The 50 greatest gay songs of all time (2023)

It starts off slowly, shrouded in fear; then the beat kicks in, the song builds in confidence, and by the end, now backed by a string section, it’s a full-bore disco anthem of self-assurance. On its beautiful face, Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ is about a woman getting over the guy who done her wrong; but in 1978, as gay liberation was gathering steam in heated nightclubs around the world, it also played like a declaration of hard-won pride (‘I used to cry / But now I hold my head up high’) and independence from the hetero norm (‘I’m not that chained-up little person still in love with you’). In the 1980s, when AIDS wiped out tens of thousands of those who danced to it, the song took on new layers of resonance. Today, ‘I Will Survive’ carries all of that baggage, and lifts it up along with the spirits of anyone who hears its message. Did you think we’d crumble? Did you think we’d lay down and die? Think again. We’re going to dance.

Six years after scoring a No. 1 hit called ‘Freedom’ with Wham!, George Michael crushed the charts with this tune of the same name. The redundancy was the point. Michael was destroying his past, writing over it, melting it away with acid house. In the video, the symbols of his ‘Faith’ fame burned and crumbled—his leather jacket, the guitar, the Wurlitzer. The pop star didn’t appear in the video himself, instead putting his words in the mouths of godly women from the golden age of supermodels—Campbell, Evangelista, Turlington, Crawford. The lip-synching proclaimed: Take this song, anyone, everyone, it is yours. (Though the less said about the Robbie Williams version, the better.) When Michael came out, spectacularly, in 1998, the pointed lyrics gained a whole new level of resonance.

Lil Nas X became a legend when he invaded the good ol’ boys’ country club with ‘Old Town Road’. He became an icon with ’Montero’, a supercharged hit dripping with raw sexuality. His unabashed individualism and embrace of hookup culture made him a trailblazer in the world of hip hop, but nobody would have paid attention if the song wasn’t an absolute bop. Nas says he’s only here to sin. Giving into the temptation to joinhim is extra easy when the beat isas sickas ‘Montero’.

‘Look around: Everywhere you turn is heartache.’ That’s not exactly a fluffy opening shot for a dance-pop song—and that’s the point. Recorded at the height of America's AIDS crisis and inspired by New York’s underground gay ball scene (famously documented in the 1991 film Paris Is Burning), Madonna’s deep-house–inflected 1990 smash commands you to leave the heavy stuff aside—if only for a few minutes—and find salvation on the dance floor. Nearly a quarter of a century later, this classic track from one of the most beloved gay icons of all time sounds no less imperative.

Though Seattle singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas firstcame to prominence making fragile, melancholy songs hidden behind a piano, he reinvented the program with this single from his 2014 opus, ‘Too Bright’.Blaring ’80s-pop synths, orchestral flourishes and lustrous backing vocals make for a triumphant party banger about turning the thingsother people see as ‘broken’ into your armor and strength, all achieved with a smirk—‘No family is safe /When I sashay.’

Singer Laura Jane Grace has always been a revolutionary—see songs like ‘Baby I’m an Anarchist’ — but nothing rebelled ashard against theheteropatriarchal terrain of the punk mainstream than her explorations of coming out as a trans woman on her pivotal album ‘Transgender Dysphoria Blues’. This song isn’t feel-good; it’s aglaring middle finger to those that keep you from presenting your authentic self to the world.Clapback and scream along: ‘I want to piss on the walls of your house.’

Yes, this song is about that kind of ‘coming out’. Chic’s Nile Rodgers was inspired to write this funky 1980 gem for Diana Ross after seeing multiple drag queens dressed as the iconic singer at a gay disco in New York. For her part, Ross was in the process of extracting herself from her long relationship with Motown when ‘I'm Coming Out’ arrived on the charts, giving the song additional significance for the music legend. Today, Ross still opens her shows with ‘I'm Coming Out’, and the song remains a quintessential anthem of liberation—gay or otherwise.

