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There\u2019s an evolutionary advantage to categorization and compartmentalization. Sabre-tooth tiger? Bad. Ripe fruit? Good. At this point in my life, however, I\u2019ve concluded that binaries, like good and bad, boy and girl, gay and straight, are actually spectra, or, abandoning linearity altogether, conceptual galaxies. Even so, I take delight when authors work to expand on the rainbow of queerness, and Barry Walter\u2019s Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000<\/a><\/i> (Viking; May 2026) is one such expansive work.<\/p>\nThe preface sets my expectations beautifully, with sentiments that both make me laugh with wisdom\u2014\u201cStraight white people tend to think everything is about them\u201d\u2014and align with my understanding of the word: \u201cThe closet and disclosure aren\u2019t completely binary.\u201d And after a nostalgic revisit to The Partridge Family<\/i> (I remember watching The Brady Bunch<\/i> and The Partridge Family<\/i> back to back as a kid, delighted by technicolor families so unlike my own, and I suspected, had my father allowed it, that my televisual world would have truly birthed new ideas if I could have watched Love, American Style<\/i> after The Partridge Family<\/i>), Barry Walters sets premise for the sixty chapters of his book. \u201cStraight critics have been telling us how to hear our music for ages, so I\u2019m simply offering a queer alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each of those chapters focuses on an artist or group of artists, allowing the reader to jump around among favorites, as I did, but also to consider the more surprising inclusions, such as Judas Priest, Nirvana, and Hole. The chapters are arranged chronologically, beginning with The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed and ending with RuPaul, which includes a grateful revisit to one of my favorite vocalists, Sylvester.<\/p>\n
I started my exploration in the fourth chapter, the one dedicated to Motown, a choice that surprised me at first because of how firmly I had associated beautiful Motown ballads with heterosexuality. But Walters is here to disabuse me of those assumptions, and gratefully so.<\/p>\n
The chapter begins with an homage to Smokey Robinson that, in the first paragraph, mentions trans performer Jackie Shane and her two-year run on the Canadian charts with her cover of \u201cAny Other Way\u201d. But Walters pans back to Robinson\u2019s Shop Around. Walters describes Motown\u2019s appeal thusly:<\/p>\n
\u201c[It] was particularly popular among LGBTQ people before, during, and after Stonewall. Common ground between show-tune gays and rock \u2019n\u2019 roll queers. Motown crossed Broadway\u2019s perky melodiousness with R&B\u2019s ingenuities of harmony and meter. The Miracles and what followed showed us how to thrive in the straight world while being true to ourselves.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
A few pages later, and I have my cell phone in hand, my music app open, and I am searching for titles that Walter includes when he arrives at his tribute to The Dynamic Superiors: \u201cTony Washington, the leader of this Washington D.C. quintet, was unquestionably gay.\u201d To then read the thoughts of one of the group\u2019s producers, Valerie Simpson, brought home how much the 1970s had wrought queer changes. Speaking about a moment in 1975, when I was nine and already, thanks to my father, a music lover, she said,<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first time I saw the group walking down the street, I didn\u2019t know what we had gotten ourselves into, because they all had on loud fur coats in pastel colors. I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t know what this is.\u2019 But whatever it is, I want to see it expressed. I think that\u2019s what brings out the best performances. When people can find themselves, they\u2019re singing their truths.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Walters uses his historical review of The Dynamic Superiors (and the unfortunate passing of Tony Washington in 1989 from AIDS), including the background to \u201cNobody\u2019s Gonna Change Me,\u201d a power tribute to Tony\u2019s authenticity, to bring us to what Walters describes as \u201cthe boldest LGBTQ anthem of the 1970s,\u201d \u201cI Was Born This Way,\u201d which later inspired Lady Gaga\u2019s \u201cBorn This Way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Happy to learn that the 1975 recording of \u201cI Was Born This Way,\u201d as performed by Charles Valentino, is available on YouTube (because I really wanted to hear Stevie Wonder playing those skippy triplets on the drums in the backing tracks). After Motown acquired the song from its original producer, Bunny Jones at Galilee Records, saying, \u201c\u2018We didn\u2019t purchase this record because it was socially controversial, but because it sold enormously in New York and is, we think, a hit record,\u2019\u201d they engaged Carl Bean to record it in 1977. I have heard the Bean version before, and learning this history inspired me to play both Valentino\u2019s and Bean\u2019s recording. A glorious start to any day.<\/p>\n
Each of the chapters is a jewel box of history and joy unto its own. Readers can engage with Walters as music fans, and can come away fascinated with his perspective on such a wide array of artists. Beyond that, however, is Walters\u2019 sweeping scope of queer history, viewed through his musical lens. As someone alive for nearly all of Mighty Real<\/i>\u2019s scope, I cherished the opportunity to not only reexamine my memories of the songs that I knew spoke directly to my experience as a baby gay boy (I felt my first adoration of television men like Bill Bixby when I was five and watching reruns of The Courtship of Eddie\u2019s Father). Songs I either purchased as 45s or, after college, on CDs, like Bowie\u2019s \u201cSpace Oddity,\u201d Elton John\u2019s \u201cDaniel\u201d (the name, incidentally, I chose for the protagonist of my first memoir\u2019s fictionalized (and wisely unpublished) 1996 predecessor, In So Many Words), Donna Summer\u2019s \u201cI Feel Love,\u201d Alicia Bridges\u2019 \u201cI Love The Nightlife,\u201d and Prince\u2019s \u201cControversy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mighty Real<\/i> is mighty glorious, a hug that combines nostalgia and empowerment one song at a time. I hope you have the chance to pick it up and sing through your memories (and make new ones) as I did.<\/p>\n
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Brian Watson\u2019s essays on queerness and Japan have been published in The Audacity\u2019s Emerging Writer<\/i> series and TriQuarterly,<\/i> among other places. An excerpt from Crying in a Foreign Language<\/em>, their memoir\u2019s manuscript, appeared in Stone Canoe<\/i> in the September 2025 issue. They were named a finalist in the 2025 Pacific Northwest Writer\u2019s Association\u2019s Unpublished Book contest, and in the 2024 Iron Horse Literary Review <\/i>long-form essay contest. They also won an honorable mention in the 2024 Writer\u2019s Digest <\/i>Annual Writing Competition. They share Out of Japan, their Substack newsletter, with more than 600 subscribers.<\/i> In 2011, their published translation of a Japanese short story, “Midnight Encounters,” by Tei\u2019ichi Hirai, was nominated for a Science Fiction and Translation Fantasy Award.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t <\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I take delight when authors work to expand on the rainbow of queerness, and Barry Walter\u2019s Mighty Real is one such expansive work.<\/p>\n![\"brian](\"https:\/\/www.hippocampusmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image1-3-500x500.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t Brian Watson<\/h3>Reviewer<\/span><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t