Listen to Gaahl's Pride Playlist of Legendary Classics

Fifty years ago today marked the start of the infamous Stonewall riots - the event that is known for truly starting the gay liberation movement. In honor of the anniversary, Gaahl - of Gaahls WYRD, and formerly of Gorgoroth - has curated a pride playlist on Apple Music full of legendary classics.

Surprisingly, the playlist isn't full of black metal tracks. Rather, it mostly consists of legendary classic rock and metal songs either released by LGBTQ artists, or just feel damn good to listen to. Judas Priest, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Scorpions and more are among the artists included. Listen below.

Apple Music wrote of the playlist:

Gaahl is a Norwegian artist and vocalist-frontman for the Norwegian black metal troupes Gorgoroth and Gaahls Wyrd. He's also one of the few out gay musicians in black metal. Gaahl is a man of few words, so when we got his custom-made playlist for Pride, it didn't surprise us that he included only one brief line of description to accompany his tracklist, which leans heavily on hard rock but also makes detours into new wave, electro-pop, and even disco. Says Gaahl, simply, “Pride means freedom.”

The Norwegian black metal frontman is openly gay - and one of the only icons in the genre known to be LGBTQ. Gaahl expressed his irritation with how the rest of the world responds when someone comes out as gay in an interview with Metal Injection in May, stating that fans often come out to him.

"It's something as simple as...be yourself. If I can make it easier for people...it's frustrating that it has to be someone pushing it forward," he says. "It's so extremely limiting in the sense of, why would anyone care? But it's more frustrating for me to have to see that actually people have to have someone tell them that it's okay. I would like it to be more relaxed."

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