It’s the most wonderful time of the year, Vancouver pride weekend is here! There are plenty of activities to do this weekend, but sometimes you just want to chill out and listen to some tunes. Although we may seem like a bunch of stuffy journalism nerds, we like to think we have pretty okay music tastes.
To celebrate the weekend, we put our collective noggins together to make a playlist full of LGBTQIA2S+ artists. We thought we would supply you with everlasting tunes — well, actually only like 86 of minutes of tunes — that you can listen to while you celebrate the weekend.
There was a method to our madness, we picked songs by queer artists from across the world and we picked songs that we thought reflected the queer experience.
Here are some of the songs we picked and why we picked them:
“Cherry” - Rina Sawayama
“Cherry” is like the “I Kissed a Girl” that I wanted to be listening to in high school. I think it really captures the sentiment of ‘Society has taught me that having feelings for another woman is wrong, why am I feeling the way I am feeling?’ really well. The lyric that really hits home for me is “Holding onto feelings/I’m not used to feeling/Cause, oh, they make me feel alive.” - Thomas O’Donnell
“The Magic Position” - Patrick Wolf
There are few things as empowering-yet-terrifying for a closeted 15 year old as seeing someone like Wolf completely own his queer identity, without apologies or explanations. The song is a carousel of colour and joy. - Rolando Hinojosa
“Amour” - Rae Spoon
Rae is a non-binary artist from Calgary — they were even our Pride parade marshal a few years back! They’ve got lots of good songs, but I like “Armour” the best because it’s both a love song and about personal strength. - Tara Osler
“I Like Boys” - Todrick Hall
The whole album is upbeat and amazing and celebrates queer love and feminine men. - Asande Gumbe
“They/Them/Their” - Worriers
Who doesn't like hard hitting drums and guitar solos? These lyrics really resonate with me, especially “So many questions get asked/So many times when I don’t have the energy I’d like to correct and react” and “We are fighting between a rock and why bother.” The song shows how tiring it can be to have to explain yourself and your gender to other people. - Thomas O’Donnell
“Sleepover” - Hayley Kiyoko
Is it basic to suggest Hayley Kiyoko’s Expectations album? All-day dance party. - Sarah Zhao
You can listen to our playlist here and hey, while you’re there, why not follow our Spotify account?