Mal Blum is paving the way for nonbinary transgender artists

There are few artists as seemingly honest about who they are as Mal Blum. The first time I saw them perform, they sat alone in a small college auditorium on a folding chair with their guitar. They switched between singing their signature deprecating yet goofy lyrics and reading their poetry from the notes section of their phone. There wasn’t a stage; my friends and I sat criss cross on the floor less than ten feet away from them. 

The next time I saw Blum live, the concert-going experience was strikingly different; Blum was opening for Lucy Dacus at a crowded concert venue in Northampton, Massachuesseuts. There, Blum performed their newest album, Pity Boy. Even though there was barely any standing room, much less the ability to sit on the floor, the intimacy and vulnerability of the music from the new album made the room feel just as small.

In the four years since they wrote this album, Blum has moved from the small, DIY music scene to a larger platform. Blum has also come out as nonbinary and transgender, and this album, which was released on July 7 by Don Giovanni Records, is a true representation of their evolution as a person and a songwriter. As Mal Blum said themself, this album is “the next chapter of my therapy session.” 

Wry, humorous, and dark, Pity Boy captures the inner turmoil of being an LGBTQ+ adult trying to navigate relationships with family, friends, and partners; the songs on this album explore self-destructive habits, and self-doubt, that emerge from this exploration. On “Odds,” Blum sings that “all I want is someone to take advantage of me,” but then recognizes the crucial boundary between helping someone and hurting yourself. “Not My Job” features the lyrics, “If I have to I’ll kill off my better self / it’s not my job to make you well.”  “I Don’t Want To” features the lyrics “I am a mess/I don’t know what I don’t know yet.”

Blum also openly works through their struggles specific to their transgender experience on tracks like “See Me,” which grapples with the struggle of wanting to be recognized as trans while also fearing the potential repercussions of that recognition. These lyrics hit on the pressure put on Blum — not to mention other LGBTQ+ artists — to provide the kind of representation that the LGBTQ+ community wants to see. Even though LGBTQ+ visibility has undoubtedly increased in the music industry in recent years, trans artists are often left out of this, making the pressure for artists who identify as such even more intense.

Blum understands this desire. As they told Nylon in an interview, they “want to transition into an elder who is here for people on some level, whatever that may be." But Blum also demonstrates that there is no one way to be an LGBTQ+ person or to represent the LGBTQ+ community in their work. Pity Boy, therefore, is not an optimistic self-love anthem, but instead an accurate portrayal of a journey an individual is on toward bettering themself — an album for all listeners who want to know that they’re not alone on their own journeys to discovering self-love.