The Greatest, Gayest Albums (of All Time)

What makes an album great? And perhaps even more critical for this list, what makes a great album gay? To create our list of the 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums of All Time, we polled more than 100 actors, comedians, musicians, writers, critics, performance artists, label reps, and DJs, asking each to list the 10 most important albums of their lives. After receiving responses from Boy George, Rufus Wainwright, Cyndi Lauper, the Indigo Girls’ Amy Ray, Perez Hilton, Nate Berkus, Jake Shears, John Cameron Mitchell, Wilson Cruz, Junior Vasquez, Janis Ian, and a slew of others, we tallied the results to determine our top-100 list.

You’ll notice we expanded the catalog to include not only records by queer musicians but also any records that have had relevance to those voting. While albums by Elton John, k.d. lang, George Michael, Pet Shop Boys, and Ani DiFranco appeared time and again on the lists, many celebrities included what they consider gay masterpieces by mostly straight acts like ABBA, Donna Summer, and, of course, Madonna. So without further ado, here are the 100 albums that changed our lives.