The road stretches before you, but there's trouble ahead, stationary cars. You're faced with the

McDonald's side mission. Do you, A, join the ever-growing queue, or B, take the next exit and treat

yourself to a glorious Mackey's? D-Torring to McDonald's. Start your side mission today.

Hey listeners, Outward is going on a little summer break.

Brian and Jules and I are taking some time to touch grass, so we're pressing pause on

the podcast for the rest of the season, but we're dropping something very special in your feed,

a queer pop deep dive

from Hit Parade with Chris Melanphy. Slate's show about the music and moments that climbed the

charts and shaped the culture. So stay gay, stay hydrated, and we'll see you in the fall. Welcome back 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 Why Is This Song Number One series.

On our last episode, we walked through the varied history of LGBTQ hitmakers on the

charts, from Little Richard to Leslie Gore, Dusty Springfield to Sylvester. We focused on

rock and soul's early years, from the birth of rock and roll to the peak of disco, when gay hitmakers

were defining the culture.

We are now going to take a twirl through a selection of chart-toppers who managed to reach

number one both in and out of Pop's closet.

Thus far, the LGBTQ performers we've covered from Rock's first few decades were rarely out of the closet.

The majority came out years after the peak of their fame, or not at all.

For example, to reiterate, both Leslie Gore and Billy Preston

did score number one hits, but neither was out at the time.

Conversely, the artists who were out like a bird up in sky.

Conversely, the artists who were out didn't actually top the Hot 100

...