My Simon Curtis Top 5 Countdown

Like Greyson Chance and Todrick Hall, Simon Curtis is an industry veteran who has been involved with music and entertainment for over a decade now. Yet, just like Greyson and Todrick I didn't know who Simon Curtis was until last year. As I discussed before in my articles about Greyson Chance and Todrick Hall, I've been obsessed with music for well over 2 decades now. That said, by the late 00s and early to mid 10s my attention towards modern music was focused squarely on Alternative Rock Radio with a pop diva grabbing my attention every now and then like Lady Gaga or Ariana Grande. Therefore someone like Simon Curtis who was releasing pop music that was overly gay in the early 10s escaped me at the time because he was an indie pop artist.

Flash forward to 2019 and I have been on Twitter for a few months connecting with Queer Pop acts and a few fans as well. I start seeing teaser videos for a new song by someone named Simon Curtis and a few of the queer pop stars were getting HYPED! From what I was gathering this was gonna be the first new release by this artist in years. Then I saw Simon was included on the Billboard Pride playlist for the month and he was the poster boy for the playlist as well. Well now I needed to figure out who this Simon Curtis was and why all the gays were pumped for his long awaited return to music.

Simon's new song, Love, was a slow burn for me. It took several listens for it to sink its claws into me, but once it did I fell in love with Love. Soon after I began listening to Simon's older songs and they were definitely grabbing me too. So as I am prone to do, I put together a playlist of my favorite songs by him and shared it with some with my friends like Amanda who also became a big fan.

On top of his music career, Simon has also stared in a Nickelodeon musical movie called Spectacular as well as episodes of Hannah Montana. Plus just to show you how much of a renaissance man he is, Simon is also a writer who published his own novel called Robot Boy a few years back and he is currently working on a graphic novel series about a group of Queer witches.

Despite all these impressive achievements though life hasn't been easy for Simon who has endured a lot of pain and struggle his whole life. At age 10 he was diagnosed with leukemia. It was not long after his battle with leukemia that Simon began to grapple with his homosexuality in a household that didn't accept homosexuality. He was outed by his brother at age 18 and Simon was then kicked out of the house by his parents who told him that they wished he had died of cancer now! Later his mom attempted suicide and blamed Simon for it. When he visited his mom in the hospital she told him not to come home. While Simon says he has reconciled with his family I saw his tweets over last Christmas when he visited his family and apparently it didn't go well.

Simon's story of his own family not only rejecting him but wishing he had died is devastating to hear, but unfortunately his story is still all too common today. Despite how far we think we have come with gay rights and queer acceptance in this country, there are still people out there who think of homosexuality as a sin and an abomination. There are people out there who wish all Queer people were wiped off the face of the earth even if its their own family members.

Simon would continue to face discrimination as he entered the world of pop music in the early 2010s. In his interview for On Track With Jon Ali, Simon talks about how he released his first album on the internet independently and built up a large fan base so quickly that it caught the attention of a record label. Due to Simon's homosexuality though they said it would be better for him to write music for others as a backdoor into the industry. Simon did this for months, but was eventually told many of the masculine guys were not comfortable working with him and a few weeks later Simon's manager dropped him! The early 2010s don't feel that long ago, but hearing Simon talk about all this really let's you see how far we've come since then but also how much further we have to go for the LGBTQ community.

2019 on the other hand was a good year for Simon. After Love he released the double sided single Graduate and Rainbow, which both showed growth in his artistry as a musician. Then Simon was part of Proud365, which was an all Queer concert lineup in LA that was held in August of last year. Meanwhile Simon is now hard at work on his new Graphic Novel series and his new full length album and I'm excited for both!

I also want to take a moment to discuss that Simon and myself are pretty much the same age. There is just a month separating our birthdays. As a result, whenever I see him tweet about Britney Spears, The Spice Girls or The Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson I immediately connect with Simon. The reason being that we both experienced this era of pop music together. It's clear that the music of that era left a deep impression on us both as we began to grapple with our homosexuality. Plus if anyone is a bigger Britney fan than me it's definitely Simon, though I don't know if he's written an extensive 11 part retrospective on the life and times of Britney Spears like I have .

What follows is a quick survey of my 5 favorite Simon Curtis songs ranked, which include a few of his early songs and his most recent songs. This countdown is purely my opinion and not a definitive ranking, but it should be a good primer of what Simon Curtis the pop star is all about.

5. Joystick

Joystick is off Simon's 2010 self released debut album. It's important to note this song originally was released in 2010, because right from the word go the song is already blatantly gay when Simon sings:
"Don't play a game
Boy they said it would get old
But sometimes boys like me are curious and can't be told no
You came along and had me saying "What is this?"
Your sexiness had got me ready for the Genesis."

The song itself is delightfully tongue in cheek as Simon compares his sexual awakening with another boy to that of video game systems like Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64.

"I don't want you thinking that I'm trying to apply pressure
But the pressure makes it better
Pushing harder makes it wetter
If you wanna skip a level then we'll go to level two
Just beat my boss and get me off

And then I'll play with you."

Combining humor and sexiness in the form of a pop song is not as easy as it looks because it's very easy to fail at both when you try to combine the two. Yet, the song is never anything less than smoking hot even as it gets a giggle out of you while it plays. Simon pulls it off with aplomb here much like his idol Britney Spears, who's entire career has walked the fine line between sexiness and tongue-in-cheek humor.

