The Top 10 Pop Songs: Beefcake and Gay Icons

Yesterday I discovered that the most popular country-western songs involve rather gym-deficient white guys asking girls for dates, discussing their girlfriends' hotness, or crying in their beer after their girlfriends dump them, with gay people nowhere to be found except in a few homophobic tweets.

But maybe pop music is similar.  I haven't really been paying attention to it for a long time, but back in the day, "girl!  girl! girl!" reigned supreme, and no one ever acknowledged that gay people existed, not even Sir Elton John (I remember when rock was young: men and Suzie had so much fun).  It would only be fair to look up the top 10 pop songs on Billboard's list, andsee if they are just as bad as the country-western crooners.

1. Jonas Brothers, "Sucker":  I'm a sucker for you.  I'll follow you anywhere, even if it gets me in trouble. 

No "girls! girls! girls!"  Gender not specified.

The Jonas Brothers are proud to be gay icons.  In 2013 they appeared on the cover of Out magazine.

See: The Jonas Brothers: I Wanna Be Like You



2. Sam Smith with Normani, "Dancing with a Stranger." A duet, with boy and girl parts.  We broke up, so I'm dancing with a stranger.  Jealous?

Ok, that's rather heterosexist, but Sam Smith is gay, and Normani recorded "Love Lies" with Khalid for the gay teen drama Love, Simon













3. Ava Max, "Sweet but Psycho."  She's crazy, but boy, tell me you don't love it.

The music video stars Prasad Romijn as the pretty boy being poisoned, tied up, and chased with a butcher knife by the psycho girl.

Ava Max is gay-positive.  She tweets: "Thank you for having me at the iconic G-A-Y heaven in London.  I love you!"





4. Post Malone, "Wow."  A rap song.  Most of the lyrics are obscure, but the gist is that he's rich and famous: "I got a hunnid bands ($100) in my pocket, so when I come in the room, people say 'wow.'"  

Gee, I've had a hunnid bands in my pocket lots of times.  Nobody cares.

No romances in the song.

Post Malone is mentioned in online articles about rappers who support LGBT people, so I'm concluding that he's gay-friendly.

5. Ariana Grande, "Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored."  Self-explanatory.

The music video stars Charles Melton (top photo) and Ariel Yasmine as the couple Ariana is trying to break up, and ends with a girl-on-girl kiss, which according to an article in L'Officiel, left many gay fans "confused and disheartened," fetishizing lesbian sexuality without providing a meaningful narrative for the gay experience.

But Billboard has an article on 10 times she was a gay ally.


6. Lil Nas X with Billy Ray Cyrus, "Old Town Road"  This is Lil Nas's first published song, a country-western-rap hybrid, so what is it doing on a pop list?  The lyrics are obscure, but I think it's about how rich and famous he is: he's riding a horse onto old town road because he's tired of his life of "bull riding and boobies."

Lil Nas is rumored to be gay. Wow -- a gay black country-western singer.  How many more barriers are there to break?.

Billy Ray Cyrus is pro-gay.









7. Taylor Swift, "Me."  Boy, there are a lot of girls out there, but I'm the only me.

Taylor Swift is a gay icon.  According to the NewNowNext website, she was expected come out as gay or bi in April 2019, but instead she released "the gayest non-gay music video ever."  She does sing in male drag in pastel colors, and she and pansexual Brendan Urie do find a rainbow-colored skyscraper, but it's still about boy-girl trouble.

8. Ariana Grande, "7 Rings."  A parody of "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music, but instead of simple pleasures, she likes Breakfast at Tiffany's and bottles of bubbles/ Girls with tattoos who like getting in trouble.

No boys mentioned.  The music video shows her surrounded by girls.

9. Khalid, "Talk":  Let's talk about our relationship.  Gender not specified.  He states that he doesn't use pronouns in his songs because he wants them to take the point of view of the listener.  The music video shows him trying to talk to a girl, but then there's a boy there, then a whole group.



10. Halsey, "Without Me"  We broke up, and now you're regretting it, aren't you?  Gender not specified, but the music video shows her kissing a boy (Will Brandt) a lot.

Halsey is bisexual.

Results:  Wow, talk about diversity!  Male and female, black and white. The themes are similar to country-western: 7 relationship problems, 1 "things I like," and 2 about how rich and famous the singer is.

Heterosexism: Counting only the lyrics, only 5 of the 10 songs specify heterosexual romance.

Beefcake:  3 of the 5 male singers (counting Billy Ray Cyrus) have presentable physiques, but most of the female singers perform with hot guys.

Gay Content:  None in the songs, but 10 of the 11 singers are gay allies!

I don't think we're in Alabama anymore.

See also: The Top 10 Country Songs