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I was told not to release music because it was queer – now Chappell Roan and Reneé Rapp are helping shift the narrative
The artist said she received pushback when she tried to release a song about coming out
POP singer Isa Bruder released a queer song in 2020 and said she received pushback from her peers.
Now, artists like Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp, and Billie Eilish are paving the way for other queer artists to sing about what they want.
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Isa is a queer independent artist who performs around New York City.
She released her coming out single, Close to Her, in 2020.
With lyrics like, "All that I know for sure is I wanna be close to her" and "I didn't choose this, but I don't want to lose this," some of Isa's peers did not want the song released.
"It was my dream to become a pop star, and I was showing these people in the industry my song, and I was told not to release it because it was overtly queer," Isa told The U.S. Sun.
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"And they were like, 'It's going to alienate a lot of audiences. You don't want to alienate anybody because the song was about a girl, so it has she/her pronouns'."
"I was told by a couple of people in the industry that releasing a romantic song about a girl was not a good idea," she said.
"That was only four years ago and it's so incredible for me to see in that short period of time that the narrative has been able to shift."
Isa said she doesn't think the song alienated her listeners and it found the people it was supposed to.
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"If I write music that isn't true to me, then no one is going to relate to it," she said.
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"If I write music that is true to me, and I'm a queer person, then the music is going to be queer and then it's going to be authentic."
Isa said that she believes people who aren't queer would still appreciate her being authentic in her music.
'THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL'
However, she said that despite the initial pushback, the song received good feedback from those who listened to it.
"I did get messages from people saying, 'This is exactly how I feel. Thank you for putting this in a song,'" she said.
"And that is the dream to me - to make people feel seen."
"That's the most beautiful thing, I think, about music," Isa shared.
It was my dream to become a pop star, and I was showing these people in the industry my song, and I was told not to release it because it was overtly queer.
Isa Bruder
"The fact that I got messages from people saying, 'You made me feel seen' is everything.
"It only makes me want to make more queer pop, and grow even more."
She has a show on July 3 at Arlene's Grocery in New York at 7 pm, where she will be singing unreleased songs, as well as some covers.
Isa will be releasing new music in the fall as well.
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PAVING THE WAY
Like Isa mentioned, queer artists in 2024 are changing the narrative by releasing songs that are authentic to them.
Chappell Roan was an opener for Olivia Rodrigo on her Guts World Tour.
She has amassed over 5,000,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
According to BBC News, Chappell's "uproarious debut album," The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess, tells "the story of a closeted, small-town girl finding her way in the world."
She was raised "in the conservative city of Willard, Missouri, where she attended church three times a week and was taught that being gay was a sin."
After signing with Atlantic Records, the singer moved to Los Angeles, California, at age 17, which "opened her eyes."
Her most popular song is Good Luck, Babe!, which she told Pitchfork is about a "common situationship within queer relationships — where someone is struggling with coming to terms with themselves."
Isa recently sang a cover of Good Luck, Babe! at one of her shows.
"It’s a song about wishing well to someone who is avoidant of their true feelings," Chappell said of the track.
OPENING DOORS
Another artist that is paving the way for queer music is Reneé Rapp.
She released the song, Pretty Girls, in 2022, which is an ode to the "straight-presenting girls who only make out with her after a couple drinks."
Reneé came out as a lesbian when she hosted Saturday Night Live this year.
She identified as bisexual before that.
Billie Eilish also recently came out and released a queer song called Lunch on her album, Hit Me Hard and Soft.
"I could eat that girl for lunch / Yeah, she dances on my tongue /
Tastes like she might be the one and I could never get enough / I could buy her so much stuff / It's a craving, not a crush," the lyrics read.
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These female artists, and more, are paving the way for LGBTQ+ singers to openly talk about their feelings and sing about same-sex love.
"It's a narrative that has been shifting for years, but it's beautiful to see it happening in real-time," Isa said.
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