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“An essential book for this moment.” --Rob Sheffield The definitive history of LGBTQ music, from Stonewall to Madonna, and its impact on culture and American life From the underground dancefloors of the ’70s to the global pop charts of the ’90s, LGBTQ artists and audiences have shaped the sound, style, and spirit of popular music. In Drawing on his decades as a New York and San Francisco-based rock critic, Walters examines how LGBTQ musicians and their fans reshaped the mainstream, tracing the lineage from David Bowie’s dazzling reinventions to Grace Jones’s androgynous glamor, from Prince’s boundary-shattering sexuality to the radical honesty of the Indigo Girls. With exuberance, insight, and an encyclopedic knowledge of music history, Walters brings to life the songs that filled dance floors, bedrooms, and streets, celebrating a legacy that has paved the way for today’s unabashedly queer pop music. A joyous exploration of the visionary artists who shattered conventions,
About the author
Barry Walters has spent 40 years documenting the intersection of mainstream and LGBTQ culture. He began his career at The Village Voice — where he came out publicly in a 1986 Pet Shop Boys review — before becoming a fixture at Spin and Rolling Stone. In 1992, Walters’ work at the San Francisco Examiner made him the first critic to receive an award from The National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association. Throughout the Nineties, he was The Advocate’s music columnist before a decade’s worth of writing at Out. Along the way, he’s regularly appeared in Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Pitchfork, and other media mainstays. In 2020, his mini-documentary for Amazon Music, Love Me Like You Should: The Brave and Bold Sylvester, won a Clio Award.
