Resoundingly Queer: Cover Song as Collective Return

In this article, I listen closely to Rae Spoon, Vivek Shraya and Kaleb Roberston’s (as Ms. Fluffy Soufflé) cover performance of “Insensitive,” a song most commonly associated with Jann Arden. Through their cover, Spoon, Shraya and Soufflé work to fissure linear progressive temporality— often and aggressively associated with certain queer experiences in Canadian culture—both in the sense that their cover itself is a musical return and in its specific musical details. I show that there is political potential in listening experiences that open alternative temporal experiences. Their collective project simultaneously renders audible an unlikely musical genealogy and encourages listeners to glean a sense of queer plurality in a national context that increasingly privileges individualism. Their re-imagining of “Insensitive” allows us to hear a type of musical virtuosity when vocal performance is untethered from strict heteronormative gender performance and transforms the popular tune from a solo lament into a collective queer anthem.