Another week, another avalanche of queer excellence that hetero-pop would kill for. This week Troye Sivan dropped a whole album and immediately declared it — and its shower-scene single — “the gayest” thing he’s ever done (correct), Orville Peck is still out here proving that sobriety and Playgirl covers are not mutually exclusive, and Canadian country’s favorite quietly indestructible gay man clawed his way back to No. 1 after five years away. Plus: Norwegians, Spaniards, and one very determined newcomer. Headphones on.
Troye Sivan Delivers ‘She’s the Best’ and the Gayest Video of His Career (His Words)
On Friday Troye Sivan released She’s the Best, his fourth album and first since 2023’s Something to Give Each Other, and critics are already fighting over adjectives. The Guardian called him “a strange, singular pop star who deserves to be multiplatinum,” Vulture went as far as calling it his finest work, and Pitchfork gave it a 7.3, which in Pitchfork math is basically a marriage proposal. The album leans into sleeker, 1980s-tinted production — 12 tracks with titles like “Canada Dry,” “Cowboy,” “Le Boy” (already debuted live at Austin City Limits, naturally), and “Sex Star.” It is, apparently, a deconstruction of his party-boy persona. Everyone has a file on us, Troye. Welcome to the archive.
But the real event was Monday’s video for “FF” — short, as GCN diplomatically put it, for “F***ing Forever” — starring Sivan and actor Felix Mayr in a beachside romance that includes what headlines are politely calling a “steamy NSFW shower session.” Sivan himself posted: “Somehow have made the gayest music video of my career. Like this is GAY gay.” One X user complained that “his entire brand being the fact that he’s gay is so exhausting,” and Sivan’s response — an Instagram story reading “I am Gay!!!! Gay gay gay gay” — is honestly the most efficient PR strategy in modern music. The track, he says, is “me at my most longing, and about how lonely it is to love someone who isn’t here yet. It might sound like a vow, but it’s really a wish.” Which is the most devastating thing anyone’s said about Grindr since, well, ever.
Listen: Troye Sivan
Orville Peck: Sober, Shredding, and Now the First Out Gay Man on the Cover of Playgirl
While we’re on the subject of gay gay gay: Orville Peck. His fourth album Mule arrived September 18 via Warner Records — a 13-track “chronological account of the year I lost my way,” written partly in a California recovery center after a 2023 overdose, and featuring none other than Emmylou Harris, Noah Cyrus, and Allison Russell on its prologue. It’s a sobriety record that still finds time for a lyric about making out with an NFL player (“which Raiders,” the gays ask, “we have a spreadsheet”), and it debuted while Peck was making history as the first openly gay male cover star of Playgirl. Somewhere in hell, Hugh Hefner is confused.
The mask is still on, the horses are presumably still fed, and the LGBTQ Music Chart just welcomed Mule cut “Too Little, Too Late” as this week’s highest new entry from a cowboy. He also rode into the Hollywood Bowl last month with enough swagger that even first-time concert reviewers left the venue converted. Recovery arc: televised. The charts: notified.
Listen: Orville Peck
Tommy Atkins Is Back at No. 1, and Honey, It’s Been a While
Quietly the best comeback story of the week: Canadian country singer Tommy Atkins — the man who put “Kiss Me, Cowboy” on the map — has returned to the top of the LGBTQ Music Chart with “Wild Honey,” his first chart visit in five years (his last appearance was all the way back in Week 47 of 2021 with “It Took a Woman,” featuring Rissi Palmer). Five years is roughly two Justin Timberlake comebacks in gay years.
“Wild Honey” has now spent seven weeks on the chart and hit No. 1, there’s a stripped version for when you need to cry in the truck, and Atkins is re-recording his debut album Truth Be Told — new vocals, same heartbreak — for a 2026 re-release. The community voted, the honey flowed, and country’s queer ranks grow by another radio-ready single. Tractors: stuck behind. Cowboys: kissed.
Listen: Tommy Atkins
The Newcomers: Norway Gets Dark, Spain Gets Political, and Hudson Blake Gets the Crown
The LGBTQ Music Chart’s Week 41 also introduced the next batch of names to stan:
Liora — “Intertwine.” The Oslo-based lesbian dark-pop artist followed 2025’s “To Lie” and “Ruin You” with this week’s Highlight: intimate vocals over soft drum & bass, the sound of a Scandinavian winter that texts back. Emotional devastation, but make it danceable. Scandinavia remains undefeated at exporting melancholia with a beat.
Listen: Liora
Hudson Blake — “We Were Dancing.” Officially Newcomer of the Week, and honestly, the transatlantic pop-country blend shouldn’t work as well as it does — warm voice, honest storytelling, equally suited to a festival field or a quiet drive. Nashville by way of Europe, or possibly the other way around. We’re not asking; we’re streaming.
Listen: Hudson Blake
Andreas Kêr — “Unidos.” Spain’s Song of the Week pick is presented as “a digital art gallery” and describes himself as “a mutation between normativity and dissent,” which is the hardest sentence we’ve ever had to fact-check. Intimacy as political aesthetics, pop as discourse — Europe’s club kids are apparently reading Judith Butler again, and honestly? Good for them.
Listen: Andreas Kêr
Meanwhile, in the Rest of the Top 10…
Jeff Kristian’s “Come Dancing” holds at No. 2 like it pays rent there, Faroese heartthrob Reiley’s “Freak Show” climbs to No. 3, and the chart’s endless supply of goths (Ray Noir, “Gothstar,” alternative version, for when the original simply wasn’t goth enough) is doing what it does. Also in the top 15: David Archuleta, still out, still orbiting, with “Love For Free” at No. 14 in its seventh week. The church really lost a good one.
Until next week: stay gay. Gay gay gay gay.
