The facility of pop group MUNA's queer pleasure

Washington Muricas News  — 

A pop sensation not afraid to weigh in on massive political points, MUNA stand out partially due to the band’s open embrace of one thing that’s nonetheless a rarity within the music panorama: queer intimacy.

On quite a lot of their songs, MUNA’s members – lead singer and songwriter Katie Gavin and guitarists Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin – convert into textual content the types of notions and feelings that in bygone many years needed to be subtext.

Take “Silk Chiffon,” the lead single from the brand new album, the group’s most playful work so far: “Siiilk chiffon / That’s the way it feels, oh, when she’s on me,” Gavin declares on the immediately earwormy hook.

MUNA describe “Silk Chiffon” as “a track for teenagers to have their first homosexual kiss to.” The monitor snaps into focus what I’d argue is the band’s deeper attract: Although a lot of MUNA’s songs are marked by agony, the group balances this distress with sunny tunes that slice via the anguish and elevate emotions resembling the thrill of lesbian want (a theme that seldom will get severe consideration in pop music). Illustrating this level additional is the “Silk Chiffon” music video, which reimagines “However I’m a Cheerleader,” Jamie Babbit’s 1999 lesbian rom-com. In different phrases, the band argues for a fuller, richer queer existence; to focus purely on the ache is to overlook MUNA’s enchantment.

I just lately spoke with MUNA. Throughout our dialog, which has been frivolously edited for size and readability, we mentioned the candor and vulnerability they inject into their work, the viewers they bear in mind once they create music, the worth of recovering queer historical past and the refreshing manner they painting the type of love US society has lengthy considered as taboo.

You check with a few of your songs, resembling “Stayaway,” as “trauma bangers.” How do you outline “trauma banger”? And why do you assume that this style of track resonates along with your listeners, notably your queer listeners?

Gavin: I’m not on the floor degree of life. I don’t reside there. It’s not the place I’m most snug. I’m all the time a pair layers beneath.

I’m enthusiastic about utilizing MUNA as a spot to say issues I'll carry disgrace round. It’s simpler to say sure issues in songs. It’s all the time been that manner for me. I’ve been a songwriter since I used to be a child. To an extent, that is the place I'm going to start processing trauma. It’s sadly true that a lot of queer individuals have some kind of expertise with trauma. That’s simply the advanced PTSD of chronically feeling on the skin however not understanding why.

I believe that we’re in a time the place persons are enthusiastic about not dwelling on the floor degree of life or society, as a result of the floor is undeniably cracking. So, as a band, we need to speak about: What the hell are we doing right here? What’s occurring?

McPherson: With a banging beat beneath. (Laughs) That’s the banger half. It distracts. It’s a launch in-built.

I’d like to listen to about how you consider your viewers. Toni Morrison famously stated that she wrote for Black individuals. Torrey Peters has stated one thing related about her 2021 novel, “Detransition, Child,” and writing for transgender individuals. Do you write for a specific viewers?

McPherson: You simply dropped two of my favourite authors’ names. We’ve had conversations earlier than that had the same ethos. Our work is for individuals who want it and get it. Usually, these persons are queer or are in any other case marginalized. Typically, the one who wants it is perhaps a straight, 47-year-old dad who has a delicate coronary heart. However we’re dedicated to creating music for individuals who want it and might use it, people who find themselves queer like us, people who find themselves marginalized. They’re our first precedence. When different individuals like our music, that’s an extra good factor.

Maskin: As youngsters, possibly we weren’t positive about who something was for aside from for ourselves. However our songs have all the time had the guideline of, “Somebody (who has been via this specific expertise) wants to listen to this.” And it does occur to be people who find themselves like us or have felt othered.

Gavin: Toni Morrison is certainly one of my favourite authors. I’m noticing the irony of me, as a white girl, being let into the worlds that she constructed. I can interact with that work and like it with my complete coronary heart and be modified by it. However I acknowledge that there are issues Black ladies studying her work in all probability perceive – due to their shared experiences – that I’ll by no means naturally decide up on. I believe that it’s the identical with queer individuals listening to our music. With a track like “Sort of Lady,” there are layers of which means that may be intuited you probably have that shared, lived expertise, for those who inhabit a queer physique.

How do you see yourselves becoming right into a lineage of queer musicians?

Gavin: A part of being queer is knowing that the archive is repeatedly being smashed and scattered into 1,000,000 hiding locations, so you need to retrieve quite a lot of it your self. All of us grew up participating with various kinds of queer media, whether or not we knew it or not – I didn’t explicitly know that Tegan and Sara have been homosexual, for those who can consider it. I simply liked them.

With this album cycle, there was extra freedom to delve into the Lilith Honest, type of Sapphic world that’s possibly extra acoustic, like Indigo Women and even a lot of people who find themselves queer-coded or lesbian-claimed, as a result of that’s additionally an enormous a part of the queer expertise.

McPherson: Usually, the magnitude of the cultural contributions by marginalized individuals isn’t appreciated or understood. I believe that we’re solely now getting to a degree the place there’s a kind of right-sized reception towards artwork made by marginalized individuals. Nevertheless it’s all the time at the back of my thoughts that Tegan and Sara’s ’80s pop album pre-dates a lot of the throwback ‘80s pop that was made shortly afterward. Musicians will give them credit score, however most of the people in all probability doesn’t perceive how influential that album was.

Gavin: I’ll in all probability spend my complete life attempting to put in writing a banger that strikes me as a lot as Frankie Knuckles’ “Your Love,” a Chicago home track. It’s value noting that what Naomi stated is exponentially true when an artist is queer and Black, when it comes to the influence that a track like that has on tradition versus the overall cultural consciousness of that artist and the cash they have been in a position to make. I’m from the suburbs of Chicago, and I didn’t even learn about Chicago home music till I used to be in school. So, once more, there’s the retrieval of all of it.

Queer visibility within the pop music world has ballooned up to now decade or so. However a track resembling “Silk Chiffon,” about queer pleasure, nonetheless feels radical. Why do you assume that's?

Maskin: Nearly each lesbian film appears to be a type of lesbian interval drama about unrequited love or somebody dying. We reference “However I’m a Cheerleader” as a result of it was one of many few queer motion pictures throughout that point that depicted queer love in a light-weight and lighthearted manner, in a manner we nonetheless discover radical as a result of it’s simply not what we’re ever actually informed or what the media painting.

Gavin: With “Silk Chiffon,” individuals can meet that track on no matter degree they need. It could possibly simply be a enjoyable track. However if you wish to go there with us, there’s a degree of the track being an outline of a unique group – a group that’s exterior society’s requirements and that’s filled with people who find themselves simply so pleased to be there. I believe that there’s one thing radical about saying, “I’m glad that I don’t match on this world, as a result of I really don’t actually consider on this world. I’m extra enthusiastic about creating one thing else.”