The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, and that includes how we’re all celebrating Pride in 2020.
With huge public gatherings out of the question, we’re asking a range of LGBTQ celebrities and allies for their personal Pride anthems, to help us all get into the Pride spirit from lockdown.
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK winner The Vivienne is the latest star to share her bespoke Pride playlist, which features hits from Whitney Houston (“she was just the voice, wasn’t she?”), Cher (“you’re talking to someone with a Cher tattoo”) and Céline Dion (“this is a really gay one”).
“A good classic Pride anthem needs to be uplifting, and makes you wanna dance,” she explains during our My Pride Anthems interview. “Oh, and makes you want to get absolutely rotten on pink gin and Jagerbombs.”
Here are the five songs she chose...
Cher – Strong Enough
“You can’t have a Pride playlist without a bit of Cher. Although Strong Enough is a love song – well, she’s singing about her man cheating – it can also be about being strong enough to be who you want to be.
“And you’re talking to someone that’s got Cher’s face tattooed on them. I think gay men look at people like Cher and Bette Midler, they’re just balls-to-the-wall women who don’t give a fuck. Breaking boundaries when society said they shouldn’t have been… they’re just amazing. And throw feathers and sequins on it, and of course the gays are going to come flocking.”
Whitney Houston – It’s Not Right It’s OK (Thunderpuss Remix)
“Whitney Houston was amazing – she was just the voice, wasn’t she? And this song… it’s just a bit of a banger, isn’t it? As soon as you hear that intro, it’s like, ‘right get the Jagerbombs, I’m going to the bar, ta-ra’.”
The Vivienne – Tonight
“Pride’s come along, and we’re all stuck in the house, but I’m happy that I’ve got something to give people, a little single from me. I just want people to have fun and have a laugh to it, I mean I’m under no delusions I’m a bloody recording artist or anything like that, but I want people to have fun and have a drink.
“I just can’t wait for this to all be over, so we can get back to having a good old drag show. The first show we do after this will be the best we probably ever do, you’ll never be able to recreate that atmosphere again.”
Heather Small – Proud
“I always love a bit of Heather Small, it’s probably the one that everyone wants to listen to at Pride. It’s just a great song, and the lyrics… if you hear that in a gay bar or in the parade on Pride, it’s just absolutely perfect.”
Céline Dion – I’m Alive
“Oh, this is a really gay one. I saw her in Las Vegas and she was amazing. And David, my husband, we were sat about 30 rows back, and this woman came and tapped him on the shoulder and said ‘are you with so-and-so?‘. He didn’t really have a clue what she’d said, so he just went ‘yeah’. So she then took us to the front row and sat us in these two seats, and we were like ‘how the hell has this happened?’, but we stayed there the entire night!”
The Vivienne’s single Tonight is available now to download and stream.
We’ll be adding each celebrity’s song choices to our bumper My Pride Anthems playlist each day. Take a listen below: