Aural Fixation

Over the past six cycles of Aural Fixation, we have discussed many artists who have either eluded to their queerness without directly acknowledging it, or generated a vast queer fanbase without actually being qard qarrrying queers themselves. However sometimes there are artists that we deeply revere who just so happen to be out and proud, which makes our hearts burst because it means that we can f...

There's a lot to cover off when it comes to Tori Amos when it's just Tori Amos – but when your  guest star is a former TV producer, current radio DJ and the singular driving force behind the bid to save Sydney's nightlife scene, we somehow filled 90 minutes of your precious time!   Fear not, we've made it worth your while. Tyson Koh joins the Aural Fixation-ers to discuss the m...

Perfume Genius has long been synonymous with gay angst but in his fifth and most recent album Set My Heart On Fire IMMEDIATELY , he takes steps towards acceptance. The album's opener "Whole Life" speaks to a reckoning of self that seems to have taken half a lifetime and sets the stage for the personal examination of a gay man approaching middle age. Recorded and released just before...

Techno-instrument inventor, West End composer and globally-renowned baby soother Imogen Heap has come a long way since her groundbreaking 2005 release Speak for Yourself , but we reckon it remains her queerest piece of work and we're about to tell you why.   Tales of Ariana Grande's latent veganism, keeping TERFs out of Hogwarts and the most airtime Jason Derulo will ever get on Aural Fi...

"Forget being cool, I'm going to be honest," states a defiant Beyoncé in her 2013 documentary Life is But a Dream . "I'm going to be sad, I'm going to be passionate, I'm going to be vulnerable. And I'm going to sing from my heart." It was with this mindset that Bey embarked on her fourth solo album, 4 . Fresh from a pretty public separation from her fat...

Lesbian Jesus has been done arisen, and sign us up for her flock – this fortnight’s episode of Aural Fixation explores the 2018 debut album Expectations , by Hayley Kiyoko. Nickelodeon child star to empowered music video director, Hayley knows who is she and serves as a beacon for queer, but especially, female young fans. Does the material live up to our Expectations, and is Hayley more k.d. or Ka...

Antony and the Johnsons' I Am a Bird Now is a story told from within a chrysalis. Featuring the unmistakably haunting vocals of lead singer ANOHNI, the album speaks of a yearning to be grown, the confronting nature of evolution and the delicious freedom of eventual self-actualisation. While it’s fair to assume the subject matter was directly informed by the experiences of ANOHNI, a trans woma...

This episode we explore Bowie's succinctly titled The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars . We journey on through Bowie's legacy to queer audiences, his vast array of bangers, and how we turned death into an art form.  Facts are facts – David Bowie made life more bearable for othered people around the world. From the Seventies onwards, queer people could see parts o...

Q: Has cycle five been Aural Fixation's most diverse yet? A: Possibly maybe, mary! Over the past eight eps, we've beaten around the Kate Bush, dreamt of Tejano superstar Selena, salivated over Honey Dijon and gotten physical with Dua (to name a few!) We've welcomed incredible guests, gone profesh and moved in-studio (again, a huge shout out to the incredible guys at Forbes Street St...

What do sequels, ghosts, and Christmas all have in common? They're queer!   Join us (won't you?) for our second annual Christmas episode, where we take a trip down Yuletide Lane and dust off festive classiques by previous Aural Fixation subjects. It's mulled wine, it's mince pies, it's... listens.   Despite non-stop merriment, we're still asking the hard questions – i...

In March 2020, it's safe to say that the world was in search of a spark to pierce the dark. One such spark came in the form of Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia – a bombastic retro-journey that took pop and dance music cues from the past and thrust us towards a (hopefully) brighter tomorrow.  A few short months later came the lockdown project to end all lockdown projects – Club Future Nostalgi...

As one fifth of the most successful girl group of all time, Mel C spent her early twenties inseparably tied to her athletic alter ego. Her status as Sporty Spice was so entrenched in her public persona that when the Spice Girls took a hiatus in 1999, Mel C did what any trapped queer person would do; she cut her hair, dyed it blonde, changed her name and reached out to Madonna. Northern Star by Mel...

After a winning streak of iconique guests, Andy and Drew sit down this episode with nothing but a bottle of bubbles and one of the world's biggest pop acts... ever. If you've been to a wedding, experienced a road trip or watched a film starring Meryl Streep, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski, you've probably heard an ABBA song. If you've enjoyed a £2.50 triple gin and tonic...

