The Best Albums of 2019 (by LGBTQ+ Artists)

It's been one hell of a year for queer artists!

But which albums were the best of the best? Here's PRIDE's ranking of the 10 best albums by LBTQ+ singers and songwriters in 2019! 

10. "Clarity" - Kim Petras

Produced by a pseudonymed Dr. Luke, Kim Petras' debut album is simply pop perfection. The twelve songs (nine of which were pre-released singles) are giving the gays everything they want from Petras: bubbly synth-pop tracks about a broken heart turning "Icy," never letting a fling "Meet the Parents," and getting dicked down in "Do Me." 

It's clear that all the ingredients of a pop star ooze out of Petras' pores and she knows how to make a hit, but sometimes it feels a bit too pristine, like a barbie doll in mint condition that you can't take out of the package. Moving into 2020, we hope the next step in her career involves dumping Dr. Luke so we can dance to her music without that cloud of guilt hanging overheard.

9. "Sing To Me Instead" - Ben Platt

Dear Evan Hansen's Tony-award winning star dropped his debut album this year, a collection of sweeping pop ballads ("Bad Habit" and "Ease My Mind") and goofy love songs ("Share Your Address") that captured our hearts.

Platt came out as gay through his powerful music videos this year, sharing romantic moments with out actor Charlie Carver, but most importantly, he shared his soul with his fans. "Older" is an Adele-styled reflection on learning to live in the moment. After a lover leaves Platt to go and find himself, "Grow As We Go" tenderly laments on the heartbreak, a standout track and video from the album. And in gospel-tinged "Temporary Love," Platt promises his love that he's in the relationship for the long haul with some of his most impressive vocals. 

Sing To Me Instead is a strong debut from Platt, and we can't wait to see what's next.

8. "Flamboyant" - Dorian Electra

Dorian Electra's boundary-pushing debut album is just as bizarre and incredible as we dreamed it would be. The gender-fluid star's eclectic collection of futuristic pop smacks you in the face with absurd fun before you can even understand what you're listening to.

"Man to Man" starts with the lyric "You know I ain't straight/but I'ma say it straight to you" which immediately elicits a laugh, so it isn't until around the second chorus that you realize the song is an all-out brawl with toxic masculinity. Electra reclaims a certain homophobic phrase in "Adam & Steve," adds church organs and angelic vocals singing, "Say I'm an abomination but I'm god's creation/They all want to crush me say I am so disgusting/Secretly they love me just like him," and we have a certified rebellious headbanger.

Dorian Electra is high art for those queers living in 3008, not two thousand and late. Electra's eye-popping visual, colorful choreography, and clever wordplay converted us into stans faster than you can spell, "Flamboyant." And if you haven't been blessed enough to see Dorian live yet, you need to get your ass to one of their live shows ASAP.

7. "Cheap Queen" - King Princess

In just over a year from her debut, King Princess has already become something of a queer icon. The unabashed star smashed onto the pop scene with her viral, Harry Styles co-signed hit "1950," singing about girls in a bluesy, almost Winehouse-esqe manner that captured the attention of millions on streaming platforms. 

The title track of King Princess' debut album is an homage to the LGBTQ community. "We are all cheap queens. It’s a drag term for someone who is resourceful, who makes something out of nothing, who is a creator on a budget. That’s how I feel," she told Vulture.

With much of the rest of the record, King Princess dives headfirst into the ins and out of various heartbreak. "If You Think It's Love" laments the end of her relationship with Amandla Stenberg with an emotional vocoder moment, "Ain't Together" (described as a lesbian seance) watches as a relationship falls apart, while "Hit The Back" was dubbed simply as "the anthem for bottoms everywhere."

6. "Angel's Pulse" - Blood Orange

Blood Orange's latest mixtape is a quiet storm of leftover tracks from other production sessions, tied into a body of work through Dev Hynes piercing voice and vision.

"Berlin" is breezy and nostalgic while "Benzo" is a mellow track about finding your self-worth. Features from Tinashe, Justine Skye, Arca and more are littered throughout the mixtape, creating an air of both unpredictability and cohesion. The mishmash of jazz and hip hop and bedroom pop and garage tracks almost doesn't make sense together in one body of work, except that it just does.

And that's the beauty of Blood Orange.

5. "Sunshine Kitty" - Tove Lo

Tove Lo is the goddess of sexual freedom and with her latest album, the bisexual pop icon allows us to let ourselves go and feel. Whether it's queer heartbreak as in "Bad as the Boys," overwhelming jealousy in "Really don't like u" with Kylie Minogue, or unfiltered lust in "Jacques." Lo even just scored a Grammy nomination for the incredible video for "Glad He's Gone," a hilarious lament over a friend's no-good ex.  