A decade after the Stonewall Riots of 1969, openlyLGBTQ+ musicians were still a rarity – at the time, Elton John identified as bi, but he was the exception rather than the rule. Still, flamboyant singer-songwriter Sylvester proved that queerness wasn’t incongruous with chart success, thanks to this incredibly infectious 1978 disco classic, one of the most beloved and thrilling songs of its era.

For generations who grew up as ‘friends of Dorothy’, yearning to escape into a realm of Technicolor urban fantasy, the tacit gay national anthem was Garland’s wistful ballad from 1939’s The Wizard of Oz (with a gorgeous melody by Harold Arlen and touching lyrics by social activist E.Y. ‘Yip’ Harburg). Garland’s later performances of the song on TV and in concert—older, battered by life, but still dreaming of a happier place—had even greater power. But even now that so many closet doors have opened, ‘Over the Rainbow’—and don’t you dare call it ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ lest someone threaten to revoke your gay card—still inspires pride and reverence. Listening to it feels like saluting the rainbow flag.

‘What religion or reason could drive a man to forsake his lover?’ sings Andy Bell on this stirring synth-pop classic — a hit for British duo Erasure in 1988, and a perfect, piquant response to the British government’s outrageously homophobic Section 28 legislation. Word is that at the time, Bell would introduce the song onstage saying, ‘When I was a little girl, I asked my mummy, ‘Can I be gay when I grow up?’ She replied, ‘Yes, if you show a little respect.’’

You’d never guess this emancipation anthem was written by Queen bassist John Deacon and not frontman Freddie Mercury, such is the relish with which Mercury belts it out: ‘God knows, I've got to break free!’ Brits didn’t bat an eye at the video — a parody ofCoronation Street, which has the entire band in drag, with Mercury as a horny housewife—but it was banned in the U.S. at the time. Par for the course.

By incorporating unapologetic LGBTQ themes into their sleek synth-pop hits, Bronski Beat were true pioneers – and this 1984 classicis their most transcendentmoment. Frontman Jimmy Somerville, in a sensitive falsetto, sings about a lad who flees hometown bullying — ‘Run away, turn away’ is the recurring refrain — against a steady, reassuringly numb background of rhythm and synthesiser. This song takes the pain of rejection and makes it danceable.

For any guy who’s ever wanted to be (or sleep with) a cowboy, cop or leather-clad biker, the Village People reign supreme as gay-anthem chart toppers. Songs like ‘Macho Man’, ‘Go West’ (covered brilliantly by the Pet Shop Boys), ‘Cruisin’’ and ‘In the Navy’ are full of double entendres, and 1978’s ‘Y.M.C.A.’— which became one of the most popular singles of the 1970s — is no different. In fact, the Young Men’s Christian Association was so appalled at the song's implications that it threatened to sue, until it noticed that membership had significantly increased in the wake of the tune’s success. Turns out any press is good press — eh, boys?

A global smash for dance diva Ultra Naté in 1997, ‘Free’ offers liberation not as a luxury but as an imperative: ‘You’ve got to live your life — do what you want to do,’ urges the singer. The melancholy guitar riff that kicks off the song gives way to an ecstatic, celebratory chorus that’s the musical embodiment of throwing your hands in the air. So don’t hold back!

With the massive success of this shimmering lead single from 2013’s superb ‘Heartthrob’ album, the Quin twins went from indie favesto bona fide pop queens. Along the way, the openly gay sistersstruck a major blow for LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream pop, which has steadily been improving ever since. The result? An absolute banger that also helped to move the dial forward.

‘You run my mind boy,’ Frank Ocean sings on this whistle-kissed, impossibly sweet R&B throwback from his ‘ChannelOrange’, the landmark album that served as Ocean's introduction to the mainstream pop/R&B/hip-hop world. Taken on its own, ‘Forrest Gump’ is simply lovely, but it's also just one piece of the complex puzzle that makes Ocean such a bracing, unpredictable and timeless artist.

