I’m trying to imagine something gayer than G Flip belting out Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” while hammering the drums and, frankly, I’m coming up short.
The musician performed a gender-swapped rock cover of the iconic pop song for Australian radio station triple j’s “Like A Version” segment last week and it has since exploded on social media, exposing the nonbinary drummer to new listeners — and only reinforcing the fandom of diehards like yours truly. The recording will be made available on major streaming platforms January 19.
Shifting seamlessly from the mic stand to their drum set, and accompanied by live violinists, G Flip absolutely nails the bittersweet emotions of the track, their voice artfully bending through the oohs and whoas of the chorus. Notably, G Flip swaps the song’s lyrical reference to a “bad, bad boy” for a “bad, bad girl” with whom the narrator had a summer fling, capturing the resonance of the Swift song for many queer listeners.
I promise I’ll stop gushing in a moment, but I can't stress enough how good this version of “Cruel Summer” is; the synth-heavy Swift version certainly has its well-earned place in the pop music landscape, but the cover makes the song feel so full, raw, and lived-in that I’m personally finding it hard to go back to the original. It’s no surprise that the cover spread so swiftly — see what I did there? — after the radio performance, with overwhelming demand for it to be put on Spotify.
In a behind-the-scenes interview, G Flip called the cover a “masc lesbian version” of “Cruel Summer” and addressed the lyrical changes they made, saying, “I’m very gay, so there was no chance I was going to use he/him pronouns or sing about ‘bad, bad boys.’” Hilariously, in that same interview, G Flip said that Swift was probably “too busy” to ever notice the cover only for Swift herself to end up liking it on social media.
"I respect Taylor Swift as a songwriter, businesswoman, and person so much so it was a little daunting covering one of her songs,” G Flip wrote in their Instagram reveal of the song’s streaming release, adding that they are “beyond shocked and honored that Taylor liked it.”
The social media announcement showed just how many people had left comments asking G Flip to put the song on streaming — or as G Flip’s wife Chrishell Stause referred to them, “people with great taste.” We couldn’t agree more. I know I’ll be streaming this version of “Cruel Summer” all winter long.
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