Q U E E R I C S

So what's the deal?
I like songs with queer content, but I hate how hard it is to find them. Some people have put together their own collections, but they don't suit my taste--too adult contemporary, or full of dated disco songs about positivity and women crooning about how sad it is when gay boys get nailed to trees. So I thought I'd compile a list of all the queer alternative songs I have and do the world a favor. In a nutshell, Queerics is a website devoted to bands and artists who write their own queer lyrics. I am not interested in anything that was composed by a team of songwriters who thought it'd be cool if the manufactured pop act of the week got on the bicurious wagon. Queer cover songs have their own section on the Extras page.

Basically, it's LGBT music for rockin' out.

This song you include isn't about gay anal sex! It's about drugs/God/politics/pandas! Bitch!
I know. The thing is, with some of these songs that seem kind of ambiguous, all it would take is a few pronoun changes to move them firmly into Not Gay territory--and the lyricists decided to plant themselves in Gayville instead. Solidarity, guys!

No, really, I don't understand how this song here is gay.
Try harder.

Seriously, if you're really confused and genuinely interested in my reasoning, email me. If you just want to whip your giant musical cock out and be all "UM, 'MY SWEET PRINCE' IS ABOUT HEROIN. YOU KNOW THAT, RIGHT?" then dude, you need a hobby more than I do.

I can think of songs you missed. What are you looking for?
Queerics is pretty inclusive; for the past year I've kept the submission guidelines vague, because "alternative" is hard to define. I mean, I think Rufus Wainwright sounds like something your mom would listen to, but indie kids love him, so he's on the list. Scissor Sisters are poppy and radio-friendly, but for some reason, they've mostly caught on with an alternative crowd--so they're on the list. Do you get what I'm getting at? Basically, I want a list of songs that your average young, indie-leaning music listener would be interested in--one that isn't dominated by all the pop songs, mopey adult contemporary, and ancient disco that you see on other lists of queer songs. So, here's what I don't want:
- Divas, pop princesses, girl groups, and boy bands. There's nothing wrong with them; they've definitely got their place within gay culture. Their place is not Queerics.
- Joke songs. Call me humorless, but if you're going to write a song about how hilarious and stupid it is to take it up the ass, you had better be the kind of person who takes it up the ass, not some snotty little pop-punker drowning in his own white male privilege.
- Showtunes. Sorry, guys.
- Nonconsensual same-sex encounters. There are factors in prison rape and child molestation that are unrelated to "hey, that guy's pretty and I like him," so they just don't seem to fit in here. Those are actually the only kind of nonconsensual queer subjects I ever see in songs; if you're sitting on a track about girl-on-girl date rape, I'd love to hear about it, but it probably won't go on the site.
- In my experience, the Queerics submissions that fall furthest from the mark are usually the ones where people search for any gay song and send it to me, regardless of whether they've heard it or even like it. A semi-queer song you love is always better than a super-gay track you don't care about.

Honestly, though, if you've got something in mind and you're not sure if it's appropriate, send it anyway! You're a hip young thing and you like it, so there must be something to it, right? And of course, I'm a total nerd for queer music, so I'd love to hear from you even if it's not Queerics material.

Okay, so I've got this totally awesome alternative song for you. How should I send it?
Yaaay! Send an email (with "Queerics" in the subject line, please) to

and include the following:

Your name or however you want to be credited for your wonderful contributions
The address of your website or blog (but not your myspace, unless you're a kid in a band submitting your own song and you have nowhere else to direct me) so I can link to you
The title of the song and the artist, obviously
A link to the lyrics. I could find them on my own easily enough, but a lot of transcriptions are cracky and I want to make sure I get the right words. If the artist is really indie and you can't find them anywhere on the internet, then just type them into the email to the best of your ability.
Why you think the song's totally fruity if it's not immediately obvious. You might have to identify a name in the song for me (like Chad in "The Chad Who Loved Me"), explain the event it's referring to (like "Nobody Loved You"), or hook me up with a quote from the artist talking about their intent with the song. I insist on direct quotes instead of "Ted once said it was about his lesbian girlfriend!" Fandoms have a habit of repeating things they see in Livejournal comments and Amazon.com reviews, and it's more interesting and verifiable if you can trace it to the source article. (I know I do the "but he SAID so!" thing, too, but I swear to god I've actually seen these articles. I'm just too lazy to find them. And I fail at life. But it's kind of cool what you get to do when you're the one who runs the site.)
And keep in mind that I do this for fun, so you really don't have to worry about bothering me, or making more work for me, or anything like that. This is my hobby! I talk about music! I'm delighted to talk to other people who like to talk about music! I promise to be nice to you, and even if your suggestions don't quite work for the site, I'm interested in hearing about them anyway.

Do the songs I submit have to be in English?
Not at all! But I'd appreciate it if you could give me a translation in addition to the original lyrics, or at least a pretty clear idea of what the song's about.

I can't think of any songs for you, but I love the site and I want to help make it huge and ultra-fab. How can I?
Tell your friends, sugar! If more queer music nerds see the site, more music collections will be raided for queer songs, and the longer the list will get. Plus, I totally suck at promoting things by myself.