When the Village People got all Horace Greeley in 1979, it was most likely a wink and a nod to the growing gay utopia of San Francisco. By the time the Pet Shop Boys covered ‘Go West’ in 1993, it was something altogether different. Coming at a moment after the most devastating years of the AIDS crisis, when the epidemic was better understood but its future was frustratingly unknowable, Neil Tennant’s melancholy reading of the song's hope-filled lyrics, with backing from a large, all-male choir, finds something unexpectedly moving in a cheesy artifact.

Cher’s glittering, enduring career has been one unexpected triumph after another. No one expected her to become an Oscar-winning actress in the 1980s – and no one expected her to scoreher biggest ever hit in the late 1990s with this absolutely transcendent club banger. Do you believe in life after love? Hell yes! – and we also believe in the power of Cher, whether her glorious foghorn of a voice is Auto-Tuned or not.

Gay icons Diana Ross, Donna Summer, Cher and Barbra Streisand all turned down Paul Jabara and Paul Shaffer’s campy composition before the Weather Girls snapped it up in 1982. It’s impossible to imagine any of those more famous singers diving into this ridiculous classic with the fearlessness and vocal pyrotechnics of former Sylvester backup singers Izora Armstead and Martha Wash, who take the song over the top in the best possible sense.Even Geri Halliwell’s chart-topping cover version couldn’t out-camp it.

In the summer of 2012, ‘Let's Have a Kiki’ was so ubiquitous in gay bars that it nearly crossed over into annoying. By the time Sarah Jessica Parker sang it on Glee, we were officially over it. But after a brief break, it’s time to accept this song for what it is: ` hilarious primer on queer underground culture (as with ‘Vogue’, the New York ball scene is the inspiration here), set to an irresistible techno beat. No wonder it got so big that your mom now thinks that MTA stands for ‘Motherfuckers Touching my Ass’.

We could’ve gone with a number of Gossip tracks; fiery frontwoman Beth Ditto has said the group’s later breakthrough hit ‘Standing in the Way of Control’ was penned as a reaction to President Bush’s endorsement during the 2004 election cycle of a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, after all. But there’s something about the casual confidence with which the self-described ‘fat, feminist lesbian from Arkansas’ introduces herself in this lo-fi come-on from the band’s 2000 debut: ‘When I’m right, I’ll say I’m right.’

The Australian pop princess may have scored her biggest dance-floor hit with ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’, but euphoric, gorgeous disco swoon ‘All the Lovers’ really captures the spirit of Pride. Minogue herself has said that the video is an homage to her gay audience; it features a human pyramid of pansexual smooching (in the style of naked-installation artist Spencer Tunick). For good measure, there’s also a galloping white horse, a dove, balloons and an inflatable elephant.

RuPaul, you are a goddess. The drag queen-slash-mogul debuted this sassy hit in 1992, winning over not only gay fans, but an audience as wide as that of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who cited the song as one of his favorites a year later. RuPaul is full of catchphrases (‘lip-synch for your life’, anyone?), but the ones in this song are among her most widely known andwidely quoted. Sashay, shantay! Shantay shantay shantay.

A connecting link between Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colors’ and Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ (both on this list), Aguilera’s 2002 power ballad — written and produced by 4 Non Blondes’ lesbian hitmaker Linda Perry — proffers affirmation to those who feel they don’t fit in. In the video, these include young people with body issues, a goth punk, a (biological) man putting on women’s clothes and two guys tongue-kissing in public. “I am beautiful no matter what they say,” Aguilera insists on behalf of all these surrogates. ‘Words can’t bring me down.’ But songs can lift you up, and this one is a true musicalshow of solidarity.

