I’m turning 30 in a matter of weeks, a fact that has led me to one inevitable conclusion: I’m too old for Pride. There was a time, as recently as two years ago, when I spent an entire week of June moving heavy boxes out of my apartment all day and dancing at different after-hours gay clubs and queer events all night, leaving me so tired that I slept through a spa trip my mom had planned for us the weekend after. (And, trust me, she’s never let me live it down.) Unfortunately, I’m just not built for that life anymore—or so I thought, until I heard Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam.”
If you’re living a life so spiritually impoverished that you’ve had yet to hear of “Padam Padam,” let me fill you in: it’s the lead single from Minogue’s upcoming album, Tension; it was released in May (which I refuse to believe was not strategic Pride-adjacent timing); its title is meant to reference the sound of a heartbeat (???); and it’s currently going viral on TikTok, in no small part because Minogue sounds exactly like an AI creature on the track. Is this our chance to wrest control of hyperpop (and music in general) from the robots? Maybe, but more importantly, this is our time to celebrate a song so unabashedly rhythmic, danceable, and silly that it seems designed to enthrall the LGBTQ+ community. We love mess in all its forms, particularly the sonic kind!
But it’s not just my rapidly advancing age that’s kept me from going whole hog for Pride this year. I loved going to the Dyke March when I lived in New York, but I’m not a huge fan of big Pride parades or rallies in general (too much corporate rainbow-washing), and seeing queer and trans communities attacked across the country doesn’t exactly put me in a party mood. I want to give thanks for my big, beautiful, gay life without succumbing to fatalism, but I don’t necessarily want to do it the way I have in the past.
That’s precisely where “Padam Padam” comes in. Listening to my friend Julia belt out the song during a low-key, loosely Pride-associated karaoke party we held at my partner’s home this weekend was a reminder that I don’t need to be out on the streets to celebrate my community. I’ve been texting my far-flung queer friends for days, asking if they’ve submitted to the cult of “Padam,” too, and guess what? Most of them have. For the ones who haven’t yet, this is a promise; It may not be Pride anymore, but we’ll blast “Padam Padam” at my birthday at Riis Beach next month, and we’ll feel stupid and hot and so extravagantly gay. What could be better?
