How TikTok Helped 40-Year-Old 'Smalltown Boy' Trump This Year’s LGBTQ+ Anthems

One of the greatest LGBTQ+ anthems of all time, Brit synth-pop trio Bronski Beat's 1984 Smalltown Boy, has become a viral smash as a result of being unexpectedly discovered by the TikTok generation.

In May, the band’s UK label, London Records, issued a remix of Smalltown Boy by DJ-producer ABSOLUTE for digital release only to mark the 40th anniversary of its release in the UK.

He’d just reworked Kylie Minogue’s Padam Padam and Fever Ray’s Shiver. In a media release from London Records, he said, “When I got asked to rework Smalltown Boy, I was literally just screaming.

“And when I started work on it, it was such an emotional experience. I was welling up while I was making it which is so rare to happen for me, this made me know just how much of a special track this was.”

No one counted on a TikTok #80sDanceMoves trend that used the track for TikTokers uploading videos of their parents doing their best retro-dance moves in kitchens and bedrooms. 

Joining the fun were celeb moves or comments from Cyndi Lauper, actors Courtney Cox, Jennifer Garner and Kevin Bacon, and skater Tony Hawk.

As with most TikTok trends, it was a blastplosion. 

With over 200,000 creations and 2 billion views on TikTok, Smalltown Boy went back into the UK charts. The song generated over 500 million streams, including over 100 million views of its iconic video.

Smalltown Boy, about a gay teenager leaving his family and fleeing the bullies of his hometown in Scotland, is now re-released in Australia after nightclubs and radio playlisted it. 

It’s more than a song of sadness and hope for people with fluid sexuality. It’s lyrically universal enough to also strike a chord for all marginalised groups and individuals and for anyone who yearns to move away from the square they are in.

Singer Jimmy Somerville, whose countertenor/falsetto sold the lyrics, responded in an interview: “It’s just been uplifting…. everything is going so crazy in the world… But here, on TikTok, there’s all these people finding the moment to have a bit of fun, and all these older people reliving some memory and being part of something uplifting. 

“It’s just been brilliant; it made my smile and warmed my heart.”

Somerville went on to explain why Smalltown Boy had such an impact on its release in 1984 – #3 in the UK, Top 10 through Europe, and in the US, #48 on the pop chart and #8 on the dance chart—and throughout the years.

"[We were] three young gay men: out, proud, in your face, and we had a message. That message now still resonates 40 years later [because] we seem to be regressing. 

“[In] so many places, rights are being chipped away at, and there's a real surge of homophobia, aggression and discrimination towards anyone who basically wants to be themselves and love who they choose."

Smalltown Boy’s appeal continued in recent times, appearing in Netflix’s Baby Reindeer and the Kristen Stewart-led lesbian thriller Love Lies Bleeding.

2024 has produced a number of LGBTQ+ tracks with diverse lyrical approaches and music styles. They range from Billie Eilish’s Lunch about oral sex to Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other by Orville Peck feat. Willie Nelson, from the call to action of Debby Friday’s let's-get-laid To The Dancefloor to a lament of being too timid by Clairo’s Sexy To Someone to Girl In Red’s Too Much.

But Smalltown Boy leads the pack so far with its very pop perfection. The song is simple, and Somerville slams it with lines like "Mother will never understand why you had to leave/ But the answers you seek will never be found at home," "Run away, turn away, run away, turn away, run away" and “cry, boy, cry.” 

Escape

In 1984, Jimmy Somerville was 23 years old. Four years before, he’d escaped from Ruchill, a neighbourhood in northern Glasgow, to London, where he lived in squats in the West End for three years, immersed himself in its gay culture, and attended the London Gay Teenage Group.

A friend suggested moving into a shared house in funky Brixton, where he met two fellow smalltown boys, Steve Bronski (keyboards, percussion) and Larry Steinbachek (keyboards, percussion). One was also from Glasgow, and the other was from south England.

They formed a band in 1983 and, after a handful of shows, got signed to London Records. Right from the start, the idea was to be upfront and aggressive about gay issues. The three considered most of the other gay artists weak about coming out.

Bronski Beat followed Smalltown Boy with more hits. There was another Top 10 hit in Australia, with the hi-NRG Why? about anti-gay bigotry, which went, "Name me an illness, call me a sin, never feel guilty, never give in…”

A cover of George and Ira Gershwin’s classic It Ain't Necessarily So from Porgy and Bess angered the religious right by questioning the accuracy of biblical tales, while they reached #1 in Australia with their Marc Almond collaboration cover of Donna Summer's I Feel Love.  

Age Of Consent

Their debut album, The Age Of Consent, peaked at #4 in the UK,  #12 in Australia and #36 in the USA.

The inner sleeve listed how various countries differed in the age of consent for consensual gay sex. In the UK, for instance, it was at the time 21 for gays and 16 for straights.

When the album was reissued in 2018, journalist Paul Flynn, author of Good As You, did a piece in The Queer Bible where he hailed it as a “British gay record that has since accrued most mythical status” and “pop’s New Testament for British Gay Pride.”

He added: “It is as impossible to imagine British gay culture without The Age Of Consent as it is the plays of Oscar Wilde, the films of Derek Jarman and the agitprop politics of Peter Tatchell.”

Coming in October is a 40th-anniversary edition of The Age Of Consent in multi-formats.

The 2CD and vinyl include the remastered album, the Hundreds And Thousands album, a bonus track, new photos and artwork, and five 2024 remixes from ABSOLUTE, Planningtorock, The Knocks, Dave Audé vs Tall Paul, and Superchumbo.

The “definitive version” has 67 tracks, including 22 previously unreleased cuts.

The 5-disc version in a wallet includes four audio CDs and one DVD. It also includes 12” versions, rarities, the First Chapter videos, a 24-page booklet, and essays by Tom Rasmussen, Lesley Chow, Lucy Robinson, and Barnaby Ashton-Bullock.

By the northern summer of 1985, however, after tensions within the group, Somerville went on to find chart success as a singer with The Communards alongside a solo career.

Bronski Beat continued to be successful with two other singers. With John Foster (credited as Jon Jon), they had a Top 5 hit in Australia and the UK with Hit That Perfect Beat. Jonathan Hellyer was also a frontman before they split in 1995. Steve Bronski revived the band in 2016 with a new lineup. 

Steinbachek died that year from cancer, and Bronski in 2021 from smoke inhalation after a fire at his London flat.

The return of Smalltown Boy coincides with the release this month of 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer by music scribe and club DJ Ian Wade. Over 320 pages, it looks at how Queen, George Michael, David Bowie, Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and Madonna had hits that year and how they broke down barriers that set a permanent impact on the gay community. 

Wade told Oldtimemusic.com that Smalltown Boy’s message "hasn't really dated" and that despite “more allies and understanding.. there are still kids out there who aren't so lucky".