No one has ever campaigned for a gay fan base quite so openly as Lady Gaga, and her 2011 hit ‘Born This Way’ was her most obvious gift to our demographic. The song has its detractors — it’s basically a rewrite of Madonna's "Express Yourself," it’s got some unacceptablelyrics (‘Orient’? Really?), and the concept of being ‘born’ gay is kind of irrelevant and unsubtle. Still, it’s hard not to be moved by its message of self-acceptance, and very few songs sound quite as exciting blaring from a float on a Pride parade. An imperfect anthem, but an anthem nonetheless.

A gag in a 1997 episode of The Simpsons found a seemingly ‘manly’ steel mill turning into a flamboyant gay club when this 1990 track came over the loudspeaker — an indication of just how thoroughly gay this song is. ‘Gonna Make You Sweat’ is the second song on our list featuring the powerhouse vocals of Weather Girls singer Martha Wash, who never quite achieved mainstream fame (she was replaced in this track’s video by C+C Music Factory member Zelma Davis), but has been beloved by the gay community for decades. And quite right too.

The copper mullet, the lightning bolt across the face — in 1972, Bowie was at the peak of his androgynous alien phase, pushing Ziggy Stardust closer to the sun until he incinerated in a flash. A year before, in a Melody Maker interview, the glam rocker had declared himself gay. Though he later sloppily retracted the statement in a drug fog (he was living on a rumoured diet of coke, milk and peppers at the time), it remained a momentous occasion in pop music. As ‘Mannish Boy’ echoed through Mick Ronson’s dirty blues riff, the Jean Genie, or Aladdin Sane, or whatever Bowie’s avatar might have been at the moment, proved you could growl through tough and gnarly rock while sporting perfectly applied lip gloss.

Before forming her dance-DJ-production project MEN, JD Samson stepped up to the mike as a member of this electro-rock trio. ‘Viz’ (2004), about butch-lesbian visibility, offers an early glimpse of Samson’s sly humour and her ability to make radical queer politics into dance-floor fodder. BandmatesJohanna Fatemanand Kathleen Hanna – yes, Le Tigre legend Kathleen Hanna – join in on the final chorus for a joyous feminist sing-along.

Most gay dance anthems are packed with drama of both the lyrical and vocal variety. But in 1994, German singer Billie Ray Martin invaded clubland with this icy floor filler that’s so calm she almost seems detached. Don’t let that near-monotone fool you, though— Martin is a formidable vocalist, and when she finally cuts loose ‘Burning inside, burning inside, yeah!’), it’s a master class in the art of delayed gratification.

Okay, the gay experience is not all about empowerment and acceptance and rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes it’s about toxic narcissists who break your heart, and Soft Cell’s 1981 single — a cover of a semi-forgotten 1964 soul track by Gloria Jones — captures all the anger and hurt that unrequited love can bring. The confusion, too: ‘Don’t touch me, please / I cannot stand the way you tease’ quickly relents into a ‘Touch me, baby’ fadeout. And gay lead singer Marc Almond gave it a subtle but undeniable edge of queer insider knowledge.

Bad girls and gay boys have always been besties, and this 2011 track from Brazilian combo Cansei de Ser Sexy is a loving ode to that special relationship. Lead singer Lovefoxxx looks back on adolescent fantasies of ‘being busy with my job and my gay friends, laughing and drinking with my one-night stands’ in the ‘big city’. Anyone who's ever felt trapped in a small town (and eventually escaped) will definitely relate.

ABBA may bemost associatedwith ’70s soft rock, but this galloping disco anthem proved the Swedes could also turn up the tempo. Singer Agnetha Fältskog wails about the frustration of being lonely (and maybe horny) late at night while parked in front of the TV. It’s a familiar scenario to anyone who's ever spent a long night flipping through Grindr (or Scruff or Manhunt or whatever). And when Madonna wants to sample a song (as she did for her 2006 hit ‘Hung Up’, you know it’s found that club pop sweet spot.

