Lil Nas X, Luminous Kid, Phoebe Bridgers: 7 Best New Songs by Queer Artists

Plus, a collaboration between BROCKHAMPTON and Detroit rapper Danny Brown.
Image may contain Human Person Jae Deen Crowd and Hair
Lil Nas X

 

Openly LGBTQ+ artists are releasing tons of great music, now more than ever. To help you with this extremely good problem to have, them. is selecting the best songs released by queer musicians on every New Music Friday. This week, we’re highlighting tracks by Lil Nas X, Luminous Kid and Phoebe Bridgers, BROCKHAMPTON, Tyler Holmes and GESS, Pleasure Systems, Man on Man, and Rosie Tucker. Check them out below and see earlier music roundups here.


Lil Nas X: “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

As Lil Nas X treks toward the release of his forthcoming debut album, slated for sometime this year, he’s finally dropped the highly anticipated single “Montero (Call Me By Your Name,” alongside a truly wild, dragged-up music video. In the clip, directed by Nas and Tanu Muino, he introduces fans to a mystical land called “Montero” (after his birth name, Montero Lamar Hill) where no one gets “banished” for who they are. This utopia is the backdrop for Nas’ most seductive song yet, as he tries to woo a lover who wants to “live in the dark,” perhaps code for keeping his sexuality discrete. 

Over rollicking Spanish guitar fused with hip-hop production, Nas bolsters a sense of mythos by referencing the Christian creation story, beckoning to his lover that he is “here to sin” if “Eve ain’t in your garden.” While Nas has denied any association with his song to the Call Me By Your Name book or film, the shared themes of illicit love and yearning are undeniable. (Even author André Aciman can’t help but admit he’s a Lil Nas X fan.)

— Michelle Kim

Luminous Kid: “Mountain Crystals” [ft. Phoebe Bridgers]

Before he began releasing experimental indie pop as Luminous Kid last year, Olof Grind was known as a Swedish artist and photographer who has shot fashion editorials for i-D and Vogue, as well as album art for musicians like Phoebe Bridgers. During a road trip to the desert to get the ominous cover photo for Bridgers’ latest album Punisher, she and Grind formed a kinship from which their new collaborative single, “Mountain Crystals,” was born.

Taken off Grind’s debut album, at the end of a dream, out April 23 on The Satchi Six, the track sees Grind weaving a dreamlike, stream-of-consciousness tale of two lovers taking flight into the ecstasy and terror of falling for one another. Buoyed by the kinetic strum of an acoustic guitar and fluttering clapping of hands, his dense verses feel as though they’re sung in one breath, with images of sparkling teeth and silky dresses swishing by before the brief inhale of his refrain. Towards the end, Bridgers’s abstract spoken word calls out from across the sea of sound, reigning in the ethereal journey back to its corporeal anchor: “Will you just hold me?”

— Emma Carey

BROCKHAMPTON: “Buzzcut” [ft. Danny Brown]

America’s favorite boy band” BROCKHAMPTON have returned with their first new song of the year, “Buzzcut,” featuring Detroit rap mainstay Danny Brown. It’s the lead single for their upcoming album, Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine, out April 9 via Question Everything/RCA. Following their last studio project, 2019’s Ginger, an eclectic collection of melancholy, melody-driven songs, the Los Angeles group are stepping into a new era with a boisterous rap track filled with bravado and urgency. Bandleader Kevin Abstract first lists off various hardships that he’s experienced — couch surfing, fighting off enemies, and suffering from an unnamed “virus” — before he sends an authoritative message: “Get the fuck out my ride!” Alongside a standout feature from Danny Brown, who takes a shot at incels by calling them “normies,” “Buzzcut” is a rowdy anthem for self-preservation.

— MK

Man on Man: “Stohner”

Roddy Bottum is a rock music legend. The NYC musician is a member of longtime metal experimentalists Faith No More, guitarist of queer alt-rock idols Imperial Teen, and was once famously tied up and gagged with a jawbreaker by Rose McGowan — just to name a few credits. His current project, Man on Man — a duo with his boyfriend, musician Joey Holman — will release their self-titled debut album via Polyvinyl on May 7. Their fourth single “Stohner,” out today, is a sludgy love hymn. On top of ‘90s-era emo guitar and piercing metallic synths, Bottum affectionately sings, “And it's nighttime and it feels so right/I like it when you drive/It feels so right with you by my side.” With his sentimental inner monologue, the six-minute torch song walks a fine line between lament and infatuation.

— Juan Velasquez

Pleasure Systems: “Blur”

Philadelphia-based DIY musician Clarke Sondermann, known by his solo moniker Pleasure Systems, releases his new album Visiting the Well on Orchid Tapes today. The project is a vulnerable documentation of Sondermann’s grief following the passing of his partner in June 2019, and includes the reluctantly resilient single, “Blur.” “This summer stretches to an empty, swollen blur/I spent the days making mosaics out of hurt,” Sondermann sings. He goes on to recall fragmented memories of love and loss that serve as a prism, refracting glimmers of Sondermann’s bygone relationship across a soundscape of looping guitar and spongy synth textures. The track’s repetitive rhythm creates a sense of mechanical “rewind” pacing, but Sondermann ultimately chooses to look forward. By basking in the light that he’s lost, he rediscovers it in the dawn of a new day.

— EC

Tyler Holmes: “Guts” [ft. Gess]

Today, experimental musician Tyler Holmes releases their new album Nightmare in Paradise on Ratskin Records, a project that they have called their “adult contemporary” album because of how “soft” it sounds compared to their previous work, typically filled with noise textures and erratic rhythms. Despite the sullen nature of the work, Holmes explores difficult themes of recovering from an unnamed “traumatic event,” as they explain in a press statement. On the standout track “Guts,” a collaboration with the queer alt-R&B artist Gess, Holmes takes a simple saying like, “Girl, you got guts,” and morphes it into increasingly macabre thoughts. “Guts/Hunger and long for your guts,” they sing. As their voice shifts from a tone of defeat to anger throughout the song, Holmes tracks a complex emotional journey of recovering from violence.

— MK

Rosie Tucker: “Habanero”

Los Angeles based singer-songwriter Rosie Tucker is plotting their third album, Sucker Supreme, their first for Epitaph Records, which drops April 30. The project’s lead single “Habanero,” released today, is a witty and bittersweet examination of longing and growth. While the first few verses speak to the uncomfortable but exciting aspects of puppy love, Tucker ends the song on a more poignant note of transformation and mortality. Through bouncy and oscillating melodies, they ruminate about trapping tadpoles as a child. “I can’t believe I’ll die/Before becoming a frog,” they wryly sing, presenting a sad realization that we don’t always evolve to an idealized higher self. Tucker’s carefully crafted lyricism, combined with melancholy acoustic guitars and sparkly electric guitar riffs, makes “Habanero” pop-rock perfection.

— JV

Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for them.'s weekly newsletter here.