British singer/songwriter Matt Fishel was so tired of record companies asking him to tone down the gay element of his music that he set up his own label so that he wouldn’t have to compromise on content.
This song, taken from his award-winning first album Not Thinking Straight, won the Best Pop/Rock Video category at the 2013 RightOutTV Music & Video Awards.
Chicago singer-songwriter – and LGBTQI activist – Steve Grand self-funded his own bitter-sweet music video about gay unrequited love. It became an instant hit on social media and got him a lot of US TV coverage. He’s gone on to crowd-fund his first album via Kickstarter.
While ample views of Steve’s perfect chest may have added to the viewing figures of his video, this shouldn’t distract you from the fact that this is a solid well-crafted and well-performed song. Honestly, it is…
Austrian broadcaster ORF’s decision to send Thomas Neuwirth’s drag persona Conchita Wurst to Sweden as the country’s entrant in the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest created an outpouring of homophobia in social media, and serious attempts in both Belarus and Russia to have Austria’s performance blocked from broadcast on the night.
Conchita’s powerful performance of a rather cheesy ballad reminiscent of Bond themes sung by Shirley Bassey made the song a runaway winner, and catapulted its singer into a worldwide media whirlwind of interviews and appearances. Luckily, Conchita Wurst proved to be highly articulate and more than capable of handling the barrage of questions on everything from gay rights to Vladimir Putin, proving she was neither out of her depth nor arrogantly claiming to represent anyone but herself. Engaging and captivating a broad audience, she became a potent symbol of resistance against repression in countries such as Russia and of the growing confidence of the LGBTQI community in Western Europe.
Dennis Alexis Hellström (vocals) and Larry Forsberg (keys and knobs) are Swedish synthpop project Eurotix. If this song makes you suddenly nostalgic and want to play your Erasure CDs back to back, it’s no surprise; both these guys share a passion for eighties music, so their songs are heavily influenced by the synthpop/eurodisco sound of that era.
This catchy and breathlessly-optimistic 2013 song from LA-based Eli Lieb was a viral hit; but that’s the way this gay singer-songwriter built his fan base, using YouTube.
That Gay Music Blog 