All good things must come to an end, and Donna Summer’s 1978 disco smash is an invitation to go out with a bang. Written for the movieThank God It’s Fridayby gay disco composer Paul Jabara—who won an Oscar for it—the number begins in a sleepy, reflective space, then rouses itself and its listeners to get back in the swing of things. Not surprisingly, it is often played as the final tune of a long night, offering one last shot to party like there’s no tomorrow (and then, tomorrow, to party again).

Cyndi Lauper’s spunky 1983 debut album, ‘She’s So Unusual’, overflowed with coded queer messages (including a reference to Blueboy magazine and a Prince cover that didn’t change the gender pronouns), but the title track of her 1986 follow-up endeared her even more to LGBTQ+ listeners tired of being judged for being different. ‘I see your true colors / And that’s why I love you,’ Lauper sings in a voice of tenderness tinged with urgency. ‘So don’t be afraid to let them show / Your true colors are beautiful like a rainbow.’ In her long history of gay activism — perhaps no other straight pop star has been more actively engaged on that front — Lauper has always been willing to speak colourful truth to power.

Four years before Ellen declared, ‘Yep, I’m Gay’, on the cover of Time, Melissa Etheridge titled her 1993 album ‘Yes I Am’ after publicly coming out as a lesbian at an inaugural event for Bill Clinton. The rocker won a Grammy for this single, an appeal to a lover that’s steeped in tumult and possible secrecy. The terrific bridge — ‘I don’t care what they think, I don’t care what they say / What do they know about this love anyway’ — seemed almost tailor-made to inspire gay listeners to come out with confidence.

While ‘Dancing with A Stranger’ is the more club-ready song from the queer non-binary British icon, we all need a bit of time for reflection. Smith returns to the balladry that made them famous with this pensive, piano-driven song about the singer’s struggle to reconcile their identity with their religion. Anyone who’s ever struggled with that particular duality should feel wholly seen. And anyone who hasn’t will nonetheless be left in tears. That's the power of Sam Smith.

With this dry, wry, bass-driven paean to sexual outlaws from his 1972 album, ‘Transformer’, Reed cemented his street cred as the epitome of New York cool. The subjects of his seen-it-all narration are five colourful characters from the crowd that Andy Warhol had declared, by fiat, ‘superstars’: early trans icons Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis, plus a couple of very irregular Joes (Dallesandro and Campbell). The song became a top-20 hit (though the radio edit scrubbed out a reference to backroom blow jobs), and helped raise the voltage bar on what was considered shocking.

This muscular riot-grrrl anthem finds singer Kathleen Hanna straddling the line between platonic crush (‘I think I want to be her best friend’) and flat-out sapphism (‘In her kiss, I taste the revolution!’). If you want to see a room full of gay girls (and more than a few boys) lose their shit, play this 1993 classic on the jukebox.

Anyone looking for an excuse to wear sexy black lingerie in public found a perfect one in Richard O’Brien’s B-flick musical spoof and midnight-movie cult smash The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Tim Curry’s outrageous camp charisma as the antiheroic Dr. Frank-N-Furter — alien, mad scientist and deviant seducer in one gartered package — dragged cross-dressing out of the shadows and strutted it as a virtue. Shamelessness has never seemed so easy.

The super-talented rapper, who identifies as pansexual, doesn’t directly address sexuality in this second single from 2013's ‘Dirty Gold’ album. But the track’s themes of working away from a repressive religious upbringing and relying on inner strength to overcome obstacles (‘I realized I was a teacher, not just one of the heathens / I'm going to destroy the fallacies, start creating believers’), combined with a seductively uplifting Sia-sung hook, make for queer gold indeed.

Fuck buddies, open relationships, one-night-stands… gays don’t have the market on casual sexuality cornered, but we certainly have it figured out a little better than our straight brethren. Critically adored pop sensation Robyn proved she could hang with the gays in 2010 when she released this single spelling out the pros and cons of friends with benefits.

