2024 and the Lesbian Pop Renaissance

By Julie Cukier

“I could eat that girl for lunch, yeah she dances on my tongue, tastes like she might be the one,” Billie Eilish sings on the track ‘LUNCH’, from her 2024 album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT. After dealing with constant speculation about her sexuality for years, the artist released a song that very explicitly talks about lesbian oral sex, and promptly landed in Spotify’s “50 Top Global Tracks of 2024” playlist. Alongside Eilish, Chappell Roan casually alludes to lesbian sex with her “wand and [her] rabbit” (‘Red Wine Supernova’), and Girli makes innuendos as she sings about “sapphic celebration in your bedroom” (‘Matriarchy’). For years, pop music overwhelmingly focussed on male pleasure and heterosexual sex, and lyrics have often been filled with blatant misogyny, but the past decade saw a rise in the popularity of queer female artists, and 2024 seems to have really put the spotlight on them.

In the early 2000s, we got used to hearing songs by male artists, often featuring lyrics objectifying or slut-shaming women and glorifying sexual violence, with the likes of Eminem, Robin Thicke, and Jamie Foxx providing songs we would find in a “2000s bangers” playlist. For years, these artists seemed to dominate the field. They produced the songs that were played on nights out and that would bring everyone to the dancefloor, and, for many of us, would shape the beginning of our listening experience. Additionally, a lot of the popular party songs from those years that were written by women adhere to the male gaze, and rarely mention queer experiences. Even if the focus is shifted in, for example, Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed a Girl’, you might wonder if lines like: “you’re my experimental game”; “it’s not what good girls do”; “ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent”; and “I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it,” suggest a one-time drunk decision taken to please a straight, likely male audience.

But times change, and so has the music industry. In the past years, women artists have gained popularity, even when they haven’t sung about sex, and, most importantly, there is increasing attention paid to queer music written by women. Ten years after Katy Perry’s hit, Janelle Monáe released ‘Pynk’, featuring lyrics such as: “Pynk like the lips around your-,” re-formulating Aerosmith’s song ‘Pink’ from 1997 in such a way that empowers women in their sexuality rather than objectifying them. The same year, Hayley Kiyoko released her first album and King Princess became popular with her songs ‘1950’, ‘Talia’, and ‘Pussy is God’ – clear tributes to queer love and the LGBTQIA+ community.

It feels like, for the first time, the pop industry is making space for songs written by queer women, about queer experiences. 2024, especially, felt like a climactic year for music revolving around sapphic love. Openly queer artists like Clairo, Towa Bird, girl in red, or Pomme all released albums in 2024 and were strongly featured in music charts everywhere. Most importantly, they are not considered underground artists anymore; their music has become mainstream. It is played on the radio, and they headlined music festivals all throughout the year, with the crowds attending Chappell Roan’s sets even creating safety hazards on multiple occasions. In September, the All Things Go festival in Columbia did justice to its nickname “Gaychella” by featuring performances by MUNA, the Japanese House, Julien Baker, and Renée Rapp amongst others. At Coachella, one of the most popular music festivals in the US, Rapp also brought out the cast of the lesbian drama The L Word, and many of the previously mentioned artists’ sets featured covers of each other’s songs. Australian pop singer Peach PRC called 2024 a “lesbian pop renaissance”, suggesting that the changes we are witnessing in pop culture right now are both moving and important.

Queer musicians are singing about lesbian sex, comedy movies like Bottoms or Drive-Away Dolls feature lesbian storylines and shows like I Kissed a Girl present queer love and attraction in a reality TV setting, which has until now been gripped by patriarchal and heteronormative ideas of pleasure, romance, and women. The pop industry is shifting its attention and becoming more inclusive, and while there is still a lot to be done it feels like queer women are finally getting the representation we needed growing up. As Amy Spalder, who participated in I Kissed A Girl said: “There’s a tidal wave coming and hit me with it, baby…I’m ready for this sapphic wave.”