4. Pit of Vipers

Pit of Vipers comes off Simon's 2011 sophomore album RA. The song begins with a sample of Sergei Rachmaninoff's classical piece Prelude in C Sharp Minor before shifting into hyper pop territory. Even if you don't think you know this piece of classical music, you probably do because it has been used so much in film, TV, cartoons and our general culture for well over a century now. The fact that Simon incorporated this piece of music into Pit Of Vipers shows how deep his passion and love for music runs because most people, pop stars and their listeners, are usually not that well versed in the rich history of classical music. The song itself seems to be about toxic people trying to bring Simon down to their level and keeping him there:

"I've fallen deep into a
Pit of vipers
Sliding over me, over me
And I can't break free
Secrets run deep when you're in a
Pit of vipers
S-s-slithering, whispering

Feel the venom poisoning me."

Of course Simon makes the whole thing sound a lot sexier too, but there is a dark pulse running underneath Pit of Vipers thanks that Rachmanioff sample. Back then combining pop music with creepy Halloween themes was pretty unusual unlike today where we see Kim Petras taking the crown of Pop Queen of Halloween all the way to the bank with her Turn off the Light EPs. Nonetheless Simon got there first and it once it again shows how far ahead of the curve Simon really was at the start of the 2010s.

3. Rainbow

Rainbow represents a major shift in Simon Curtis' songwriting, maybe because he didn't write it as much as it simply came to him. As he explains to Jon Ali in his On Track interview, Simon was driving around the city with no music on and he started humming a song to himself. Soon lyrics came to him and he was so overwhelmed that he pulled over and recorded the song into his phone while crying. For years Simon kept the song to himself, but when he decided to record new music again Rainbow came back to him.

Before Rainbow all of Simon's songs were basically club ready bops, but Rainbow is an acoustic/country ballad that feels fragile and lovely in equal turns (much like Everytime by Britney Spears.) Like that Britney song, Simon truly opens up his heart and soul here as he recounts the struggles he had to endure growing up gay:

"I arrived in a world that made it clear that it didn't want me
Who would want me?
I cried and cried
And tried to find that someone else
Someone who would love me

But who would love me"

Eventually Simon does find someone who can love him for who he truly is and this is when he begins to feel whole:

"And you, you said that you do
So I, I said that I believe you
I believe you
Cause I'm a rainbow
Golden rainbow
I shine with all the colors of the light"

Halfway through Rainbow, the song alternates from the first person to Simon singing directly to the listeners:

"Every day the color break a little more
How much more can you take
What will it take?
You shine and shine about the pain
But they don't think that what you feel is valid
They don't think your valid

You, you said that you do
So I, I said that I believe you
I believe you
Cause you're a rainbow
Golden rainbow

You shine with all the colors of the light."

Rainbow is an anthem for anyone who has felt bullied, abused, neglected, ignored or made to feel less than, especially if they are Queer. It's the kind of song that so many in the LGBTQ community, but especially the LGBTQ youth, need to hear right now, especially in these dark times we find ourselves in. Recent data released from GLAAD shows that LGBTQ acceptance is going into decline with the youth right now! It's clear that during these last few years bigotry has found it's voice again and it's been heartbreaking for me to witness it since the 2016 election. Yet, it's queer artists like Simon Curtis who give me hope that not all is lost, at least not yet!

2. Graduate

Graduate was released with Rainbow at the same time as a double sided single and it feels quite appropriate because they feel like both sides of the same coin. Whereas Rainbow is delicate, sad and low key, Graduate is an empowering bop about rising above all the terrible things that have happened in your life. Graduate is about taking those terrible experiences and learning from them so you can become a better person as a result. At first Simon sings about the suffering in his life in a much more general sense:

"I don't know how I started
Don't know how I got here
But I know I got it
Though everyone doubted
Didn't give a damn about it
Cause I know

We done with the bullshit
But I learned from the bullshit
Now I'm ready to go up
I'm ready to go up
So thank you for the real shit
Without it wouldn't be shit
Now I'm ready to go up
I'm ready to go
Away
Time to Graduate"


Simon may have suffered, but it made him the person he is today and he is ready to grow as a person as a result. Later in the song Simon talks directly about his parents. The parents who kicked him out of the house when he was 18 and told him they wish he had died of cancer after finding out he was gay:

"Never mind what my father say
He don't know me anyway
And it's all good
That's on him
Don't matter what my mother say
I can't save her anyway
Time for me to go"

Simon isn't bitter, he just realizes that he did what he could but in the end he has to do what's best for him and not let those in his life drag him down anymore. Also much like Semisonic's 1998 hit Closing Time, Simon acknowledges that every new beginning can feel like an ending, but to not let that hold you back. Love may have reintroduced Simon Curtis into the music scene after being away for several years, but these 2 singles truly define what Simon Curtis is all about now and I for one cannot wait to hear the album he is working on as a result.

1. Love

As I have mentioned before the song that gets me into an artist usually ends up being the song I like most by them in the long run. This doesn't always hold true, like with Bronze Avery where the first song I heard Want 2 I liked but didn't love. After that song Bronze just got better and better with each and every single afterwards. Still this does hold true with Love. As I stated earlier I didn't know who Simon Curtis was when 2019 began, but all the hype surrounding his return on social media and Billboard Pride got me interested so I took a listen. Love didn't connect all at once, but it soon became one of my favorite songs of 2019. It's the kind of song that got better and better every time I listened to it, which are the best kind of songs. While Simon was well versed in sexually charged queer bops before, Love feels different. This song feels romantic and sensual in a way his earlier music doesn't and it's very alluring:

"You make me wonder if there's more
With you I feel like there's something more
You got me feeling some kind
You got me feeling some kind
Of way, kind of way
I've never been so high
I don't want this feeling
To fade, fade away

Like I wanna be loved
Wanna be loved
Love (Hold me tight just a little bit)

Love (Hold me tight 'cause I'm feeling it)."

With these lyrics the mood has been set and with it one of 2019's sexiest songs had arrived. This is a great pop song that signaled Simon's rebirth as a musician. I would recommend listening to it a few times to really let it sink in because once it does you will fall under its spell just like I did.