Cass Elliott was a big, warm woman with a big, warm voice, and she didn’t fit easily into the sleek, cool world of pop music; she was unlucky in love, and died of a heart attack at 32. But these are the kinds of things that can make a gay boy love you even more. Part good-time gal pal and part maternal figure, she had credibility in 1969 when—having just ended her stint with the Mamas and the Papas, which forever tagged her as Mama Cass—she sang Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil’s words of encouragement and independence: ‘Make your own kind of music / Even if nobody else sings along.’

‘You! I want to take you to a gay bar.‘ Like many of the tracks on this Detroit dance-rock outfit’s 2003 debut (‘Fire’), ‘Gay Bar’ is infectious nonsense. But its hand-clappy, surf-rock vibe is good fun, and a tongue-in-cheek video, featuring singer Dick Valentine cavorting homoerotically around the White House with a cadre of scantily clad Gaybraham Lincolns, helped make the song a hit at the…you know.

It's a rare (and brave) thing to be a gay hip-hop artist, but Le1f is unabashedly queer — and also incredibly talented. "Wut" (2012) was his coming-out single (pun intended?), featuring some insanely tongue-twisting verses and a lot of Le1f thigh in the music video. Is it the coming of a new banjee rap era? Perhaps. Though, as Le1f told Fader, "Gay rap…is not a genre. My goal is always to make songs that a gay dude or a straight dude can listen to and just think, This dude has swag." Mission accomplished.—Kate Wertheimer

“I give you something sweet each time you come inside my jungle book,” coos omnisexual chanteuse Sophie B. Hawkins in this sensual 1992 hit, an explosive ode to unfulfilled desire that’s become a Pride staple. MTV banned the supposedly saucy video, but it’s the song that sizzles, as this fully clothed but still sexy version attests. —Sophie Harris

Peaches may be the sexiest human alive, and the reason is made clear in this song, off 2003's Fatherfucker: "I don't have to make the choice / I like girls and I like boys." Never has sexuality been so fluid (and never have gender norms been so completely disregarded) as in the career of super queer, super talented Merrill Beth Nisker, who pushes the envelope and offends sensibilities at every turn. Also, she fights zombies with Iggy Pop— double swoon.—Kate Wertheimer

This bold, fabulous single, from Mika's 2007 Life in Cartoon Motion, is at heart about refusing to change who you are to find acceptance. It's the stuff gay anthems are made of, from the message to the sheer jam-packedness of the music — tap-dancing rhythms, iconic film dialogue, Elton-like piano riffs and campy vocals all work together to create a joyous pop hit. (It also doesn't hurt that Mika is such a dreamboat.)—Kate Wertheimer

CeCe Peniston's 1991 hit holds up just fine on its own, but it's been elevated to anthem status (and makes the cut here) thanks to its inclusion in the 1994 film classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Two decades later, it's impossible to hear this song without picturing Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce lip-synching along in their eye-popping drag getups.—Ethan LaCroix

The BBC tried to ban this thumping, boundary-pushing 1984 debut single by Britpop provocateurs Frankie Goes to Hollywood, for sexually suggestive (if confusing) lyrics like these: “Relax, don’t do it / When you want to suck to it / Relax, don’t do it / When you want to come.” The song’s outré original video was a Fellini-esque fantasy involving leathermen, drag queens, tiger wrestling and an obese emperor in a toga, all building to an even more over-the-top climax; the video was banned by the BBC, too (and MTV). But it didn’t matter: The song was a hit, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s time had come.—Adam Feldman

Taylor has long been an ally, but before Lover she seemed to be cheering from the sidelines. "You Need To Calm Down" finds Taylor front and center, calling out callous bigots and homopobes with lines like "'shade never made anybody less gay." The bubblebum beat serves as much as a flippant middle finger todirtbags as it does a call to the dancefloor for those who aren't. Bonus points for the video featuring an army of formerDrag Race contestants... including Taylor impersonator Jade Jolie.