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SPRING ARTS PREVIEW ALBUMS: Spring spotty for albums

Mya, Marina, Madonna and a bunch of maybes

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album, gay news, Washington Blade
album, gay news, Washington Blade

It’s a big year for Madonna fans. Her album is out Friday and she plays the Verizon Center on Sept. 12. (Photos by Mert & Marcus)

Madonna releases her 13th studio album, “Rebel Heart” this week. She worked closely with Diplo to produce the album, along with several other collaborators such as Nicki Minaj and Kanye West. Her “Rebel Heart Tour” begins in August and the pop legend has been using Grindr to help promote her album and tour.

Before we get to the upcoming stuff, a few more just-out releases you may have missed.

Mýa, a gay rights and homeless LGBT youth advocate, released “Love Elevation Suite” on Feb. 14, her second Valentine’s Day EP, through her independent record label Planet 9. In the past, she has appeared in a NOH8 campaign and in Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors: Give A Damn PSA.

Kelly Clarkson released her seventh studio album, “Piece by Piece,” on Feb. 27. The lead single is “Heartbeat Song” and two of the album’s tracks were written in part by Sia. Clarkson is an active LGBT rights supporter.

RuPaul released “Realness,” his eighth studio album, on March 2, the same day as the season seven premiere of his show on Logo, “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

British R&B group Blue released “Colours” on March 2. Duncan James, a member of Blue, has identified as bisexual in 2009 and as gay in 2013.

Welsh singer-songwriter Marina and the Diamonds will release her third album, “Froot,” on March 16.

English folk singer Laura Marling will release “Short Movie” in the UK on March 23.

Björk’s ninth album, “Vulnicura,” was released Jan. 20 and “Björk: Archives,” a retrospective book on her career, will be released March 30. One of the album’s tracks features vocals by Antony Hegarty, a transgender English singer. An exhibition of Björk’s work will take place at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from Saturday-June 7, and her “Biophilia” apps were featured as part of the museum’s permanent collection, the first app showcased in MoMA’s collection.

DC-native Wale will release “The Album About Nothing” on March 31.

Reba McEntire’s 27th studio album, “Love Somebody,” will come out April 14.

Deluxe reissues of Tori Amos’s first two solo albums, 1991’s “Little Earthquakes” and 1994’s “Under the Pink,” will be re-released in deluxe double-CD editions packed with B-sides, live cuts and other rarities on April 14. Both albums will also be issued on 180-gram vinyl for the first time in the U.S.

Shawn Mendes will release his debut album, “Handwritten,” on April 28. The teenage singer-songwriter will open up for Taylor Swift during the North American leg of her “1989 World Tour.”

Brandon Flowers will release “The Desired Effect,” his second studio album, on May 18. Along with his band, The Killers front man annually releases a Christmas-themed song and video to support Product Red.

Faith No More will release “Sol Invictus” on May 19, the band’s seventh studio album. Roddy Bottum, the band’s keyboardist, came out as gay in 1993. He’s said that as a gay teen, he never imagined he would play in a hard rock band.

Florence and the Machine will release their third album on May 29. In February, the band released “What Kind of Man,” the first single off of “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.”

Several artists have announced the titles of their 2015 releases but have not yet announced release dates. Adam Lambert will come out with “The Original High” this year. Ciara will release “Jackie,” and Emeli Sandé will release “Who Needs the World.”

Lana Del Rey is coming out with “Honeymoon,” which will include a song called “Music to Watch Boys to” as well as a cover of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.”

Still more artists have confirmed 2015 albums but have not yet announced release dates or album titles. Look out for new releases by Adele, Becky G, Britney Spears, Carly Rae Jepsen, Christina Aguilera, Demi Lovato, Duran Duran, Ellie Goulding, Gwen Stefani, Grimes, Haim, Iggy Azalea, Kylie Minogue, Macklemore, Rihanna, TLC, and more.

Adam Lambert, Tommy Joe Ratliff, marriage equality, gay marriage, same-sex marriage, 9:30 Club, music, Marylanders for Marriage Equality, gay news, Washington Blade

Singer Adam Lambert, on right, with guitarist Tommy Joe Ratliff (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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Music & Concerts

Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule

Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1

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Writer Gregg Shapiro with Jill Sobule in 2000. (Photo courtesy Shapiro)

I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.

Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).

Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.

With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.

Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”

That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.

While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.

Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.

On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.

Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.

When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.

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Music & Concerts

Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’

Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.

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Singer Tom Goss is back. (Photo by Dusti Cunningham)

Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co. 

Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.

For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.

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Music & Concerts

Kylie brings ‘Tension’ tour to D.C.

Performance on Tuesday at Capital One Arena

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Kylie Minogue visits D.C. on Tuesday.

Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.

The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”

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