The Best Queer Country of 2025 -- So Far

Most music sites publish this kind of thing in June, but we're running on gay time here at Rainbow Rodeo. (Also, how can a queer artist resist releasing their album just in time for Pride?) The Rainbow Rodeo staff voted and using some very scientific math called "addition," here are our favorite albums of the year so far.

6: Julien Baker and Torres – Send a Prayer My Way

As students of country and dedicated musicians, Julien Baker and Torres have crafted something special on Send a Prayer My Way, earning themselves a spot amongst the legends they’ve added to their “Cuntry” playlist on Spotify, which is also worth a listen. – Kaitlyn Stevens

5: Willi Carlisle – Winged Victory

Winged Victory swings as a wrecking ball demolishes what you think you know about this country’s human vastness. There’s sadness; there’s anger; there’s reverence for tradition; and there’s an itch for change. Willi Carlisle carries these as coins in his back pocket, scratched with miles and miles of traveling that’s both admirable and wearisome. – Bee Delores

4: The Kentucky Gentlemen – Rhinestone Revolution

Rhinestone Revolution is the culmination of the Kentucky Gentlemen's hard work swimming upstream in Nashville: proving that two queer Black men belong on the genre's biggest stages. The album holds the heartbreak and defiance that comes along with the journey – but mostly, this album is defined by joy. – Rachel Cholst

3: Vandoliers – Life Behind Bars

While the Vandoliers and Life Behind Bars are both more than the story about Jenni Rose finding her way, they are the band and the album of defiance the world needs today. Sure they remain a honky-tonk, punk rock, bar band on a mission to make sure you have a good time. However, they also reach down your throat and grab you by the heart strings and make you think. We should all be grateful for this album and this band. – Richard Marcus

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2: Lucy Dacus – Forever Is a Feeling

I'm just gonna be brutally honest here – I haven't ever been that enamored of the kind of airy indie rock that Lucy Dacus and her boygenius colleagues sling. Micah Schnabel of Two Cow Garage described 2000s indie rock as "apathetic melancholy" and I'm not inclined to disagree. I'm listening to alt-country because I'm already sad, right? I need my music to be a little more red-blooded. But Forever is Feeling has such a clarity of purpose that it just bowled me right the fuck over. It's already on my list for top albums of the year. – Rachel Cholst

1: S.G. Goodman – Planting By the Signs

There's something heavy and cyclical about Planting By the Signs, the new album from Southern rock heavyweight S.G. Goodman. Goodman has made a career of tackling the thorniest issues of what it means to Southern – and on her latest album, Goodman turns that incisive gaze onto herself. – Rachel Cholst

I’ve had lesbian pals, and my own partner, for years suggest her when I play at my own shows and thus I have a sweet spot for her shit which is very cool and smart and has a thoughtful, narrative approach I really do dig. The universe says I have to stan. – Autumn Sky Hollow

Honorable mentions: Angie K, Bells Larsen, Little Mazarn, roger weeks, Wryn

Emmy Woods also contributed to this piece