Offering a punchier flavor to her sophomore album, Michael Love Michael’s “Sugar In the Tank” is, quite simply, about the joys of debauchery and queer, sex-positive love. It takes what she received as an insult about her effeminacy as a child — “sugar in the tank” was a negative euphemism for how “gay” someone was perceived to be — and reclaims it as a statement of empowerment. The electroclash-indebted production (Michael was inspired by acts like Peaches, friend and mentor Larry Tee, and Fischerspooner) is led by bandmate and guitarist, Will Shishmanian. The result is an unabashed party track sure to get bodies on the floor.
Michelle says, “I wanted to have a song that really celebrated my queerness on this album. I’ve thought about how the queer community has often reclaimed insults and slurs and used them for humor or even self-empowerment. When I was a kid growing up in the Midwest, ‘sugar in the tank’ was a way bigots often referred to me and people like me, people who were sensitive, feminine, ‘flamboyant’ in our expression. Now, as an adult, I can see this, funnily enough, as a rather creative insult, and so I wanted to make an anthem out of it, for all of us who’ve felt not only like outsiders, but who relish in our sweetness no matter how sour our detractors may be.”
