairy tale figures whom Lord Farquaad. . . has kicked from his land.”

Punk music is a clear example of embracing failure. “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill is a punk love song for a girl who refuses to conform to society and radiates revolution. While others see this rebel girl as a failure, Bikini Kill sees this girl as “the queen of my world.”

“Pedestrian at Best” by Courtney Barnett is a song all about failing. Failing in love, failing in emotion, failing in success– Barnett cannot get a break. But instead of viewing it as a bad thing, it becomes a refusal to conform to the music industry she sees as a joke.

Outside of punk music, SOPHIE writes how being seen as unimportant or a failure can be freeing in “Immaterial.” She writes,

“With no name and with no type of story
Where do I live?
Tell me, where do I exist?”

When our society sees us as failures, they see us as nothing. SOPHIE views this nothingness as freeing, saying, “I could be anything I want.”

Similarly, “Black Girl Memoir” by Doechii sees failure as freeing, but from the viewpoint of being Black and queer.  People of color are also seen as failures in the eyes of society which forms a coalitional stance with queer people. Saying, “I could be anything,” Doechii reminds herself that even though society has positioned her into failure, she should not see that as her worth.

2. Queer futurity

Queer futurity is a concept invented by José Esteban Muñoz in his book, “Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity.” In the book, Muñoz responds to the framework of queer failure. He argues the relationship between queerness and the future is not mutually exclusive, but that queerness isn’t complete without the future. He writes that “queerness is primarily about futurity and hope.”

Muñoz claims that we have not reached peak queerness, “but we can feel it as a warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality.” Muñoz means that queerness is the future we should hope for.

He writes, “If queerness is to have any value whatsoever, it must be viewed as being visible only in the horizon.” Muñoz uses the horizon as an allegory for the future. Therefore, we must create queer imaginations of the future so that we can create new frameworks to better our lives and institutions.

Notably, Muñoz writes, “The present is not enough. It is impoverished and toxic for queers.” The here and now limits and marginalizes queer people, people of color and people with disabilities. The white heteronormative patriarchy actively and unintentionally harms the lives of so many people by stripping them of their sovereignty, identity and ability.

Using the framework of cruising– the act of going around a space with the intention of finding someone to have sex with– Muñoz encourages us to look at the future with intent and imagination to envision ways we can change our world.

The Chicks envision a way to change our world in their song, “More Love.” The country trio, notable for their stance against the war on terror, continue their argument for peace.

“Just look out around us

People fightin’ their wars

They think they’ll be happy

When they’ve settled their scores

Let’s lay down our weapons

That pulled us apart

Be still for just a minute

Try to open our hearts”

In her song, “Whole New World/Pretend World,” SOPHIE sees visions of a new world in her lover’s eyes where they can be in love. The Chicks and SOPHIE use love as a motivator for imagining the future so they and others can have love.

Kim Petras argues for adjusting our temporal scope in her song, “Future Starts Now.” While queer people, and especially trans people, feel pressured by our world to conform, Petras asks us to imagine and transform it into something better.

“I know you can take the pressure
Turn it into something better
So take the pain and make it pleasure
(Don’t give up, the future starts now)” 

3. Queer grief

Sara Ahmed, renowned for her work in queer affect theory and queer phenomenology, writes about queer grief in her book, “The Cultural Politics of Emotion.” She writes, “One can let go of another as an outsider, but maintain one’s attachments, by keeping alive one’s impressions of the lost other.”

In the context of the HIV/AIDS crisis and the events of September 11, 2001, Ahmed argues that queer grief is personal, not shared among a collective, and refuses to let go. In particular, queer grief is a form of melancholia.

“Melancholia is pathological; the ego refuses to let go of the object, and preserves the object ‘inside itself,’” Ahmed writes.

Queer grief then keeps what is lost within the griever and continues to keep it alive. We are told to mourn and let go of those we’ve lost when we are grieving. Ahmed asks the question: if queer people were never seen in the eyes of society, should we mourn to forget and lose, or grieve to remember and keep?

“So I featuring a.g. cook” by Charli xcx and A.G. Cook grieves to remember the late, great SOPHIE. Throughout the song, we are given vignettes of SOPHIE, Charli and Cook that allow them to “think about all the good times.”

Similarly, “I Believe” by Caroline Polachek grieves to remember SOPHIE. Polachek holds onto the memory of SOPHIE and the belief that the two will meet again.

“I don’t know, but I believe

We’ll get another day together.” 

Japanese Breakfast keeps the thought of her mother alive through “In Heaven.” Michelle Zauner, the frontwoman of the band and an atheist, questions her mother’s belief in heaven and imagines her mother there to feel good about her loss.

“Oh, do you believe in heaven

Like you believed in me?

Oh, it could be such heaven

If you believed it was real.”

Illustration by Ella Rinehard

Queering music analysis

It is amazing and inspiring to see the rise of LGBT artists. Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp and Doechii are a selection from a myriad of great LGBT artists that have made way for the representation of LGBT people in media.

However, with this change in popularity, it is important to change our discussion of music. This includes queering our music analysis.

We must begin to look at the normalities of music review and rethink them. How are we reinforcing oppressive social norms within the music industry? Queer music would ask this question, and queer reviews expand upon them. 

While incredibly difficult in an industry that prioritizes marketability, it will be incredibly interesting to see what comes from this rise in queer music.