"What I take pride in with my songs is that they're honest and vulnerable and about being free a lot of the times," she told PRIDE on the album. "Free to feel whatever you want and not editing yourself or editing for what would appeal to the masses. And I think maybe that's what connects because if you're a person who's growing up in a society where being gay hasn't been accepted and you've kind of had to make yourself into something you're not to be able to be part of that society... If my music is a place to feel free from all that, that's a really amazing thing. Just being open and honest and being yourself."

4. "Jamie" - Brittany Howard

Formally of the Grammy-winning group Alabama Shakes, Brittany Howard's solo debut is a warm and soulful album of self-discovery. The 11 genre-pushing tracks showcase Howard's voice in such a way that you can't help but sit up and pay attention. 

Covering everything from folk, blues, jazz, rock, and just a hint of pop, Jamie is a stunning body of work. "Georgia" was written from the perspective of a young girl with a crush on another girl, "Short and Sweet" acknowledges the inevitability of death and the importance of loving deeply anyway, and "Stay High" notes the hardships of growing up black and queer in the south, but choosing something greater than wallowing.

For Howard, love is the way to overcome all the fear and hate and pain in the world, and the gorgeousness of that realization oozes through this entire album like honey.

3. "IGOR" - Tyler, the Creator

Tyler, the Creator's sixth studio album is the only album by an LGBTQ artist to reach the #1 spot on Billboard's 200 in 2019.

IGOR is more mature and refined than we've heard Tyler previously, while also more experimental and risk-taking. The album hides several iconic soul and R&B interpolations and features from Charlie Wilson, Solange, and more. "EARFQUAKE," a track declined by both Justin Bieber and Rihanna, is a dancy plea to a lover not to leave. "A BOY IS A GUN*" is an obvious metaphor about the dangers of falling in love. On "GONE, GONE / THANK YOU," Tyler sings to a man, "I hope you know she can’t compete with me," before acknowledging the happiness they shared; "Thank you for the love/Thank you for the joy."

What makes IGOR Tyler's most exciting work yet for us is his confrontation of a closeted lover - and himself. By the album's close, Tyler refuses to hide who he is. "You never lived in your truth," he sings in "RUNNING OUT OF TIME." "But I finally found peace, so peace."

2. "Immunity" - Clairo

Clairo's had one hell of a year. Her debut album Immunity is a soft collection of bedroom indie-pop songs, brought to life by her vulnerable voice. 

It opens with "Alewife," a wistful thanks to a friend that saved Clairo's life when she was at her lowest. "Sofia" is a garagey love song, a dancey hymn to a whirlwind romance. "Standing here alone now, think that we can drive around/I just wanna say how I love you with your hair down," she sings. 

"I'm having my gay sob right now," she told Out earlier this year, "where I'm just letting all my emotions out and finally crying from that experience when I was twelve years old, 'Why are girls so hot?'"

"Bags" is one of the best tracks of the year, a bundle of gay anxiety over expressing her attraction to a presumably straight girl who could easily just pack her bags up and leave.

Talk about relatable. 

1. "Saves the World" - MUNA

With one of the most underrated releases of the year, MUNA's sophomore album easily snagged the #1 spot. It starts softly, with lead singer Katie Gavin aching to "Grow" up. Over the next forty minutes, Saves the World is a reckoning of sorts, smashing your heart into tiny pieces then putting it back together one lyric at a time.

"Number One Fan" disguises itself as a dancey stan-worthy bop but actually shows Gavin wanting to love herself as much as her fans love her, a truly modern self-love anthem. "Taken" sonically lives somewhere between Paramore and Goo Goo Dolls, and finds Gavin confronting her attraction to people in relationships because of the sense of control and validation it gives her. And with "Pink Light," MUNA quietly asks a lover to stay the night, at least until the rose-colored hues of the rising sun flood her apartment, so for a moment, she looks so beautiful that if you saw her bathed in it, you'd never want to leave.

"Stayaway" is the defining track of the record, a post-breakup plea with herself to stay away from an old lover so she won't fall back into her old ways. Gavin pours her heart out in a stream of consciousness that climax in the bridge; her vocals start at nearly a whisper and crescendo into Katie desperately belting, "Any little misstep/I'll be at your doorstep/Talking 'bout forgiveness/Giving you my heart back/Just so you can break it one more time before I say/I gotta stay away."

The album reads like Gavin's diary, shockingly introspective in ways that almost feel intrusive for the listener, full of sweltering admissions to the self that she's shared with the world, hoping to save it through her own synthy kind of therapy.