Heteronormativity in popular music

This post is a crosspost from Jayeless, and can be read in its original location here.

This post is kind of borne out of a discussion I was having with my sister, as well as some of the thoughts I’ve had myself about the music I listen to. The conclusion we draw is basically, popular music is totally heteronormative. This is not news to anyone who has ever thought about it I am sure, but we both find it extremely annoying.

I’m going to discuss this with particular reference to Arctic Monkeys, because I have a lot of music by them in my library and the issue particularly comes to my mind when I’m listening to them. To be fair, it’s not like any other artist I listen to is much better on this front¹, but it is so glaring with Arctic Monkeys because they have song after song about heterosexual relationships — seemingly every single permutation of personalities you could imagine, from men who adore their lovers and feel totally lost without them (“505″, “Cornerstone”), to men who rape women and think it’s OK and she might even enjoy it (“Balaclava”).

And it’s like, clearly these songs are not all reflections of your own personal attitudes². Clearly therefore, if you can invent these characters whose heads you get inside to write these songs, you could broaden your horizons and write about a man who was interested in men. But you don’t.

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