Bi-curious awards-show kisses and experimental girl-on-girl action in music vids are commonplace these days, which makes us admire those who seem to be the real deal so much more. From '70s New Wave sirens to today’s top popsters, behold: the most badass bi female musicians on our playlists.
11. KeSha
“I don’t love just men,” the Tik Tok and We R Who We R singer told Seventeen magazine in 2013. “I love people. It’s not about a gender. It’s just about the spirit that exudes from that other person you’re with.”
10. Lady Gaga
The flamboyant chanteuse informed a 2013 Q & A audience at the Berghain Club in Berlin: “It’s not a lie that I am bisexual and I like women, and anyone that wants to twist this into ‘She says she’s bisexual for marketing’, this is a fucking lie. This is who I am and who I have always been.”
9. Fergie
When the Advocate asked her in 2009 about all the recent headlines announcing her bisexuality, the Black Eyed Peas frontwoman laughed: “The funny thing is that I was very open and honest about that from the very beginning, and everyone was acting like it was some new trend. Go back four or five years, people, and you’ll see the same answer.”
8. Carrie Brownstein
The Sleater Kinney guitarist and Portlandia writer/actor was outed as bi by Spin magazine, who revealed that the 1997 song One More Hour was about her split from bandmate Corin Tucker. Since then she has complained that media outlets still frequently mislabel her as being gay.
7. Skin
The no-nonsense lead singer of Skunk Anansie has always been open about her sexuality, although she famously kicked off when rumors went round that she'd been describing herself as a “bald, black, bisexual Amazon”. She's engaged to environmental activist Christina Wyly, daughter of US billionaire Sam Wyly.
6. Amanda “Fucking” Palmer
Solo artist, political activist, ex-Dresden Doll who's married to graphic novelist Neil Gaiman... She penned the haunting Melody Dean about a female lover: “I don't like picking sides/ I don't like sticking/ My Sharona in a box.”
5. Peaches
“I, you, she together, come on, baby let's go…/ I don't have to make the choice/ I like girls and I like boys” the electro-pop legend sang in I, You, She. Much of Peaches's music challenges society's gender roles, often in rather raunchy and extreme ways.
4. Alison Goldfrapp
“I'm happy to swing both ways,” the Goldfrapp frontwoman told UK paper Metro in 2010, shortly after various media outlets had outed her as “lesbian” following the revelation she was dating a woman.
3. Debbie Harry
Back in 2011 when I was ed. of UK lesbian and bi mag g3, I asked the Blondie star if the bi rumors were true. “Perhaps, yeah,” she told me tantalizingly. “For me it’s more of an intellectual thing than a physical thing but I’m happy to accept that, I don’t have a problem with that.” Then in April 2014, discussing her past relationships with UK tabloid the Daily Mail – erk! – she admitted being attracted to more than one gender and that she often finds “women are more sensual”…
2. Miley Cyrus
Miley came out as bi to her mom at 14, and recently told Paper magazine that both her gender and sexuality are “fluid”. She's not exactly a stranger to shock tactics but these increasingly eloquent explanations of her identity suggests to us that she is after all not bluffing.
1. Ani DiFranco
Despite having always identified as bi, and her super-popular anthem In Or Out (“I want more than one membership/ To more than one club”), iconic feminist folk-rocker Ani lost a lot of lesbian fans when she married a man. Their loss.
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