Hit Parade | Mighty Real Edition Part 1

Slate Daily Feed

Slate Podcasts

News, Business, Society & Culture

4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Little Richard was rock ‘n’ roll’s flamboyant architect. Lesley Gore sang that no one owned her. Sylvester was a gender-fluid icon who helped define disco. Freddie Mercury made rock operatic, and George Michael demanded freedom. What all of these LGBTQ artists had in common was bold hitmaking—and fear of being fully out of the closet. For decades, queer acts topped the charts while cloaking their true identities and paving the way for today’s more openly queer stars. For Pride Month, join Chris Molanphy as he traces the hidden history of queer hitmakers on the charts—including those that managed to be both out and No. 1, right up through our modern age of Lil Nas X and Chappell Roan. It’s a celebration of these artists’ quest to feel… mighty real. Get more Hit Parade with Slate Plus! Join for monthly early-access episodes, bonus episodes of "The Bridge," and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Hit Parade show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/hitparadeplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there, hit parade listeners. What you're about to hear is part one of this episode.
0:06.6	Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this
0:11.8	episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It supports not only this show,
0:18.7	but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts.
0:22.6	Just go to slate.com slash hitparade plus.
0:26.8	You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full the day it arrives.
0:31.4	Plus, Hit Parade The Bridge, are bonus episodes, with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and
0:39.5	pop chart trivia. Once again, to join that's slate.com slash hit parade plus. Thanks, and now,
0:47.5	please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode.
0:51.5	I'm coming out. Hit Parade episode.
1:15.8	Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's
1:21.4	Why is this song number one series on today's show, 45 years ago, in November of 1980,
1:29.8	Motown Queen Diana Ross was peaking on the charts with the second single from her
1:35.9	hit-packed best-selling Diana album, produced by Sheeks, Nile Rogers, and Bernard Edwards.
1:43.6	Ross had already topped Billboard's Hot 100
1:46.9	with the album's lead single, Upside Down. For the follow-up, she went with a song that Nile
1:54.1	Rogers had written specifically to honor Diana's legions of drag impersonators and her larger gay following.
2:03.6	In a move that was very bold for 1980,
2:07.8	Rogers and his partner Edwards titled the song,
2:11.6	I'm Coming Out.
2:13.1	I have to shout that I'm coming out, sitting right, sitting right next Hot 100, sitting right next to it at number four
2:36.8	was a former number one by British rock band, Queen.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 13 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.