Good morning, queers and weirdos! Today we remember Wendy Carlos — the electronic genius who helped invent the sound of the future. In the 1960s, she took Robert Moog’s early synthesizer and turned it into an instrument of emotion. Her album Switched-On Bach blew minds and won Grammys, proving that circuits could sing with soul.
Behind the studio walls, Wendy was also transforming herself. Assigned male at birth, she transitioned in a time when few could safely do so, living for years in stealth until coming out publicly in 1979. Through the fear and isolation, she kept creating: trailblazing film scores for Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, and later Disney’s Tron. Each soundtrack redefined what “electronic music” could be — intimate, unnerving, human.
Wendy spent decades pushing boundaries most people never heard of: micro-tonal scales, custom instruments, cosmic soundscapes. She guarded her privacy but left a legacy that still vibrates through film, pop, and ambient music today. Her life reminds us that to be authentic is its own revolution — and that queerness and innovation have always been in tune.
Wendy Carlos: composer, scientist, visionary, and Forgotten Queer far too brilliant to stay forgotten.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/forgotten-queers--6719466/support.
Please follow me on Facebook, BlueSky at Gary Thoren. We must never forget our Forgotten Queers
