Tag: songs that soundtracked the AIDS epidemic
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Songs That Soundtracked The AIDS Crisis: LaTour’s “People Are Still Having Sex”
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By 1991, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had spent over $7,000,000 on mass media public service announcements since launching their HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaign in 1987. However, despite these efforts, the AIDS crisis continued to escalate, with over 120,000 AIDS-related deaths reported since 1981. In this…
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Songs That Soundtracked The AIDS Crisis: City High’s “What Would You Do?”
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What would you do, if you knew that many of the songs that captivated older millennials and Gen Yers were rife with vitriolic judgment? The very bops that defined how we understood our relationship to the world, would now be “Cancel Culture” fodder, and rightfully so. In 2001, such a…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: Sylvester’s “Do You Wanna Funk”
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sylvester was more than the beloved literal queen of disco, he was a prophet, a visionary, and a savior. literally. sylvester believed that god was found on the dance floor and sylvester’s ability to transform a stage performance into a full-on religious experience, was proof that god herself said, “let…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: Spice Girls “Holler”
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“I want to make you holler, and make you scream my name” a song on the third studio album of The Spice Girls, opens up with a sonic reference to TLC’s “No Scrubs” and was released in the UK on October 23, 2000, three days before my 17th birthday. The…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: Weather Girls “It’s Raining Men”
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what would the world’s dance floor sound and feel like if it weren’t for gay anthems? how would we bond, survive plagues, discover liberation, and dance? how might we forget about our broken hearts, if we did not have a gay anthem, blasting in the background of our lives? “it’s…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: Patti LaBelle’s “You Are My Friend”
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every year, just as pride season is about to kick off, the interwebs argue, fight and debate about who is and who isn’t a queer icon. thankfully, many of these exhausting debates center non-black celebrities who have generally mastered performative allyship, for the sake of rainbow capitalism. frequenting gay clubs…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: Shirley Murdock’s “As We Lay”
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“It’s morning, and we slept the night away” that’s how we are introduced to the soft and powerful voice of Shirley Murdock, in the hit song “As We Lay.” Recorded in 1985, “As We Lay” was released on her debut studio album “Shirley Murdock” on February 18, 1986. On the…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: Boy George’s “Il Adore”
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in the early 1980s, boy george was one of the world’s most popular musical figures in the world. as lead singer and creative force of the british band culture club, boy george captured the world’s imagination with his flamboyant and provocative gender expression. but it was the group’s brand of…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: Gwen Guthrie’s “Can’t Love You Tonight”
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dubbed the queen of paradise garage, legendary 1980’s new york night club, gwen guthrie scored her biggest hit when she topped billboard’s r&b chart in september 1986 with the self-penned and produced “ain’t nothin’ goin’ on but the rent.” that same month, the surgeon general’s report on AIDS was released.…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: Jermaine Stewart’s “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off”
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in january 1986, the CDC reported more people were diagnosed with aids in 1985 than all of the earlier years combined. even as health experts were predicting that the number of diagnoses could double within the year, the US was still without a coordinated effort to address the AIDS pandemic.…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: TLC’s “Waterfalls”
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In 1995, Black people made up 49% of the AIDS-related deaths that year. This is insurmountable grief, personal loss and was an eradication of so many cultural memories, wiped away by the government’s lack of response to a virus. This was and is a form of genocide through anti-Black medicine’s…
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Songs That Soundtracked the AIDS Epidemic: Pet Shop Boys “Being Boring”
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by the late 1970s, homosexuality had been decriminalized in multiple states including iowa, nebraska and wyoming. with the hypervisibility of disco, which served as a trojan horse ushering queer culture into the mainstream, any and everything seemed possible for queer and trans people. if the 70s were the ball, and…