Song · Electric Six
“Gay Bar” by Electric Six
From the album Rock Empire (1999)
“Gay Bar” by Electric Six appears on 1 radio countdown from 1 station in 2003. It was first released in 1999 on the album Rock Empire. Its best result is #33 on the Triple J Hottest 100 of 2003. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #331 alternative song of 2003.
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Tyler Spencer, writing as Dick Valentine, got the idea for "Gay Bar" from a misheard lyric: stuck in a deafening nightclub, he caught Devo's "Girl U Want" and thought he heard something about a girl at a gay bar. Electric Six built a whole song around the mistake, a stomping, straight-faced joke that crosses rock and roll with synth-pop, and XL sent it out in June 2003 as the follow-up single to "Danger! High Voltage".
Its timing was terrible in the best way. The song hit the airwaves just as the Iraq War began, so its talk of starting a nuclear war got snipped for radio, the offending words swapped for the crack of a whip; a Japanese radio version replaced them with a wink about doing a radio edit. Song and video got plenty of play anyway.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | 33 | Triple J Australia (national) | Triple J Hottest 100 of 2003 | 100 |
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