Halfway through their set,Munaaddress the elephant in the stadium.
And with that, the trio launch into a strummy, slowed-down cover of Roans Good Luck, Babe!
and the audience does as Gavin has gently commanded them to do.
Muna at All Things Go: Naomi McPherson, Katie Gavin, and Josette Maskin (from left)Maria-Juliana Rojas for Rolling Stone
They sing every word in unison.
They sway together, too, gently rocking from side to side in the purple and pink light.
Start with the song: Good Luck, Babe!
is quite possibly the only bop about compulsory heterosexuality to ever land withinBillboards Top Five.
Second, there was the stark absence at Forest Hills of the songs owner.
We want our queer pop stars whom we feel so seen by to see us, too.
So, how does it feel to have predicted the future?
I was right, says McPherson when we speak a few days before All Things Go.
You could call me Nostradamus.
Tracy Chapman in 1989 was extremely dominant, Goldschmitt says.
It was very mainstream.
So then why does this momentfeelso different?
Partly its the music.
They talked about the vibes instead.
Even Etheridge had to speak through codes.
Compare Etheridges careful omission to Rapps Can a gay girl get an amen?
The vibe has shifted from caution to confidence, restraint to revelry.
Now, queer pop stars get to say the previously unspoken part out loud.
Even Etheridge is getting in on the fun.
To put it bluntly, the songs are hornier and happier now.
She sees a mix of identities in the audience.
Its people who are fed up with being forced the same shit.
Several of them tell me they are straight.
No one has heard of Closer, but they all love Roan and Rapp.
A lesbian nearby overhears my conversation and flags me down.
Her name is Jes Klass, and she loves Closer.
She thinks it couldve been an even bigger hit than it was.
The thing is, Klass says, the world wasnt ready then.
Or as Quin puts it: Its like the cicadas.
The ground started to rumble and we popped out early.
But now theyve all come out, and theres too many to hold them back.
You had to be in the know to know about Closer.
You simply have to exist to encounter Good Luck, Babe!
Closer peaked atNumber 90 on the Hot 100.
Good Luck, Babe!
debuted on the chart toward the end of April atNumber 77.
By the end of September, it had rocketed toNumber Four.
You dont move 73 spots up the Hot 100 without the support of a whole bunch of straight people.
Roan is no longer your favorite artists favorite artist.
Shes your grandmothers, or at least your aunts.
Good Luck, Babe!
was probably playing over the loudspeakers at your local physical-therapists office at some point today.
Kelly Clarkson is performing it on hermorning show.
Jimmy Fallon is singing along to it on hislate-night show.
That sound you just heard?
Whatever the reason, Dan Ferguson is here for it.
Hes a cis hetero man.
And yet he finds Roans songs deeply relatable.
Its like when you go through wanting someone that doesnt want you back, he says.
Or, youre doing the extra effort, but they arent reciprocating.
To Ferguson, heartbreak is heartbreak.
Still, Roans music, and Good Luck, Babe!
specifically, hits different for the LGBTQ+ community.
Good Luck, Babe!
We have too many trauma narratives in queer music, Goldschmitt says.
Its very vindicating to have somebody say, Well, good luck with that.
That experience of feeling seen isnt exclusive to Roans songs, not by a long shot.
Not quite militant, he says, but something like that.
Its beautiful what is happening with our community, Webbert says.
Lets get one thing straight: Celebrity worship is not unique to the queer community.
Its been obvious to anyone paying attention, especially the artists.
On the one hand, its all she ever wanted.
Its her dream come true.
She says it feels 10 times bigger than her.
Also, she just loves seeing straight people squirm: They dont know what to do!
Theyre all, like, having a panic attack, Rapp says.
Its clear that she is just as thrilled as her fans are about mainstream queer culture.
On the other hand, she didnt get into this business to be harassed.
But I dont know.
I have empathy that its really exciting.
Frankly, its really fucking exciting for me, too.
Now, does that mean I would ever verbally harass someone because I was so excited?
And people love to do that shit.
Theres a part of her that gets it.
Shed be tweaking too if she saw someone likeDeJ Loafwhen she was a kid.
Still, she says, it cuts deeper when it comes from her community.
Youre just used to men being disappointing, Rapp says.
Im doubly disappointed if its a girl.
Being a queer person during the sapphic-pop moment?
Being one of the sapphic-pop stars at its center?
All the other things around it are fucking crazy.
Every artist I spoke to for this article understands just how important representation is.
I want to do it again and again.
Muna are hardly the only band to express hesitation about discussing their identity publicly.
Several LGBTQ+ artists have said the topic is difficult to navigate for a variety of reasons.
I dont get why this is such an issue for me, Roan said.
Internalized homophobia casts a long shadow, and acceptance, much like queerness itself, is a spectrum.
Its hard enough to think and talk about your sexuality with yourself.
Its even more difficult to do with your loved ones, no matter how supportive they are.
But talking about it with the public?
she says, laughing in exasperation.
You should see the music I listen to.
I dont even know if the people have faces, let alone what their sexuality is.
Do we want our stars to assimilate or resist?
Should they be radical or wholesome?
What makes one person feel seen, may harm another.
I just dont care.
At the same time, she understands how things might feel different for the artists.
The conversation is even more complicated for butch and transmasc individuals and people of color.
(Kehlani and Monae both declined to comment for this story.)
Bird, who is Filipino and British, has experienced some of what Kehrer describes.
Her observation is a stark reminder that the past year hasnt changed everything for every artist equally.
The roadblocks for queer people of color remain firmly in place.
That didnt magically change over the course of this last summer.
Those bitches are still there.
Whether that shifts depends on where the sapphic-pop moment goes from here.
Maybe mainstream artists will get queerer and butcher and more diverse.
A gay girl can dream, cant she?
Nobody can predict the future, except Muna of course and they say they sense a backlash coming.
Gavin says shes seen dialogue online debating if sapphic pop is overpopulated.
For them, success isnt about staying in the spotlight but sustaining a career on their own terms.
Thats pretty much it.
The thing that I love so much about lesbians is that were good at community building, Gavin says.
So what does it matter if the mainstream structures that have begun to welcome us temporarily rescind our membership?
As Sara Quin says, We have always existed.
We will always exist.
It will be there for them.
