Jake Shears launches podcast with Self Esteem, Olly Alexander, Peaches and more

Queer The Music explores the LGBTQ+ anthems that have dominated dancefloors and helped shift politics, perception, and popular culture. In the first series of this visual podcast, the Scissor Sisters front-man talks to trailblazing queer artists and allies about the stories behind one game-changing record each week.

Beginning against the backdrop of LBGTQ+ History Month, Queer The Music launches today with two new episodes celebrating two very different artists’ songs of self-expression. Episode one hosts a conversation on the iconic "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" between Shears and the late Sylvester’s longtime collaborator Jeanie Tracy, plus his biographer Josh Gamson; breaking down barriers in race, sound and gender, the floor-filler paints a deeper picture of the disco heyday as it encounters the terror of AIDS.

Episode two, meanwhile, features Jake and Cabaret at The Kit Kat Club cast-mate Self Esteem in discussion on anti-patriarchy modern-classic "I Do This All The Time", also shining a spotlight on the still under-represented experiences of queer women in the mainstream.

"I am thrilled to be hosting Queer The Music which celebrates important LGBTQ+ artists and the anthems that have soundtracked queer lives,” Jake Shears comments. “I have always tried my best to be unashamedly myself and am grateful that myself and Scissor Sisters have often been credited as queer trailblazers. Well, there were a lot of people that did that before me and there will be a lot of people to do it after me. I am eager to shine a light on those artists who have fought countless prejudices, to hear their stories and to learn the finer details about how the songs were made.

I’ll be exploring the idea of queer music. Is it a label meant to box us in? Is it something you can willingly create? Does it even exist in the first place? What I do know is that people in the LGBTQ+ community have been making incredible popular music for decades. I’m excited to find out about how the process and reaction to it has changed: I think it’s important to begin to talk about what this lineage and legacy is, and start to figure out how, as LGBTQ+ artists, we fit into it together."