Any day of the week, any time of the year, somebody somewhere is discovering the world is decidedly queer place. And where do they turn to get their bearings about our unevenly queer world? Music has often done the heavy lifting here. With Connie Francis or Donna Summer or Madonna ringing in their ears countless small town boys have long stumbled through dusty downtown bus stations searching for someplace where there isn’t any trouble. If only they’d had access to The Ballet’s superb album catalogue. This NYC duo offer up five LPs that act like an auditory orientation to the contemporary gay male scene. Curious about gay bars, rough trade, bath houses, and daddy fixations? The Ballet might just be the niche queer musical act you’ve been looking for.

The obvious musical reference points for this band are primarily The Magnetic Fields, with perhaps a dash of the Hidden Cameras, the Pet Shop Boys and The Smittens here and there. Their 2006 debut album Mattachine! name-checks the legendary 1950s American homophile organization and remains their most stylistically diverse offering, placing the band’s distinctive keyboard attack in a variety of indie poprock settings. Subsequent records, particularly 2009’s The Bear Life and 2013’s I Blame Society, are cast in a more distinctive musical tenor, leaning into the keys. The subject matter, meanwhile, is gay, gay, gay. Songs cover topics like boyfriends (“Cheating on Your Boyfriend” “Your Boyfriend” “Two Boyfriends”), relationship shortcuts (“Rough Trade” “Married Man”), subcultural identities (“But I’m a Top” “Daddy’s Boy” “CumDumpMike”), and various gay locales (“First Time in a Gay Bar” “At the Bathhouse”). Really though, everything by these guys is wonderfully drenched in queer sentiment and experience. “Looking” from 2019’s Matchy Matchy effortlessly captures our Grindr-era bloodless information exchange approach to hooking up. Or from the same record there’s a clearheaded rumination on boyfriend obsession on “Your Boyfriend.” The duo’s just released 2023 album Daddy Issues has worked all these various elements – the club keyboards, the indie pop hooks, the hushed in-your-ear vocals – into a finely sculpted art form. It’s truly a remarkable long-player as you rarely get coverage of drugs, daddys, married men, bathhouses and dancing all on one record.

You can start your lessons with The Ballet just about anywhere. All the albums offer great gay content set to fine indie pop tunes. I’ve pulled out a song from each record just to get you started but the tunes left behind are just itching to be heard. Don’t flake on them.

It doesn’t need to be Pride season to enjoy The Ballet. You’ll want to enjoy this queer content all year long.

Photo courtesy Ryan Khatam Flikr collection.