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The first queercore record I ever heard – I guess this was in about 2002 – was a Xerox-covered 45 by Limp Wrist. I was a big hardcore fan back then – fifteen, angry with the usual stuff – and any money I had I spent on records. As long as it was loud, snotty and pissed off, as long as it had the sort of sleeve that rubbed ink off on fingers and thumbs, it was good enough for me. I used to pick them up at gigs: merch stalls worth their salt always had a “distro” point, looked after – curated, even – by some local scene vet. This distro was rarely more than a battered box of sevens, maybe the odd CD, badges, patches, zines: some of it British, yeah, but also American, Mexican, French, Italian. These distros trafficked the good stuff, they were the silk routes and merchant ports of a DIY underground that linked Portland and Brighton, Barcelona and Minsk, or at least that’s how it felt. The Limp Wrist single – self-titled, photo of an X-ed, straight-edge fist on the front – was a typical distro find, the normal three or four quid and a bunch of flyers tucked inside.

I’d kind of assumed it was a “queer” record, with a band called something like that, and it was. That’s probably why I bought it: not gay myself, but gay seemed interesting, gay punks more so, militant gay Latino punks something else entirely. “Gay” at this point to me still mostly meant Elton John and George Michael, News of the World exposés, this club in Brighton called Revenge with a snaking queue on Friday nights, cheap playground libels. Limp Wrist were a punch in the teeth. They confronted me about sexuality in a way that I’d never experienced before. Their lyrics were about cruising for guys, fucking guys, fucking guys plural, and men in Texas and the Middle East getting murdered for the same; and this as much as they were about fighting, or being edge, or hating the government, and all the other things hardcore bands normally bellowed about.

Most of all, they rejected the gay mainstream – the “rainbow machine” as one song put it – and embraced a version of queer that was united, subversive, comfortably ugly, a version of queer that was, in short, punk. Screw the “Abercrombie gays”, the pretty boy beefcakes, frontman Martin Sorrondeguy screamed on ‘Punk Ass Queers’: “bring on the drag kings, their big fake dicks/and I’ll hang with hustlers, leather boys and punks/coz I’m not down with normal world junk”. Yeah, Limp Wrist were gay and – as they made it clear in song after song – here to stay. So deal with it, world, or fuck off.

As I soon found out, other bands had said or were saying similar things, not always in the same way, not always so angrily, but certainly with the same defiance: Team Dresch, Gravy Train!!!!, Gayrilla Biscuits, Assacre, Gay For Johnny Depp, and loads more. In 2010, the scene remains alive and well, with upstart Bristol label Local Kid doing mean things over here whilst old U.S. stalwarts Chainsaw and Kill Rock Stars remain as committed as ever. Get Limp Wrist’sDiscography first though and you’ll see how they – and queercore in general – woke me up to some things, made me understand being and living “queer” as much as anyone who isn’t or doesn’t could ever hope to. Because queercore isn’t a ghetto: it’s for all of us.

Miley Cyrus – Party In The USA

Like a country & western Fresh Princess, Miley Cyrus is all “Yo homes to Bel Air!” in this riches-to-riches tale of Nashville girl hits Hollywood. Fear not Miley, your Disney millions and the gift of autotune will have y’all nodding your head like yeah, moving your hips like yeah, and um, partying in the USA. God Bless America. Emilie Chalcraft

Polly Scattergood – Bunny Club

A delightfully disjointed vocal melody spirals like a lost mariner around a whirlpool of clashing cymbals and surreal metaphors in this fairytale-gone-wrong attack on happy endings. Pretty, yes, but utterly indecipherable. “I’m looking for my saviour at the bottom of a packet of tobacco.” Erm, right, good luck with that. Jonathan Dowdall

The Answer – Comfort Zone

Does anyone genuinely think in such language? It’s all devils on shoulders, embracing moments, missing chances, and other such nuggets straight from the dictionary of lyrical clichés. Dull as ditch water. And, if you’re the kind of person who just winced at that very unoriginal use of language in the previous line, you’ll be twitching all over the place when you hear this. Tamara El Essawi

Rihanna ft. Young Jeezy – Hard

I had high hopes for this, and who didn’t? Rih-Rih, for it is Her, is back, and she wants to learn us sinful, earthbound creatures with a heaving stone slab of revelatory r’n’b bizzness, and learn us hard. The first commandment: pop, lock, and drop. The second: false idols be damned! Ben Mechen

Meleka – Go (Crazy Cousinz Mix)

Another choice cut from the UK funky mainstream, this is the usual slick confection of vamping pianos, chopped and looped hook and propulsive drums. Fits nicely alongside recent efforts from Egypt and Kyla, but sadly remains a world away from the hardbodied, grime-influenced noises of Lil Silva or Funky Dee that make a more convincing claim for funky’s importance. BM

Johnny Pate – Shaft In Africa

Lifted from Soul Jazz’s superlative Can You Dig It? comp, which celebrates the raw, defiant and red-blooded sounds of Blaxploitation-era America, this wah-wah driven funky monster once again begs the question… who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft. You’re daaaamnn right. BM

Noah and the Whale – Love Of An Orchestra

Do you feel let down that your life isn’t consistently soundtracked from above? Then ethereal folkists Noah and the Whale have written the perfect orchestral ditty to encapsulate that inexplicable ambivalent moment of joy and relief when exams finish, or you slip into a well earned warm bath. Pure bliss. Barnaby Howes

Kin labels herself as “an Art Rock Lady”. All well and good, but you say ‘art rock lady’, and you think Karen O. And that is what you get. With fewer wardrobe and stylistic changes.

Despite having a reasonably accomplished band behind her (a bassist for PJ Harvey, for example), she sounds more than just a little hollow. Someone must have noticed this, and given someone a feedback/drum pedal, and an electric glockenspiel (for credibility’s sake? Hope so.), both of which dominate the otherwise pretty ‘How To Speak’. Track four, ‘Chemistry Set’, is marginally denser, but definitely too late in the game to re-brand as a trip-hop junkie, however much crooning/crying (you can’t tell) you can cram in.

If you liked Giant Drag, you might like this. Might. More to the point; however ‘quirky’ (not very) this EP claims to be, there are certainly more than enough female singer-songwriters, however arty and Mancunian Kin may be.