The soundtrack of the 1980s reflects the glamorous excess of the decade. Artists took bold sonic swings, inventing genres like New Wave with its fusion of punk, rock, pop, and reggae, along with a metric ton of synth. Thanks to the birth of MTV in 1981, the fashion, style, and larger-than-life personas of the people who made music were more visible than ever. These cultural shifts made space for queer musicians to take up more space in the mainstream. Gender fluidity was suddenly seen not only as “cool” but as a form of rebellion. Culture Club’s Boy George, Annie Lennox of Eurythmics, and Dead or Alive’s Pete Burns blurred the lines of sexuality and gender while challenging the yuppie preppiness that preceded the height of their fame.
To honor that history, we here at Them assembled a massive Queer 1980s Playlist (on both Spotify and Apple Music) encompassing everyone from top 40 pop legends to college radio darlings of the era. Together, these tracks prove that LGBTQ+ musicians were absolutely integral to the decade, reshaping the broader culture while also fueling the rebellious spirit of alternative music.
British groups like Pet Shop Boys, Visage, Bronski Beat, and Soft Cell were all part of the backbone of the hedonistic ’80s, pioneering the dramatic pairing of synthesizers with dance floor rhythms. But it was the androgynous Boy George and his band Culture Club that truly took those sounds to the pop mainstream. Their entry on our playlist — the dance/ reggae-pop hit “Miss Me Blind,” with its slick production and cocaine sheen — is exactly the kind of Walkman “cassingle” someone in Less Than Zero would listen to on repeat.
New Wave, the quintessential genre of the 1980s, wouldn’t have been possible without queer creativity. The roots of the movement can be traced to punk rock, but it was innovators like Athens, Georgia hopefuls The B-52’s who turned that countercultural ethos into a full-on party. Their irreverent anti-consumerist single “Legal Tender” off 1983’s Whammy deploys a quirky sound and cartoonish lyrics to critique the grotesque corporate greed of the decade. Not to mention the fact that their original guitarist, the late Ricky Wilson, might be one of the most influential gay guitar players in all of post punk
Though plenty of queer artists were visible during the ’80s, not all musicians felt comfortable or safe to come out publicly during that time. Rapper Queen Latifah officially came out as a lesbian at the 2021 BET awards, but she has been lauded as a queer icon for decades. Her entry in our playlist — the feminist hip-hop track “Ladies First” — is not just a female empowerment anthem but a challenge to gender stereotypes writ large, a rebellious statement in a genre that is still largely dominated by straight men.
For these tracks and more, please find our full 52-song Queer 1980s playlist below. — Juan Velasquez
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