I have probably said her name like 50 times so far this month in school alone. The artist Gia Woods has been an absolute must in my daily listening lately. Woods is an electro-pop genre artist mainly, but all her music revolves around her openly being a lesbian. The first song I heard by her was “Next Girlfriend” a few weeks before spring break, sometime between early and mid-February, giving me PLENTY of time to put it on repeat throughout the semester and give me something to fuel my soul. This song had only debuted a few weeks before my discovery of it coming out on Sept. 22, 2021. As I binged her song another huge hit of hers came into my playlists, “Oh My God,” which debuted on Aug. 27, 2021.  

The song “Next Girlfriend” being the newer two of these solo releases is the one that is credited for showing a shift in Woods’ music, going from very sensitive, lovelorn, edgy, occasionally grungy and even at times like in the case with “Oh My God,” dreamily melodic to very sexual, sensual and full of confident boldness. Don’t worry, she doesn’t lose that grungy flare. 

She is my top Sapphic recommendation at this time and can be found on both Spotify and YouTube. I highly recommend her other songs: “Lesbionic,” “Spend It” (with BAYLI who is next on this list and touches a bit into that hint of grungy), “Only a Girl,” “Sabotage,” “Fame Kills,” “Heart Won’t Forget” (guaranteed to make you mushy!), “Hello,” “Ego” and “Keep On Coming.” 

When you get to listening to some of her music prior to 2021 you can still hear sensual and sexual overtones in her music, even at times it is explicit as well. Her song “Keep On Coming” was actually released April 5, 2019 and has a lot of sexual references that takes a sensual tone to it. I think whoever claimed “Next Girlfriend” to be her big break into her talking so explicitly about her sexuality must not have listened to this song at the very least. Hopefully they have since then! 

My next high mention was an artist I was already OBSESSED with prior to hearing “Next Girlfriend” by Woods would be who I mentioned when talking about the song “Spend It.” It made me SCREAM internally to hear them create a song together, and it is so good! BAYLI has always had a more urban/hip-hop genre in the songs by her that I have heard and is officially classified into R&B/Soul and pop, but like Woods has very explicitly talked about her sexual attraction and acts with women. BAYLI debuted in her band “The Skins” 2017 in a tour with DNCE. In 2020 her reputation for her solo work really started taking off, particularly for her song writing, and has written with a number of artists across multiple genres. She has been given the genre of spacey next-level R&B by Liberty Music PR and can be really upheld by her song “TELLY BAG.” Her biggest hit is without a doubt “Sushi For Breakfast” and the song that introduced me to her. This is claimed to be her big debut song and has been added to Billboards Queer Necessities which you will have no arguments from me on! The song is way past being a bop and really show cases her appetite for sex, lovemaking and over all intimacy with women. She really sells the strength of WLW (women loving women) relationships in the face of adversity with some of her iconic lines in the song such as:

“Come and see me, got you flying over Texas 

Turn you on when you see me 

Actin’ reckless 

I might blow a check, yeah 

Pull up, baby, flex” 

Another notable thing about BAYLI that might come a bit as a surprise is that she doesn’t use labels for her sexuality, but made a statement back in June that her partner is a woman so she calls herself gay. Her song “Boys Lie” really expresses what she thinks of men and it’s hard to tell if she ever liked men or if she’s sworn them off, because honestly, same. I have also had another woman’s music that I love who I didn’t initially know was label-less or fluid. 

A great guilty pleasure throwback for some may come as a surprise for my next mention – Jessica Origliasso, the identical twin sister of Lisa Origliasso and one half of the hit international pop band “The Veronicas.”  The duo is most well known for their biggest hit that debuted in 2007. It was a highlight of my summer and continues to hold firmly a dear spot in my heart untouched. 

The duo, while sharing much like their love of their music and general style, have slightly different sexualities. Lisa has gone on record as being straight while her sister Jessica is openly a queer woman, and it has actually had a hand in their music. So, if you ever felt their music had queer flare like I did, then you would be correct. Their song “4ever” really gives this queer flare a front stage and is also a huge hit of their’s, siting at 10 million views on YouTube. The song came out in 2005. 

Jessica has had some notability in her dating a queer woman as she defines her sexuality as fluid but certainly leans sapphic. During the last decade she has had a roller-coaster on/off relationship with the queer heartthrob of “Orange is the New Black” television series Ruby Rose.  Ruby has notably played a role in the sisters’ music as Jessica wanted to speak about love, especially queer love, in the face of addiction. The song “If You Love Someone” is direct in its messaging in both the lyrics and the music video (in which Rose does make an appearance). This song is listed as third most popular on Spotify with 21,830,907 listens and is under “4ever” in second place with 31,602,570 listens and their top song which again is “Untouched” which blows the other songs away at a whopping 134,446,544 listens. 

While the two inevitably did not work out, Origliasso has found herself very much in love with her new partner, a woman named Alex Smith. The couple got engaged a week before they publicly announced it, a mere two hours before I wrote this article. For the record I am writing this article at 11:13 p.m. on Sept. 21 (deadlines suck sometimes, but after about 30 minutes or so I’m done).