Make Your Pride Angry
My Mixtape’s A Masterpiece is a weekly feature in which a guest compiles a playlist around some theme. This week, Priya Sridhar assembles 12 songs to fuel a furious Pride Month. Read Priya’s thoughts on each song and listen along to the Spotify playlist on top and/or the YouTube playlist at the bottom of the post.
Are you queer and angry? You’re not alone; 2025 has been a year where the violation of civil rights and scapegoating trans people will enrage anyone. That’s why we need to break out the cassettes and CD players; listening to appropriate songs will help us find the catharsis before it lodges in our bones.
1. “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads
YouTube recommended this one to me actually since a new music video came out, and Google revealed that the band Talking Heads has had a huge LGBTQ+ base. I can see why; this song puts into words how it feels when everything is on fire, but you still have to wash the dishes and get the mail. Everyone around you acts like things are normal when you know they aren’t. What’s a better way to convey the anger about the present?
2. “Claw Machine” by Sloppy Jane
If you haven’t heard of the film I SAW THE TV GLOW, there’s never a better time to catch up on it. The film’s title comes from this song, which Sloppy Jane performs during the second act. As Owen ponders a lifelong friendship with Maddy, his best friend who disappeared when they refused to run away with her, Maddy reappears with awful truths about the TV show they used to watch together. The song reflects Owen’s melancholy, as confronting these truths will disrupt their life, but ignoring them has a higher cost. It reminds us of the price when we conform to authorities that want us to stop questioning our identities.
3. “T. Rex” by K. Flay
This song is featured in NIMONA, a film adaptation of the graphic novel by N.D. Stevenson. In a fantasy cyberpunk world, a rising knight gets framed for assassinating his queen; a shapeshifter named Nimona allies with said knight to clear his name. The song plays when they both decide to stop reasoning with the authorities and leak a confession video from the real killer. As they celebrate the video going viral, the city nearly explodes in rage and a coup. Stevenson admitted on Substack that Nimona foreshadowed his transition as he wrote the graphic novel while still pre-transitional.
4. “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan
YouTube advertised this one to me via the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles. Roan, who self-identifies as lesbian and demisexual, writes a quiet tribute to those of us that live no matter the disapproval from society. Though critics describe her aesthetic as drag queen and camp influenced, it’s her emotional sincerity that wins us over. “Pink Pony Club” doesn’t need power rock chords to convey the quiet devastation and rage that comes when we can’t enjoy our hobbies in peace.
5. “Another Day” from RENT
RENT was one of the first musicals with a mostly queer cast. Set during the AIDS epidemic in the USA, it features an amateur filmmaker trying to capture his friends’ last months while a diagnosed songwriter tries to find meaning after his girlfriend dies by suicide. “Another Day” is not the angriest song in the musical, but it does reflect the rage Roger feels when offered drugs. He just got clean of heroin without any medical treatment, since drugs led to him contracting AIDS. You can’t blame him for yelling at love interest Mimi for offering him drugs and interrupting guitar practice. Yet Mimi asserts it’s worth living in the moment, even if you destroy your body.
6. “I Want to Break Free” by Queen
How does one not include Queen in an angry pride mixtape? Freddie Mercury was openly bisexual, chaotic, and passionate. This song’s music video uses drag to comment on rigid gender roles while also having fun with the wardrobe. MTV and the United States didn’t approve of the drag, but the British certainly did.
7. “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John
While I knew Elton John through THE LION KING and the Muppets, his biopic ROCKETMAN introduced me to his repertoire. As a gay man coming out of the closet in the 1980s, John had many reasons to be angry. He got married to a woman despite lacking compatibility and entered an abusive relationship with an exploitative manager. The film ends with his actor singing “I’m Still Standing” and recreating the music video. It’s a happy song, but one born of the anger that comes from someone trying to cut you down.
8. “Wilkommen” from CABARET
“Let all your troubles melt away!” the Emcee orders at the start of Cabaret, a musical about ordinary people witnessing Hitler’s rise to power. If you want to get angry, consider this one when having to fiddle as Rome burns. While the Emcee is not always coded as queer, and in some stagings he accepts parasitic fascism, he does reflect Berlin’s turmoil. At the time, Berlin flourished with an exciting LGBTQ+ underground culture; the Nazis wasted no time in dismantling it. All we have left is the memories of those who fled and survived.
9. “Change” from Steven Universe: The Movie
If you are mentioning queer rage, Steven Universe has to go on the list. This show talks about a half-human boy coming into his own in a world with gem aliens and millennia-long space battles. Steven does his best to resolve situations with peace and kindness, but even he has his limits. We see him reach a moment of Zen in this song as he realizes that his victories came from changing as a person and empathizing with others. Empathy, however, is not the same as passively letting someone destroy you. Steven allows the movie’s villain to vent her pain at him but won’t let her destroy the planet.
10. “My Frankenstein” from Dead End: Paranormal Park
Like Steven Universe, Dead End: Paranormal Park is hella queer. We have a trans boy and an autistic bisexual girl for our protagonists, the latter suffering a great betrayal in season one. Norma Khan sings “My Frankenstein” to her idol Pauline Phoenix after learning a terrible secret, letting the pedestal break but lamenting her devastation.
11. “For The Gaze” from Death Becomes Her
I wasn’t expecting to fall for Death Becomes Her, a musical based on a 1992 black comedy. Former friends in Hollywood fall apart when they fight over the same guy and worry about their aging bodies. But first, Madeline has a show to perform; she talks about how she wants the “gaze” on her. She refers to wanting admirers that buy her film and ask for autographs, but one can see plenty of camp and queer subtext in the song. The show plays fast and loose with the homophone here before we get to the anger that comes from seeing someone live their best life. Madeline seems happy when she sings, but hides unhealthy levels of jealousy.
12. “Crucify” by Tori Amos
I actually had this song on CD thanks to a university vendor selling it for five dollars. Though her covers in the Strange Little Girls album caught my ear, “Crucify” asks why we give our minds and bodies over to our supposed saviors. Though Tori Amos has a sweet resonating voice, the minor chords belie bitterness about an inherent betrayal. I can relate to this one hard. And it makes me feel like an undergrad student again, listening to “Crucify” on my computer rather than in the car.
