Suggestive and sexually direct, queer punk band Pansy Division remains at the forefront of gay rock. In 1993, pre-dating everything from “Ellen” on television to Brokeback Mountain in movie theaters, Pansy Division released its first album, Undressed, and introduced listeners to its unique musical style. Of course, the thing that made it so exceptional was not the music, a hybrid of Ramones-influenced ’70s punk, but the lyrics. Song titles such as “Fem In A Black Leather Jacket,” “I’m Gonna Be A Slut,” “Dick of Death,” “Groovy Underwear,” “Cocksucker Club” and “He Whipped My Ass In Tennis (Then I Fucked His Ass In Bed),” are bound to give listeners an idea of precisely where Pansy Division is coming from. Not limited to punk, PD explored other musical varieties on songs such as “The Summer You Let Your Hair Grow Out,” “Spiral,” “Luv Luv Luv” and “No Protection,” to mention a few. All of these songs and more can be found on the double-disc set The Essential Pansy Division (Alternative Tentacles). From its graphics homage to SonyBMG’s Essentials series and the 30 musical tracks on disc one to the seven music videos and eight live clips (from the Chicago date of their historic tour as opening act for Green Day in 1994 and an Italian TV program in 1998) on the DVD, Pansy Division rightfully earns its place in queer history, musical or otherwise.

In terms of out musicians, Cris Williamson paved the way for Pansy Division and countless others to be open about their sexuality in their music and their daily lives. An independent musician before it was prestigious to make that claim, Williamson is eternally linked to the women’s music movement as well as to the formation of the seminal women’s music record label Olivia Records. The amazing double-disc, 33-track The Essential Cris Williamson: 1975-2005 (Wolf Moon) doesn’t so much supplant 1990’s The Best of Cris Williamson as it does augment it. With only about a half-dozen songs in common, the Essential disc, with songs selected by Williamson herself, explores both the distant (from “Waterfall,” “Song of the Soul” and “Strange Paradise” through “Blue Rider,’ “If I Live (I’ll Be Great),” “Texas Ruby Red” and “On Going”) and recent (“True Story/True Blue,” “We The People,” “Cry, Cry, Cry,” and covers of Joni Mitchell’s “Tea Leaf Prophecy” and John Bucchino’s “I’ve Learned To Let Things Go”) past.

Judas Priest’s openly gay frontman, Rob Halford, and his heavy metal brethren in arms couldn’t be farther removed from Cris Williamson if they tried. Like Williamson, however, Halford and company made an impact on the music scene in the ’70s, and The Essential Judas Priest (Columbia/Legacy) presents 34 of JP’s vital tracks. Among the indispensable Priest offerings are “Hell Bent For Leather,” “Ram It Down,” “Jawbreaker,” “Painkiller,” “Metal Gods” and “Screaming For Vengeance.”

The compilation Reintarnation (Sire/Rhino) covers a very specific period in k.d. lang’s remarkable music career. Beginning in 1984, Reintarnation traces lang’s cow-punk years on Sire Records, stopping short of her commercial breakthrough with “Constant Craving” (and even “Miss Chatelaine”) from Ingénue. Focusing on torchy and twangy tracks from Angel With A Lariat, Shadowland and, naturally, Absolute Torch and Twang, this 20-track compilation even digs up a pre-Sire obscurity such as “Pine And Stew,” and also includes numerous selections from lang’s Even Cowgirls Get The Blues soundtrack recording. It’s a delight to have all of these songs – including “Luck In My Eyes,” “Pullin’ Back The Reins,” “Diet Of Strange Places,” and her cover of “Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes” and others – all in one place. It also whets the listener’s appetite for an anthology representing lang’s later work.

Is there an essential Stephen Sondheim musical? Some might say that it is Sweeney Todd, Sondheim’s 1979 multiple-award winning musical thriller. The current, acclaimed revival of Sweeney Todd stars Michael Cerveris (Tony Award-winner for the 2004 revival of Sondheim’s Assassins) in the titular role and Patti LuPone as pie-maker Mrs. Lovett, both of whom can be heard on the cast recording of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Nonesuch). The 2006 London Cast Recording of Sunday In The Park With George (PS Classics) offers up a good argument for why this complex and riveting musical about art and love, with book by James Lapine, is also essential in the Sondheim oeuvre.

There’s nothing overtly queer on The Essential Hollywood (Sony Classical), but the double-disc set does have the word “Hollywood” in the title, so there is some crossover. While The Pink Panther is actually the wrong shade of that color for the community, music from Psycho (starring bisexual Anthony Perkins), Breakfast At Tiffany’s (based on the Truman Capote novel), Sunset Boulevard (need I say more?) and Lawrence of Arabia more than compensate.