20. Dolly Parton "9 to 5"
19. Coming Out Crew "Free, Gay and Happy"
18. Village People "In the Navy"
17. Frankie Goes To Hollywood "Relax"
16. Village People "Macho Man"
15. Judy Garland "Over the Rainbow"
14. Bronski Beat "Smalltown Boy"
13. Diana Ross "I'm Coming Out"
12. Cher "Believe"
11. Gloria Gaynor "I Am What I Am"
10. Alicia Bridges "I Love The Nightlife"
9. Madonna "Vogue"
8. Olivia Netwon-John "Xanadu"
7. Kylie Minogue "Better the Devil You Know"
6. Pet Shop Boys "Go West"
5. Kylie Minogue "Your Disco Needs You"
4. The Weather Girls "It's Raining Men"
3. Gloria Gaynor "I Will Survive"
2. Village People "YMCA"
1. ABBA "Dancing Queen"

The Minogue and Madonna stuff is at least relatively recent, but other than that, almost everything on this list came out in a 7 year period between 1975 and 1982. Was this really the gayest era in history, the heyday of disco and androgynous new wave? Why did music suddenly get so gay and then, just as suddenly, put away the sparkles? Will there ever be another time when high camp holds such sway over popular music? At this point, it sure doesn't seem likely: whether it's detached indie rock or booming hip-hop, lyrical themes are aggressively hetero-realist, except for deeply underground exceptions like the Magnetic Fields. Of course, come to think of it, we didn't exactly know how gay things were back in the late '70s: to my 10-year-old mind, the Village People seemed like paragons of macho ideals and admirable career choices, their winking gayitude only recognizable in retrospect. Perhaps in 20 years, our "gayest songs" list will include secretly homoerotic anthems from, like, Daughtry, and we'll all go "how did we miss that?"

Photo courtesy Atlantic Records.