2015 WAS A BANNER year for out-and-proud music. There’s been nothing like it since 1984. In that year, a band featuring a leather queen topped the charts with a dirty ditty about orgasms (Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax), a gender-bender had the biggest dance hit (Dead Or Alive’s You Spin Me Round Like A Record), and a trio of boys shouted about gay love and homophobic abuse and hit the top ten twice (Bronski Beat with Smalltown Boy and Why).
Adam Lambert live: channeling Freddie Mercury and George Michael.
Thirty years later and it’s happening all over again, with openly gay artists being not just accepted but warmly embraced by the mainstream. To see Troye Sivan, barely out of his teens, proudly declaring to DNA that his coming out was “the most important thing I’ve done in my life, publicly and personally” is era-defining. That his Wild EP went to #1 in 41 countries, got him the professional attention of the world’s biggest pop star (Taylor Swift) and accorded him a mention in Time magazine’s “Most Influential Teenagers” list only solidifies the positive impact he has made.