Turn your wedding reception into an action-packed dance club with music streaming service Rdio’s The Year in Queer playlist. Voices from rap to country join with LGBT legends to bring gay life in front of the mic in 2013: Frank Ocean (pictured) and Jenny Owen Youngs come out, equality ballads hit the charts, TIME’s cover goes gay, and Madonna gets booted from Russia for touting gay rights.
Some of the most memorable gay-moments, as compiled by Rdio:
- Frank Ocean comes out on Tumblr in poetic fashion: “Most of the day I’d see him and his smile. I’d hear his conversation and his silence…until it was time to sleep. Sleep I would often share with him.”
- Macklemore pairs up with ‘out’ singer Mary Lambert to make “Same Love,” a marriage equality video for same-sex marriages in Washington that immediately goes viral. fun. founds The Ally Coalition to fight anti-gay bullying.
- Lesbian twins Tegan and Sara hit it big this year with Heartthrob.
- Sara Bareilles, inspired by her friend’s struggle, urge those coming out to be “Brave”.
- Against Me! lead singer Laura Jane Grace announces she is transgender.
- Alt-Country singer Kacey Musgraves tells fans to “Love who you love ’cause you just get so many trips ’round the sun” in “Follow Your Arrow”.
- Folk singer Jenny Owen Youngs comes out on the blog Everyone is Gay: “I think it is damaging and isolating for young people to look out into the world and not see a representation of their experience. To encounter others who are like you is to know that you are not alone.”
- Country artist Chely Wright and her wife, LGBT advocate Lauren Blitzer, give birth to twin boys.
- Elton John and partner David Furnish welcome baby Elijah, the couple’s second son, into the world.
- Kristen Ellis Henderson of Antigone Rising is on the cover of TIME’s marriage equality issue with her wife Sarah: “I’m kissing my wife on the cover because it’s time for every American to have their civil rights. And, let’s be honest, I’m kissing my wife on the cover because Portia and Ellen probably weren’t available…”
- During the presidential election, Kelly Clarkson announces that she won’t be voting for Mitt Romney because of his stance against marriage equality.
- Out artist Adam Lambert hits #1 with his album, Trespassing.
- Jinkx Monsoon, Seattle’s “premier narcoleptic drag queen,” wins RuPaul’s Drag Race.
- Gender-bending rapper Mykki Blanco rises to hip hop prominence with the video for“Wavvy”.
- The Lonely Island, James Franco and Zach Galifianakis release a satirical mashup of alpha-bro spring break partying and support for marriage equality in their music video for “Spring Break Anthem.”
- Beyonce comes out in support of marriage equality by Instagramming a handwritten message: “If you like it, you should be able to put a ring on it. #WeWillUnite4MarriageEquality!”
- Prominent artists oppose the Boy Scouts of America’s leadership for their anti-gay policies including Carly Rae Jepsen, Train and Madonna.
- Madonna is also banned from Russia for publicly supporting gay rights on her MDNA world tour in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Photo courtesy of Frank Ocean
