June 23rd: Halsey
Date of Birth: September 29th, 1994
Genre: Pop/Alternative Rock
What She Identifies As: Bisexual
Where is she from: Edison, New Jersey
Halsey, real name Ashley Frangipane, is a singer famous for how blunt she can be with her music and her shifts between some sweet, soft tracks and aggressive metal tracks. In this year alone, she contributed the thrash metal style “Experiment on Me” to the film Birds of Prey, where it was used when Harley Quinn has to break Cassandra Cain out of a holding cell and beat up the other inmates, and collaborated with country singer Kelsea Ballerini on “The Other Girl,” a sweet, pop song that I could easily see be listened to on family road trips. Halsey has many tattoos, used to dye her hair blue in the early stages on her career, and in addition to being bisexual, has also been diagnosed as bipolar. When discussing the song “Nightmare,” she mentioned that in the current times, musicians could either make happy songs to distract people from the news or protest songs to try to spur on change, and neither approach was wrong. Doing both fits Halsey’s discography at this point, as well as a few other artists, both on this list and straight, cisgender artists like Billy Ray Cyrus and Sammy Hagar.
Recommended Songs; Experiment on Me, The Other Girl (with Kelsea Ballerini), Nightmare
June 24th: Miya Folick
Date of Birth: 1989 (even Wikipedia doesn’t know the exact day)
Genre: Folk Rock
What she identifies as: Lesbian
Where is she from: Santa Ana, CA
If you remember earlier, Miya Folick is K.Flay’s girlfriend. She is half-Japanese and half-Ukrainian and a competent musician in her own right. Her debut album, Premonitions, was released in 2018, after which she has been on tour and released a few more singles. She was raised Buddhist; this also means she was taught to play Taiko Drums due to her denomination.
Recommended songs/albums: Premonitions, Malibu Barbie
June 25th, Long John Baldry
Date of Birth: January 12th, 1941
Genre: Blues-Rock
Date of Death: July 21st, 2005
What he identified as: Gay
Where was he from: Northamptonshire, England
Many people know Long John Baldry for two things, voicing Dr. Robotnik in the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon, where he is best known for the lines “I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!” and “Snooping as usual, I see!” The other is the morose song “Let the Heartbreaks Begin,” which is about losing a cherished woman. However, Baldry actually wasn’t into women and dated Dave Davies of The Kinks for a time. He was also responsible for Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” which recounts how Baldry and Bernie Taupin convinced Elton John not to commit suicide over an engagement he didn’t want to go through with. The songs line, “Sugar Bear” refers to Baldry. Baldry also covered the famous blues song “Going Down Slow” during his career, which has also been covered by Led Zeppelin as part of their live “Whole Lotta Love” medley and Peter Frampton with Steve Morse for his farewell Blues album.
Recommended Songs: Let The Heartaches Begin, Going Down Slow, A Thrill’s A Thrill
June 26th: Rita Ora
Date of Birth: November 26th, 1990
Genre: Pop
What she identifies as: Bisexual
Where is she from: England
Rita Ora was born in Turkey, actually, but raised in England by her parents, one of which is Catholic, the other Muslim. She considers herself more spiritual than religious and the lyrics of her song “Carry On,” used in the credits of Pokémon; Detective Pikachu, oddly reflect the “Footprints” story told of Jesus carrying us during our hard times. Rita unintentionally came out in 2018 when she recorded the song “Girls” with fellow Pop Stars Charli XCX, Bebe Rexha and rapper Cardi B, the chorus proclaiming “Sometimes I just wanna kiss girls, girls, girls.” Hayley Kiyoko, a lesbian, felt this was “lesploitation,” sexualizing girl-girl relationships to pander to a male crowd. Rita responded that she was rather, expressing her own bisexual feelings and didn’t mean any offense. Rita also had a small role in Pokémon; Detective Pikachu as a scientist studying Mewtwo in a flashback hologram. She also appeared on Miley Cyrus’ Bright-Minded YouTube/Instagram series, making her one of two people to appear in Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros/Toho Co. Ltd. movies to do so, the other being Millie Bobbie Brown, who starred in Godzilla; King of the Monsters, released to theaters by the three companies three weeks later.
Recommended Songs: Poison, Let You Love Me, Doing It (with Charli XCX), Girls (with Charli XCX, Bebe Rexha and Cardi B), Your Song, How To Be Lonely, How To Be Lonely (Live)
No comments:
Post a Comment