Honey Dijon was born in Chicago and leapt headfirst into the club scene as a teenager. Mentored by house music legends Derrick Carter and Mark Farina, it wasn’t long before she established herself as a world-class club and remix DJ and producer. In 2017, Honey produced her debut album with an array of guests lending their vocals. Aptly named The Best of Both Worlds , the album takes its cues from...

In 2009, multi-talented queer power duo Wendy & Lisa confirmed that their former bandleader, brother-in-arms and boss, Prince, was definitely not gay, but rather a… fancy lesbian. What a relief.   Not that we’re scrambling for excuses to explore the Purple One for Aural Fixation. Purveyor of assless chaps, a deft hand with eyeliner and a spiritual connection with the fight to be one’s authenti...

In the pop pantheon of stars taken from us too soon, few tales are as tragic – or as gruesome – as the tale of Selena.   The lead singer in a family band created by her ambitious father, Selena spent most of her young life on the road playing in restaurants and state fairs. Despite being a first-language English speaker, most of Selena’s music was recorded and performed in Spanish, and Latin crowd...

Hey, so glad you could make it! This episode we talk Celebrity Skin , the 1998 crack-at-the-mainstream album by Courtney Love and her band, Hole. Firmly planted in the mystique and fallacy of Hollywood and California, Celebrity Skin serves as a worthy counterpart to the mystique and fallacy of Courtney Love. A hotbed of raw talent, yes… a problematic fave, no doubt, but more than anything else, Lo...

We’ve reached Cycle 5 of Aural Fixation, and what better way to celebrate than with a discussion on the woman that completes the quinfecta of Andy’s top bitches – the incomparable Miss Kate Bush. A child prodigy with a penchant for dancing, karate and pianos, Bush released her first album The Kick Inside aged 19 (with some songs written when she was just a young teenager). From there, Bush parlaye...

The term “iconic” is bandied about on this podcast far too often, but when it comes to describing Madonna’s Vogue , there’s really no better adjective. At the intersection of old Hollywood glamour and the New York ballroom scene, Vogue was responsible for introducing queer POCs and their art to the mainstream on its release in 1990. Accompanied by David Fincher’s chill-inducing black and white vid...

We started Aural Fixation's Cycle 4 by paying homage to Mother Robyn, with no idea of the extent we would truly be dancing on our own over the next few months. We found solace with queer giants like Queen, Janelle Monáe and Cher, and explored iconic queer tracks in a streak of mini episodes. We also recorded mostly 600km apart, with technical difficulties, corrupt memory cards and deleted voc...

If you’re a human being with ears under the age of 40, Queen have never not existed. For decades the iconic four-piece – fronted by the frontman to end all frontmen – pumped out hit after hit after hit. So much so that when Freddie Mercury passed away in 1991 from AIDS-related bronchopneumonia, he had left us with ten careers-worth of music despite only being 45.   Our gateway drug into the land o...

Iconic duos have been cruelly separated by Miss Rona the world over, but finally your most loved audio couple reunite. Against the suitably spectacular backdrop of Australia's Snowy Mountains region, Drew and Andy are joined by a very special guest, for a very special topic. ARIA-nominated, Golden Guitar Award-winning, chart-topping country singer Fanny Lumsden invites Aural Fixation to swap...

At the intersections of Black, female and queer excellence in 2020 sits a Baptist-raised sci-fi nerd who can act, dance, rap, write, and of course, sing. Not remotely intimidating to tackle in fifty-seven minutes at all, but Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer is worth it. From her first EP in 2007, Monáe has put her money where her mouth is. High concept and intricate imagery are complimented with top...

Years & Years bound to the top of the UK charts in 2015 with their fourth single "King",  the band's unapologetically queer frontman Olly Alexander sitting proudly at the helm. Their debut album Communion shortly followed, an 18-strong cavalcade that spawned a total of seven (!) singles and global recognition among straight and gay fans alike. As the band started to make tractio...

Now seems a better time than ever to crack the fire exit and escape Earth, so thank the gay gods for Gaga who's created a whole new planet where equality rules and kindness punks run free. Welcome to Chromatica . In our inaugural “First Fix”, we tackle Lady Gaga's sixth studio album upon its release to dish our initial thoughts and dissect our favourite bops. Where does Chromatica sit in...