Something strange is happening in queer music this week, and we mean that in the best possible way. The artists making the most interesting moves right now aren’t just releasing songs — they’re releasing entire aesthetics, worldviews, and lifestyle commitments with each track. Welcome to the era of the queer artist who doesn’t just want you to listen; they want you to get it.
Chris Housman is making country music for people who actually have feelings
Chris Housman’s debut album Dodge City arrived and immediately started doing something country radio has spent years pretending isn’t possible: being openly, unapologetically gay and also genuinely good at country music. The album’s latest single, “Cowman,” is a masterclass in genre fluency — pedal steel, boot-stomping rhythm, and a narrator who’s as comfortable in a honky-tonk as he is in his own skin.
What makes Housman interesting isn’t just that he’s queer. It’s that he writes like someone who grew up memorizing every George Strait record and also happened to fall in love with a man. The music doesn’t apologize for either of those things, and the confidence is the whole point. If country music has spent the last decade clutching its pearls about “authenticity,” Housman is the answer it didn’t know it was waiting for.
Listen: Chris Housman
August Ponthier is making crying sound like a flex
August Ponthier’s “I’m Crying, Are You?” is the kind of song that makes you want to call your best friend, confess every unsent feeling, and then dramatically walk through a city at 2 a.m. Ponthier, who came up through the singer-songwriter scene in Brooklyn, has a gift for making vulnerability sound like the most confident thing in the room. The track builds like a conversation you didn’t know you needed to have, and by the chorus you’re either crying or pretending very hard that you’re not.
The production is stripped down enough to let the lyrics breathe but lush enough to feel cinematic. Ponthier’s voice — which at various moments recalls Phoebe Bridgers, early Brandi Carlile, and a foghorn in the most complimentary sense — carries the whole thing with the kind of emotional precision that makes you want to immediately look up their tour dates.
Listen: August Ponthier
Baby Queen is here to be permanently obsessed and take you with her
Baby Queen’s Permanently Obsessed is the album for anyone who has ever loved something so much it became a personality trait. The South African-born, London-based artist makes pop music that feels both massive and intimate — like a stadium show staged inside your bedroom at 3 a.m. The record is unrepentantly dramatic, gloriously maximalist, and somehow still emotionally specific enough to feel like it was written about your particular brand of obsession.
Baby Queen, real name Arabella Latham, has been building toward this moment for a while. The debut album delivers on the promise of earlier EPs, but it also does something braver: it commits. There’s no hedging, no ironic distance, no “this is just a bop, don’t think about it.” Every track is fully, aggressively sincere in the way only queer pop can be — the kind of sincerity that dares you to call it cringe and then watches you cry in your car three songs later.
Listen: Baby Queen
What to listen to on repeat this week
- Chris Housman — “Cowman” (if you need a country song that actually gets you)
- August Ponthier — “I’m Crying, Are You?” (if you need to cry but make it a whole event)
- Baby Queen — Permanently Obsessed (if you need to feel unhinged in a productive way)
Queer music this week isn’t just good. It’s specific. These three artists aren’t trying to be everything to everyone — they’re making music for people who want to feel something precise and are brave enough to name it. That’s the whole genre now, and honestly, it’s about time.
Sources: Chris Housman on Spotify; August Ponthier on Spotify; Baby Queen on Spotify.
Related reading
- Hell’s Belles, Hyperlove & Escaping Texas: This Week in Queer Music
- Queer Music Is Having a Very Loud, Very Good Week
- Wild Honey, Glitter and Emotional Damage: This Week in Queer Music
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